What drew Jewish immigrants to the labor movement? How did unions become distinctly “Jewish” spaces – and what happened when they changed? Join historians, organizers, and community leaders for a panel on Jewish labor activism in Los Angeles: from the open-shop battles of the early 20th century to today. Thursday, May 28, 2026 • UCLA Labor Center • 5:30 PM 675 S Park View Street, Los Angeles, CA 90057 The Past, Present, and Future of Jews and the Labor Movement in Los Angeles Rabbi Aryeh Cohen (Professor, American Jewish University) Maya Barron-Jones (UFCW Local 770) Jackie Goldberg (retired educator and elected official) Leora Swerdlow (Associate, Schwartz,…
In this talk, Miki Chase (U of Wisconsin-Madison) explores how trajectories of illness and care, such as terminal cancer or anticipated cognitive decline, are reinterpreted through Jain doctrinal frameworks in the narratives of adult children of women who undertake the Jain ritual fast to death (sallekhanā or santhāra). Drawing on ethnographic accounts of women’s deaths in contemporary urban Jain households, Chase traces how narratives of bodily decline are reframed not as losses to be managed through medical intervention but as conditions of spiritual possibility that invite ascetic detachment and renunciation. Rather than resisting biomedical or bioethical paradigms outright, these narratives…
Lina Meruane (hija de un cardiólogo jubilado) aborda la aparición del “corazón abierto” en la novelística latinoamericana. Inspirada por El intruso (2006), relato de Jean Luc Nancy sobre su trasplante de corazón, Meruane examina trastornos reales (incluido su reciente episodio de arritmia) y comenta problemáticas éticas y estéticas en tres novelas quirúrgicas: Sutura (2025), de Sofía Balbuena, La novela del corazón (2022) de Roberto Castillo y Todo está bien, salvo mi corazón, (2022) de Héctor Abad Faciolince. Lina Meruane es una escritora chilena y doctora en literatura (New York University, 2009). Su obra incluye dos colecciones de relatos y cinco…
The UCLA Department of Art History proudly presents the 2026 Gretchen Taylor Millson Distinguished Lecture, featuring Jolene Rickard, Associate Professor, Departments of Art History + Visual Studies, Art American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program, Cornell University. Professor Rickard’s lecture is entitled, “Creative Defiance as Sensory Ecologies.” The Gretchen Taylor Millson Distinguished Lectureship was established in memory of UCLA alumna Gretchen Millson in December 2009 by her husband, Dr. John J. Millson. Gretchen graduated from UCLA with a B.A. from the Department of Art in 1961. This endowed fund provides much-needed resources to the department to allow us to grow and continue our longstanding…
Please join us for a Department of Art History Colloquium with featured speaker Felix Ho Yuen Chan on Wednesday, Apr. 22 at 1 PM in Dodd 275 for his talk, Work on [Il]literacy: Sidney D. Gamble’s “May Fourth China” Photographs (1917-1925).
Since the 1960s religious practitioners have created their own music to express their beliefs and values to shield the community from popular culture. The Irony is they use the popular culture that they reject from American culture in their music. This presentation by Mark Kligman (UCLA) will highlight important composers and groups with audio and video examples of Orthodox Jewish and Christian Contemporary Music. RSVP required here for in-person attendance. Register for Zoom link here. Co-sponsored by the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies and the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience.
Global Antiquity is delighted to invite UCLA faculty members to an ancient studies writing retreat. Join colleagues from across the Humanities and Social Sciences for an opportunity to make meaningful progress on your latest project in a quiet, contemplative space. The event will take place from 9:00 am–5:00 pm in Royce 306 on Wednesday, May 13, with breakfast and coffee served at 9:00 am and lunch at 12:00 pm. Please feel free to come and go as your schedule allows, and we hope to see you there! This event is graciously sponsored by a grant from the UCLA Center for…
Woman Life Freedom in the Mirror of Scholarship: Responses from the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Pooyan Tamimi Arab Utrecht University English Lecture Monday, June 8, 2026 at 11:00 am Pacific Time Online via Zoom Registration Required: https://ucla.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_y6a-WJxYTX-wwqBuhAYndg This presentation will survey scholarship in the arts, humanities, and social sciences responding to the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in Iran. Drawing on a bibliography of over one hundred publications—books, journal articles, and edited volume chapters published since the death of Jina (Mahsa) Amini in September 2022—it will outline four main thematic clusters: Chronologies, Culture, Aesthetics, and Nation. These will serve to…
One Divan and Multiple Poets: The Strange Case of Makhfi Sunil Sharma Boston University English Lecture Monday, May 4, 2026 at 11:00 am Pacific Time Online via Zoom Registration Required: https://ucla.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_6QTp311ZThKErILePfrBEQ The poet behind the Divan-e Makhfi is thought to have been the Mughal Princess Zebunnisa (d. 1702). However, there are historical and philological problems with this attribution that have been debated by some scholars. While also discussing the problem of authorship of the Divan, this talk will focus on the history of compilation and readership of the text, as it circulated in manuscript and lithographed copies, and came to be considered as…
