Paula M. Krebs became executive director of the Modern Language Association in August 2017. She administers the programs, governance, and business affairs of the association and is general editor of the association’s publishing and research programs, as well as editor of two association publications. She serves as an ex officio member of all committees and commissions of the association, chairs the committee that oversees the planning of the association’s annual convention, works with the MLA’s trustees in evaluating and implementing investments of the MLA’s endowment funds, and chairs the staff Finance Committee. Dr. Krebs earned a PhD in English from…
The Program in Experimental Critical Theory presents Marx’s Late Writings: Theories of revolutionary change and of alternatives to capitalism A Talk with Kevin Anderson, in Conversation with Aditya Bahl and Emeer Hassanpour Friday, February 20, 2026 3:00-4:30pm Kaplan Hall Room #348 In Person Advanced Registration Advanced registration is required by Wednesday, February 18, 2026. REGISTER TO ATTEND HERE This talk is co-sponsored by the Department of Comparative Literature and the Department of Political Science. About the Talk In his last years (1869-83), Marx sketches three types of revolutionary change. (1) In 1869-70, he speculates that a British…
Please join us for a lecture followed by a reception featuring Professor Sarah Morris who will present her talk “Out of Anatolia: Hittites, Homer and the Trojan War” This lecture will be held at the Faculty Club’s Morrison Room on Thursday, Feb. 26th at 4 PM. All are welcome!
Organized by Professors Joseph Bristow, University of California, Los Angeles, and Deaglán Ó Donghaile, Liverpool John Moores University A central figure in the literary and cultural spheres of the late nineteenth century, Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was also the originator of Irish modernism. Still, literary scholarship has largely sidelined his powerful influence over this movement. Regarded by his contemporaries as an outstanding artist, critic, and public intellectual until his imprisonment in 1895, current research on Wilde tends to confine his leading presence within the late Victorian aesthetic and decadent movements. By highlighting this overlooked aspect of Wilde’s legacy, “Oscar Wilde’s Modernist Legacies” will…
Join us in celebrating the 40th anniversary of the UCLA Center for 17th- & 18th-Century Studies, the nation’s first research center for early modern studies. Founded in 1985, the Center provides a forum for the discussion of central issues in the field of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century studies, and organizes a wide range of academic and cultural programs. Additionally, the Center administers the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, located on a historic property in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles, which serves as the research laboratory for a distinguished array of fellows working either in early modern studies or the…
In this year’s Core Program, historians of the Ottoman, Qing, and Mughal empires revisit the problem of comparison by considering synchronicities and structural parallels across Asia. The third conference looks at Society, Materiality, and Knowledge. Increased mobility and commercial activity across the early modern Eurasian space heightened imperial concerns about the effectiveness of political control over increasingly assertive and unruly subjects. Anxieties over a changing social and economic order engendered a new momentum in cultural production, reflected in literature, in legal codes that tried to reinforce status hierarchies, and in new religious and spiritual movements. In what new ways did…
The Program in Experimental Critical Theory presents Psychoanalysis and Structure A Talk with A. Kiarina Kordela Monday, February 23, 2026 3:00-4:30pm PST Via Zoom Advanced Registration Advanced registration is required by Friday, February 20, 2026. The Zoom meeting link will be sent end of day on February 20. REGISTER TO ATTEND HERE About the Talk Based on the introduction to Epistemontology, its third chapter, “Psychoanalysis and Structuralism,” shows the necessary interconnection between capitalist economy and psychoanalytic thought. It does so by reading together (a) Spinozian monism—as the first philosophical system that conceived of being (substance) in structural terms;…
In our deeply fractured world, religion serves both to connect and offer wisdom and to foster conflict and division. Over the course of centuries, it has been frequently invoked to justify brutal violence, but can it be an effective tool to advance justice? To explore different perspectives on the topic of faith, forgiveness, and justice, we will be joined by a distinguished panel of religious leaders: Father Greg Boyle, Rabbi Sharon Brous, Valarie Kaur, and Imam Dr. Jihad Turk. Father Greg Boyle is a Jesuit priest and director of Homeboy Industries, the world’s largest gang intervention and rehabilitation program. Rabbi…
Ambroise Aubrun, violin Steven Vanhauwaert, piano This concert pays tribute to the refined tradition of musical salons, tracing their influence from nineteenth-century Vienna to early twentieth-century Los Angeles. At its heart is Guillaume Lekeu’s Violin Sonata, performed in homage to Alfred Megerlin, the Belgian violin virtuoso and concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the 1920s. The L.A. Philharmonic itself was founded by William Andrews Clark Jr., a passionate patron of the arts who likely hosted intimate musical gatherings in the Drawing Room at the Clark Library. Through works by Schubert, Fauré, Debussy and others, the program evokes the elegance, intimacy, and…
In this year’s Core Program, historians of the Ottoman, Qing, and Mughal empires revisit the problem of comparison by considering synchronicities and structural parallels across Asia. The second conference looks at Imperial Operations. How did empires work? What did the everyday operations of imperial rule look like? Early modern empires confronted the same “great enemy” of distance which severely constrained all actions, from government communications to tax collection. The systems for delegating authority and distributing tasks that the Ottomans, Mughals, and Qing developed to address these common problems shared some essential features despite their autonomous development and local variations, and…
