Friday, April 17, 2026 4:00 – 6:00 PM Location TBD RSVP HERE Join us on Friday, April 17, 2026 for a colloquium with A.W. Eaton, University of Illinois, Chicago. The talk will take place from 4:00 – 6:00 PM with a reception to follow. Beyond Speech: Pictures and Oppression Philosophical work on oppressive forms of expression strongly tends to give verbal and written linguistic expression pride of place. When it comes to pictures, there is a tendency to either treat them as if they were language – one sees this in feminist work on pornography – or worse,…
Wednesday, February 23, 2026 4:30-6:30pm Kaplan Hall Room #348 (third floor) The CMRS Center for Early Global Studies, the Near Eastern Languages and Cultures department, and the Comparative Literature department are pleased to present a talk with Shazia Jagot (York University) titled Chaucer’s “Ioveris maladye / Of Hereos,” Avicenna’s Treatise on Love, and an Arabic-Islamic Metaphysics of Love. The talk will take place on Wednesday, February 11, 2026 from 4:30-6:30pm in Kaplan 348. Please register to attend here.
How did the cosmopolitan bourgeoisie of the Eastern Mediterranean navigate the transition from empire to nation-state in the early twentieth century? In this talk, Paris Papamichos Chronakis shows how the Jewish and Greek merchants of Salonica (present-day Thessaloniki) skillfully managed the tumultuous shift from Ottoman to Greek rule amidst rising ethnic tensions and heightened class conflict. Bringing their once powerful voices back into the historical narrative, he traces their entangled trajectories as businessmen, community members, and civic leaders to illustrate how the self-reinvention of a Jewish-led bourgeoisie made a city Greek. Salonica’s merchants were present in their own—and their city’s—remaking….
Frances Tanzer will discuss her new book, Vanishing Vienna: Modernism, Philosemitism, and Jews in a Postwar City (University of Pennsylvania Press), which traces the reconstruction of Viennese culture from the 1938 German Anschluss through the early 1960s. The book reveals continuity in Vienna’s cultural history across this period: a framework for interpreting Viennese culture that has relied on antisemitism, philosemitism, and a related discourse of Jewish presence and absence. As she shows, antisemitism and philosemitism were not contradictory forces in post-Nazi Austrian culture. They were deeply interconnected aspirations in a city where nostalgia for the past dominated cultural reconstruction efforts…
Myth, Time and Cosmology in the Ancient Maya Murals of San Bartolo David Stuart (Art & Art History, University of Texas at Austin) Friday, February 13, 4:00 pm | Royce Hall 306 Register Here Watch Live on Zoom This talk will present new interpretations of one of the most important artworks from ancient Maya civilization — the wall paintings of San Bartolo, Guatemala. Discovered in a buried room in 2001, the paintings are among the earliest examples of mural painting in the Maya tradition, dating to the so-called Preclassic period. Their complex narrative focuses on varied origin myths, including the…
Participation in the Seminar consists of group discussion of pre-circulated papers, typically drafts of articles, book chapters, or dissertation chapters (with complete apparatus). Two of the papers are ordinarily by emerging scholars (including PhD students) and the other two are by established scholars. We allocate one hour per paper and presenters should anticipate substantial, and substantive, feedback. Calls for presenters are circulated via e-mail from the Center approximately two months prior to each meeting and papers are accepted on a first-come basis. Faculty, postdocs, and grad students from across California are welcome to participate. The papers will be discussed…
Book cover design by: Emanuele Ragnisco West Coast Hellenic Book Club: The Jasmine Isle by Ioanna Karystiani, trans. Michael Eleftheriou (Europa Editions, 2006) Discussion led by Professor Sharon Gerstel, Director, UCLA SNF Hellenic Center and Dr. Eirini Kotsovili, Senior Lecturer, Global Humanities at Simon Fraser University Saturday, March 14, 2026 10 A.M. Los Angeles / 8 P.M. Greece Via Zoom RSVP Here From the Publisher: Set on the Greek island of Andros during the first half of the 20th century, Karystiani’s first novel to be translated into English centers on Orsa Saltaferou, a jovial teenager who falls in love with…
Giannis in the Cities (2024) – Screening and Q&A with Director Eleni Alexandrakis Presented by the UCLA SNF Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture and the UCLA Film & Television Archive February 22, 2026 7:00 P.M. Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum ADMISSION IS FREE In 2025, Giannis in the Cities, which was screened at Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Los Angeles, won both the Best Feature Film (Orpheus Award) and the Audience Award at the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival (LAGFF). Ticketing Information: Admission is free. No advance reservations are required. Seats will be assigned when tickets are…
John Gibson, RAUlysses Forcing Polyxena from Hecuba to be SacrificedPhoto courtesy of the Royal Academy of Arts, London West Coast Hellenic Book Club: Hecuba by Euripides Discussion led by Professor Kathryn Morgan, Joan Palevsky Professor of Classics at UCLA, Professor Sharon Gerstel, Director, UCLA SNF Hellenic Center and Dr. Eirini Kotsovili, Senior Lecturer, Global Humanities at Simon Fraser University Saturday, January 17, 2026 10:00 A.M. Los Angeles / 8:00 P.M. Greece Via Zoom RSVP Here Hecuba takes place after the Trojan War and centers on the former queen of Troy, Hecuba, who is a prisoner. First, Hecuba is devastated by…
Screening of award-winning short documentary Dukakis: Recipe for Democracy directed by Erin Trahan and Jeff Schmidt Panel discussion to follow with: Rusty Bailey (former Mayor of Riverside, California); Daniel J.B. Mitchell (Professor Emeritus, UCLA Anderson School of Management and Luskin School of Public Affairs); Erin Trahan (Co-Director); and Kelly Vlahakis-Hanks (President & CEO of ECOS) Presented by the UCLA SNF Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture and the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs Sponsored by the Aris Anagnos Family Chair in Hellenic Studies January 13, 2026 4:00 P.M. 314 Royce Hall, UCLA Campus Reception immediately after the panel…
