We Were Here: The Untold History of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe sheds light on the overlooked presence of African and Black individuals in Renaissance Europe, highlighting their depiction in masterpieces by some of the era’s most celebrated artists. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Fred Kudjo Kuwornu and produced by Do The Right Films, this multilingual documentary takes viewers on an expansive journey through the UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and France, offering a compelling reexamination of European art history and its cultural legacy. Featuring insights from leading scholars in Art History, Black Studies, and History, alongside Black activists and curators,…
Since the Hebrew Bible is a sacred text for Jews and Christians many readers naturally assume it cannot contain any humor. This talk will explore several biblical narratives that employ humor to make serious theological points. Becoming aware of such biblical humor can enrich our understanding of these stories and of certain theological ideas the ancient biblical writers wished to emphasize. Joel Kaminsky is the Morningstar Family Professor of Jewish Studies and a professor of Bible in the Religion Department at Smith College where he has taught since 1997. His research explores the intersection between narrative and theological currents in…
During its nearly thirty years in business, J. Roth / Bookseller of Fine & Scholarly Judaica was a microcosm of the Los Angeles Jewish community and one of the premier Jewish bookstores in the United States. It thrived in the glow of the Jewish ethnic pride movements of the sixties and seventies but was unable to market its uniquely broad definition and collection of Jewish literature after the resurgence of Orthodox Judaism and the assimilation of Jewish writing into the corporate book superstores during the late eighties and early nineties. Through a combination of memoir and critical analysis, and by…
Jewish people have always wandered. From the time of the Babylonian Exile in the early 6th century BCE, diaspora became the Jews’ normal condition, and though they may have hoped for a return to their “Promised Land” at the “End of Days,” they made sense of their many homes, defending diaspora as the realm where Jewish life could grow, and they could fulfil their obligations to God. Embracing Exile analyzes biblical and rabbinic texts, philosophical treatises, works of Kabbalah, Hasidism, and a multiplicity of modern expressions, to show that diaspora Jews through the ages insisted that God joined them in…
The event, Black Lives under Nazism: Making History Visible in Literature and Art with Sarah Phillips Casteel (Carleton University), has been postponed. A new date will be announced once it is finalized. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding. Please stay tuned for further updates. In a little-known chapter of World War II, Black people living in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe were subjected to ostracization, forced sterilization, and incarceration in internment and concentration camps. In the absence of public commemoration, Black writers and visual artists have preserved the stories of these forgotten victims of the Third Reich….
Drawing on previously unexamined archives and postwar cultural materials, Saving Our Survivors explores how American Jews constructed meaning out of devastation—and how humanitarian aid became intertwined with public memory. The book uncovers how American Jewish communities first came to learn about and respond to the Holocaust through communal campaigns, radio broadcasts, speeches, short films, and urgent calls to action. Rachel Deblinger highlights the messy, diffuse, and contested nature of memory construction in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust and raises larger questions about how historical tragedies are narrated in moments of crisis. Rachel Deblinger is the author of Saving Our…
This lecture explores domestic life in the Venetian ghetto as both a site of physical segregation, housing scarcity, and oppression, and a space of cultural negotiation and transformation. Drawing on unpublished archival sources, surviving material culture, and the built environment, it traces how Venetian Jews actively shaped their living spaces through engagement with objects, furnishings, and architectural features. From the central portego (the central space in Venetian houses) to repurposed Islamic carpets and gilt leather panels, the home emerged as a site of transculturation where Jewish, Islamic, and Renaissance aesthetics intersected. These material choices reveal not only practical adaptation but…
October 24 – 25, 2025 Hershey Hall Salon (Room 158) RSVP HERE Please join us for Practice and Theory: Next Steps in Kantian Practical Philosophy, a workshop at UCLA from Friday & Saturday, October 24-25, 2025. Workshop Program Friday, October 24th 12:00 – 1:00 PM: Lunch 1:00 – 3:00 PM: Nataliya Palatnik (Milwaukee) “‘Not So Completely an Animal’: Kant on Moral Sensibility and Moral Constraint” 3:00 – 3:30 PM: Break 3:30 – 5:30 PM: Thomas Pendlebury (Chicago) “The Will and the Good” 5:30 PM: Reception in Hershey Hall Salon Saturday, October 25th 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM:…
Messenia to Mesopotamia: New Directions in the Art and Archaeology of the Second Millennium BCE Hosted by the UCLA SNF Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture in collaboration with The J. Paul Getty Museum and held in conjunction with the exhibition The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Mycenaean Greece Saturday, December 6, 2025 9:00 A.M. – 4:15 P.M. 314 Royce Hall, UCLA Campus Reception to follow RSVP Here Symposium Description: TBD Bios: Emily Catherine Egan is Assistant Professor of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Art and Archaeology in the Department of Art History & Archaeology at the University of Maryland. She…
The “Ring of Nestor”, c. 1500 BC, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum. Pylos and Minoan Crete Lecture by Professor Andreas Vlachopoulos, University of Ioannina Hosted by the UCLA SNF Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture in collaboration with The J. Paul Getty Museum and held in conjunction with the exhibition The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Mycenaean Greece (June 27, 2025 – January 12, 2026 at The Getty Villa) Saturday, November 22, 2025 4:00 p.m. 314 Royce Hall, UCLA Campus Reception to follow RSVP Here Description: Pylos is a sunny, fertile coastal area of Messinia (Southwestern Peloponnese), with many features of…
