Annual UCLA Joan Palevsky Lecture Associate Professor of Classics, Standford University “Monuments and meanings: ancient Roman damnatio memoriae and statue destructions today”
The UCLA Department of Classics is pleased to present a lecture by Professor Emily Greenwood, Harvard University entitled “Audre Lorde and Plato’s Menexenus: The Master’s House and the House of Difference”
Book Launch for FIRST EPISTLE TO THE AMPHIBIANS, a collection of poetry by Brazilian author Ricardo Domeneck, translated by Chris Daniels, published by World Poetry Books in April 2026. The event will consist of a reading and conversation with Ricardo Domeneck, Chris Daniels, and Patrícia Lino. Ricardo Domeneck is a Brazilian writer based in Berlin. He has published ten collections of poems and two of short prose in Brazil and Portugal. He is the recipient of two of Brazil’s most prestigious literary awards, the Prêmio Jabuti and the Prêmio Alphonsus de Guimaraens, and selected volumes of his poems have appeared…
Muslim charities and community organizations have assumed a significant role in refugee support since the Syrian catastrophe: in Jordan and Canada, as elsewhere, they deliver food aid, house orphans, and organize remedial education. But Islam is more than just a resource for humanitarian projects. The Dread Heights details how the Islamic tradition guides refugees, relief workers, and religious scholars in a world of brutal sieges and mass displacement. Even as refugees become objects of humanitarian concern suspended between national orders, this ethnography brings another suspension into view: a form of life whose gestures are illuminated by the Quranic figure of…
Monday, April 13, 2026 12:00 – 1:30 PM Haines Hall 352 RSVP HERE Join us on April 13, 2026 at 12:00 – 1:30 PM in Haines Hall 352 for a talk with Eva Jablonka, hosted by the UCLA Department of Anthropology. This lecture is part of the Frank Marlowe Memorial Lecture Series, in the Center for Behavior, Evolution and Culture. There will be a reception to launch the exhibition of artwork by Jablonka’s collaborator, Anna Zeligowski, with food and drinks at 5:30 – 7:00 PM in Dodd Hall 321. Evolutionary Theory and the Unification of Life Sciences in…
Friday, April 10, 2026 4:00 – 6:00 PM Royce Hall 306 RSVP HERE Join us on April 10, 2026 for a talk with Eva Jablonka, hosted by the UCLA Department of Philosophy. The talk will take place from 4:00 – 6:00 PM in Royce 306. The Evolution of Animal Consciousness The study of animal consciousness is becoming a respectable domain of study, which has implications for neuroscience, evolutionary biology and ethics. In this lecture I discuss the theoretical commitments of different naturalistic approaches to animal consciousness and point to markers of consciousness. I suggest that an approach focusing on cognitive capacities…
In this talk, historian Julia Phillips Cohen discusses the unknown role that Jews from the eastern and southern Mediterranean played in the shaping of modern couture. Following two fashion houses run by an interconnected network of North African and Middle Eastern Jews in fin-de-siècle Paris, the talk reveals the participation of these firms in a global web of makers, suppliers, and designers stretching from Algiers and Constantinople to Cairo, Tabriz and Kyoto. Julia Phillips Cohen is an Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University. Her publications include the books Becoming Ottomans: Sephardi Jews and Imperial Citizenship in…
This lecture will examine the discussion of pluralism in the field of comparative theology in light of a core question in the history of Israelite religion. It will create a dialogue between the work of historians of religion such as Yehezkel Kaufmann and theologians such as John Hick, with some reference to the Egyptologist Jan Assmann, moving from a close reading of passages in Deuteronomy, Psalms, and Isaiah to much broader theological issues. Benjamin Sommer is Professor of Bible at the Jewish Theological Seminary. His books, Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition (2015), The Bodies of God…
Misunderstanding in Ancient Interstate Relations The Arsacid Princes of the Roman Empire Jake Nabel (Pennsylvania State University) Wednesday, April 22, 2026 at 4:00 pm Pacific Time Royce Hall 306 and Via Zoom Registration Link: https://forms.gle/ZFb7yBFBeEs2VfMt6 Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/92060104969 In the first century CE, several Arsacid princes from the Iranian empire of Parthia were sent to live at the court of the Roman emperor. While Roman authors called these figures “hostages” and scholars have studied them as such, this talk will employ Iranian and Armenian sources to argue that the Parthians would have seen them as the emperor’s foster-children. These divergent…
Conference Page Please visit the conference page for additional information. RSVP for non-participants: If you are not presenting but plan to attend the conference: REGISTRATION FOR THIS EVENT HAS CLOSED. Please RSVP here by Monday, April 20, 2026. The form lets you indicate if you plan to attend in person or via Zoom. If you plan to attend virtually via Zoom: You MUST register by April 20. You will receive the Zoom link on April 21. Call for Papers Please view the Call for Papers on the conference page. For participants: All submissions are through the conference…