Activists-in-Residence Closing Reception
2025-06-03 17:00 - 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | James West Alumni Center, 325 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Join us for the UCLA Activists-in-Residence closing reception.
When: Tuesday, June 3 · 5 – 7pm PDT
Where: James West Alumni Center 325 Westwood Plaza Los Angeles, CA 90095
RSVP here.
With a shared commitment to “turn the university inside out” and invite artists, community organizers, and movement leaders to undertake power-shifting scholarship and pedagogy focused on social change, the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, cityLAB-UCLA, and the UCLA Center for the Study of Women|Barbra Streisand Center are pleased to celebrate the 2025 UCLA Activists-in-Residence: Lupita Limón Corrales, Kaya Dantzler, Kari Okubo, Romarilyn Ralston, and James Suazo.
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Parking information: The nearest parking lot is Parking Structure 8 (501 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90095). Pay-by-space parking is available on level 4 (rooftop) of Parking Structure 8. Structure 8 has a pedestrian bridge on the 3rd level.
Only cash and credit cards may be used at campus payment stations/kiosks. Pay stations accept Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express for your convenience. Pay stations only accept $1, $5, and $10 bills and do not give change in the form of cash or credit. Park in an unmarked space and place the permit on your car dashboard so it is visible.

Live Performance: Miguel Gutierrez's "Super Nothing"
2025-06-13 - 2025-06-14 | CA
Super Nothing Dance Performance
CAP/UCLA presents
Super Nothing
Friday June 13 and Saturday June 14
Freud Playhouse
245 Charles E Young Dr E, Los Angeles, CA 90024
Information/Tickets
What can a dance do to confront the constant grief that we experience in our lives? Super Nothing presents four dancers whose actions and choreographic relationships are analogues for how people support each other to survive. Interdependence takes multiple forms, as the performers move through representations of the past to create a blueprint for a new future. This piece extends Gutierrez’s interest over the past few years in creating “choreography for the end of the world.”
Choreography/Direction Miguel Gutierrez
Performer/Collaborators: Jay Carlon, Evelyn Lilian Sanchez Narvaez, Justin Faircloth, Wendell Gray II
Lighting Designer: Carolina Ortiz (UCLA Alum!)
Composer: Rosana Cabán, with contributions from Miguel Gutierrez
Costume Designer: Jeremy Wood
Dramaturgical Assistance: Stephanie Acosta
Production Stage Manager: Cat Urquhart
Management: Michelle Fletcher

Auto-Correct: Fantasies & Failures of AI Ethics in the Driverless Car
2025-09-08 11:00 - 12:30 | Murphy Hall 3312
Join us for a book talk and workshop.

Book Talk
When: Monday, September 8 · 11 am – 12:30 pm PDT
Where: DataX, Murphy Hall 3312, 410 Charles E Young Drive East Los Angeles, CA 90095
RSVP for the book talk here.

This is a book talk by Dr Maya Indira Ganesh (Leverhulme Center for Futures of Intelligence, Cambridge) based on her first monograph. The “trolley problem” remains a useful exercise in drawing out the differences between utilitarian and deontological approaches to ethics in analytic philosophy. However, the thought experiment also determined imagining what AI-infused artefacts should be capable of, suggesting that ethical decision-making becomes a data-driven enterprise rather than a human, social, or individualised practice. Maya Indira Ganesh tracks the language, materiality, and culture of epistemic tools that establish safety and automobility as problems to be solved by the driverless car, examining outputs of AI systems versus what constitutes our social and technological presents and futures.
Workshop
When: Tuesday, September 9 · 10 am – 1 pm PDT
Where: Center for the Study of Women|Barbra Streisand Center, 1500 public affairs building, UCLA (Entry from Jimmy’s Coffeeshop side) Los Angeles, CA 90095
RSVP for the workshop.
Join us for a free workshop on AI, Time & Futurity at UCLA with Dr Maya Indira Ganesh (Leverhulme CFI, UK). Time haunts AI. An origin story in the summer of 1955 that has acquired the status of myth and fact; geopolitical races; the contradictions and entanglements of longtermist and accelerationist ideologies; law and regulation that fail to keep up; promised breakthroughs from the driverless car to superintelligence that fail to arrive, or seem eternally just around the corner. Computational time is also infrastructural: the lag in software updates pushed to the cloud and then to fleets of driverless cars and mobile phones (Mattern, 2017). Temporality works unevenly affording ‘just in time’ deliveries for the busy, but at the cost of bio-social control of delivery workers and on-demand mobility service providers (Sharma, 2014).
Presented by:
UCLA Department of Information Studies
Cosponsored by:
UCLA Center for the Study of Women|Barbra Streisand Center

UCLA's True Bruin Welcome: Academic Open House
2025-09-24 | CA
When: Wednesday, September 24, 9 am – 4 pm
Where: 1500 Public Affairs Building

The main entrance is located on the south side of the Public Affairs Building, facing the north side of LuValle Commons (Jimmy’s Coffeeshop).

Join the Center for the Study of Women | Streisand Center for a day of exploration, learning, and connection at UCLA’s True Bruin Welcome! As part of the campus-wide Academic Open Houses, we invite you to stop by, meet our passionate staff, enjoy some snacks, and take a guided tour of our center. Discover opportunities to engage with groundbreaking research, explore academic funding options, and learn how we contribute to advancing gender equity and social justice.
Whether you’re a new student or returning, this is a great opportunity to connect with faculty, learn about our current projects, and find ways to get involved.

Faculty Writing Retreat: October
2025-10-10 10:00 - 16:00 | Hershey Salon
Friday, October 10
10 am – 4 pm Hershey Hall Salon (Room 158)
Register here.
Do you want to block out a day for writing and contemplation? The Faculty Writing Retreat is your solution. Join us for a day-long retreat where you can concentrate on your own work alongside like-minded colleagues—we will hold the world at bay for you. Breakfast and lunch will be provided in the beautiful setting of Hershey Hall Salon.
The writing retreat provides a peaceful place to write as well as meals; please bring your computer and any other materials you may need to work. If you have an extension cord, please bring it, as power outlets are limited. Also bring some extra clothes for layers, as the space sometimes tends to be cool.
We also offer a parallel virtual retreat with brief introductions and check-ins.
During lunch, there will be an optional conversation about the writing process..
If you register to attend in person and your plans change, please let us know immediately so that we may offer your spot to the long waitlist. No-shows will not be granted an in-person spot at future writing retreats.
If you are no longer able to attend in person, please e-mail csw@csw.ucla.edu to let us know.
Cosponsored by: CSW|Streisand Center, the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture, the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research & Creative Activities (ORCA), UCLA Humanities, UCLA Social Sciences, UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television
Save the date for future Faculty Writing Retreats: Registration will be available the week following the most recent retreat.
Friday November 14
Friday December 5
Friday February 20
Friday March 6
Friday May 15

SAHQ, DIRT, SHAHEED: Queer Poetics and Palestinian Resistance
2025-10-14 12:30 - 14:00 | Center for the Study of Women, 1500 Public Affairs
Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Time: 12:30 – 2 pm
Location: Center for the Study of Women (map) 1500 Public Affairs
RSVP to recieve event updates.
Seating is first come. Lunch will be provided.
This talk uses a combination of poetry, research, and prose to consider some of the discursive and material facets of Palestinian liberation theories and practices, with special attention to forms of affective and embodied resistance.
Mejdulene Bernard Shomali is a queer Palestinian poet and associate professor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Williams College. She received an MA in Women’s Studies from the Ohio State University and a PhD in American Culture from the University of Michigan. Her research and creative writing occur at the intersection of transnational feminist thought, queer of color critique, and Arab and diasporic Arab cultural production.
Meidulene was a fellow in the Institute for Citizens and Scholars and the Cornell Society for the Humanities. She is the author of Between Banat: Queer Arab Critique and Transnational Arab Archives (Duke University Press 2023) which won the 2024 Association for Middle East Women’s Studies book award honorable mention. She is also the author of the poetry chapbook agriculture of grief: prayers for my father’s dementia (Finishing Line Press 2024). Her current research concerns affect and embodiment in Palestinian resistance.
Cosponsored by: Center for the Study of Women, UCLA English, UCLA LGBTQ Studies, UCLA Asian American Studies Center, UCLA Gender Studies, UCLA American Indian Studies Center, UCLA Asian American Studies Department

Center for Reproductive Science, Health and Education (CRSHE) Distinguished Speaker Series
2025-10-20 16:00 - 17:00 | California Nanosystems Institute, UCLA
Attend the UCLA Center for Reproductive Science, Health and Education (CRSHE) Distinguished Speaker Series featuring Diana E. Ramos.
When: Monday, October 20, 2025 4:00 p.m. PT
Where: California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI). UCLA Campus
Register here.
Registration is required.Seating is first come, first served and is not guaranteed.
About the speaker : Dr. Diana E. Ramos, was appointed Surgeon General of California in 2022. She is avisionary public health leader dedicated to advancing the wellbeing of all communities. Dr. Ramoschampions efforts to address reproductive and maternal health outcomes, adverse childhood experiences,and mental health, shaping policies that leave a lasting impact across the state. As an alumna of UCLA’sFielding School of Public Health with more than three decades as an Obstetrician Gynecologist, Dr.Ramos has also held leadership roles at the local, state, and national levels. A recipient of the Latino SpiritAward and the Public Health Leadership Award, she is a powerful voice for health equity.

Barbra Streisand Center Annual Lecture feat. Timothy Snyder
2025-10-23 18:00 - 20:00 | California Nanosystems Institute, UCLA
Date: Thursday, October 23rd
Time: 6 pm, Reception to follow
Location: UCLA California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at 570 Westwood Plaza Los Angeles, CA 90095
Register to join virtually.
Talk
Timothy Snyder, Chair in Modern European History is giving a public lecture at UCLA CNSI on the topic, The Truth about Freedom: How Lies Oppress and How Facts Liberate. He is supported by the Temerty Endowment for Ukrainian Studies Director and is involved with Public History, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy University of Toronto. Additionally, Synder is the bestselling author of “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century” and “On Freedom”. Copies of Timothy Snyder’s book “On Freedom” will be available for purchase and signature.
Panel
The talk will be followed by a panel discussion on the topic of Global Lessons on Authoritarianism and Resistance, featuring
Ju Hui Judy Han, Associate Professor, Gender Studies, UCLA
Shannon Speed, Director, American Indian Studies Center, Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Native American and Indigenous Affairs, Professor, American Indian Studies, Anthropology and Gender Studies, UCLA
Moderated by Jessica Cattelino, Director, UCLA Barbra Streisand Center

A Place of Rage: Women and Anger on Screen
2025-10-26 - 2025-12-06 | Billy Wilder Theater, 10899 Wilshire Blvd.,, Los Angeles, CA, 90024, United States
Post-#MeToo, films and television — many by women — have redefined female anger not as pathology or threat but as, in Lorde’s words, “loaded with information and energy.” This series, inspired by the work of scholar and UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television Professor Kathleen McHugh, explores how women’s rage, long silenced, can be reclaimed through feminist filmmaking, challenging familiar tropes and reframing women’s anger as purposeful.
The series , A Place of Rage, examines anger as a site of clarity, resistance and transformation and considers how genres once hostile to female subjectivity have become platforms for feminist disruption. This collection serves as a visual conjuring of the uses of anger: when wielded with precision, on women’s own terms, our rage can move beyond catharsis to radical change.
Series programmed and notes written by UCLA Professor Kathleen McHugh and Public Programmer Beandrea July
Community partners: UCLA Center for the Study of Women | Barbra Streisand Center, Women in Media

Academic Freedom and The Crisis of the Democratic University
2025-10-29 10:00 - 17:00 | CA
Date: October 29th, 2025
Time: 10am – 5pm
Location: Royce 314
Attend the Academic Freedom and The Criss of the Democratic University program, a symposium on higher education in honor of Michael Meranze.

"Wanda": Free Screening by UCLA Film & Television Archive
2025-11-02 19:00 - 22:00 | Billy Wilder Theater, James Bridges Theater
Date: Sunday, November 2nd
Time: 7pm
Location: Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum
UCLA Film & Television Archive is hosting a free screening of Wanda along with a Q&A and book signing with Elena Gorfinkel, author of “BFI Classics: Wanda,” moderated by Archive Research and Study Center Officer Maya Montañez Smukler.
In 1970, Wanda screened at the Venice Film Festival as the sole U.S. entry winning the International Critics Prize. Actor-turned-filmmaker, Barbara Loden, directed, produced and co-starred in the production of Wanda, also being her directorial debut. The film follows Loden in a quiet and captivating portrayal of an apathetic young woman on a journey through a bleak and rural Pennsylvanian landscape. On her filmmaking approach, Loden said, “I’ve got more movies in me, but they will have to be done my way. I’m not interested in entertaining people. I only want to do things that mean something to me, that I can say about a human being on film and then communicate that feeling to others.”
In her new book, Elena Gorfinkel draws on archival sources to trace the film’s feminist legacies, and its lasting influence on contemporary filmmakers, artists and writers.—Archive Research and Study Center Officer Maya Montañez Smukler
Cosponsored by: Center for the Study of Women

Embryonic and Fetal Rights? What it Would Mean for Pregnant People and Reproductive Rights, Health, and Research
2025-11-13 10:00 - 11:00 | CA
When: November 13, 10- 11 am PST
Where: Virtual. RSVP to attend.
Join a discussion featuring:
Professor Mary Ziegler
Panelist
UC Davis School of Law
Author, Personhood: The New Civil War Over Reproduction
Heather Shumaker
Panelist
Senior Director State Abortion Policy, National Women’s Law Center
Dr. Amander Clark
Panelist
Founding Director UCLA Center for Reproductive Science, Health, and Education
Diana Kasdan
Moderator
Legal and Policy Director, UCLA Law Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy
RSVP here
Cosponsors: CSW|Streisand Center, UCLA Network for Reproductive Health & Gender Equity, the Center for Reproductive Science, Health and Education (CRSHE), the Bixby Center, and the Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy at UCLA Law.

Noura Erakat on Revisiting Zionism as a Form of Racism and Racial Discrimination
2025-11-13 17:30 - 18:30 | CA
When: Thursday, November 13 at 5:30 pm
Where: On the UCLA campus
RSVP for the address.
On November 10, 1975, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 declaring Zionism as a Form of Racism and Racial Discrimination. A coalition of states introduced the resolution at the start of the 30th session of the General Assembly as an amendment to the Decade Against Racism in the context of Third World Revolt against imperialism; Palestinian liberation was central to this agenda. This lecture will explore the historical context that led to the introduction of this resolution, its drafting history, including racial theories of Zionism that were introduced during the deliberations as well as the intense procedural maneuvers that aimed to subvert it all together. Though a hard won victory, the PLO rescinded the resolution in 1991 as a precondition for entering the Oslo Accords. This discussion will both mark the 50th year anniversary of the resolution as well as its contemporary relevance.
Professor Erakat’s talk will be followed by a panel discussion with Professor Nour Joudah (Asian American Studies) and Professor Robin D.G. Kelley (History).
Bio:
Noura Erakat is Professor of Africana Studies and Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She is the author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2019), which received the Palestine Book Award and the Bronze Medal for the Independent Publishers Book Award in Current Events/Foreign Affairs. In 2023, Noura co-chaired an Independent Task Force on the Application of National Security Memorandum-20 to Israel, a report documenting how U.S. arms to Israel have been used in violation of U.S. and international law and which was submitted to the White House. She is co-founding editor of Jadaliyya and an editorial board member of the Journal of Palestine Studies as well as Human Geography. She is a co-founding board member of the DC Palestinian Film and Arts Festival. She has served as Legal Counsel for a Congressional Subcommittee in the US House of Representatives, as Legal Advocate for the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Refugee and Residency Rights, and as National Organizer and Legal Advocate of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. Noura has also produced video documentaries, including “Gaza In Context” and “Black Palestinian Solidarity.” Noura completed a non-resident fellowship of the Religious Literacy Project at Harvard Divinity School as well as a Mahmoud Darwish Visiting Professorship at Brown University. In 2022, she was selected as a Freedom Fellow by the Marguerite Casey Foundation. In 2025, the University of Ghent awarded the Amnesty International Chair in recognition of her contribution to human rights and scholarship.

Faculty Writing Retreat - November 2025
2025-11-14 10:00 - 16:00 | Hershey Salon
RSVP Here

Join CSW|Streisand Center for a day-long retreat where you can concentrate on your own work alongside like-minded colleagues.

Friday, November 14
10 am – 4 pm Hershey Hall Salon (Room 158)
Do you want to block out a day for writing and contemplation? The Faculty Writing Retreat is your solution. Join us for a day-long retreat where you can concentrate on your own work alongside like-minded colleagues—we will hold the world at bay for you. Breakfast and lunch will be provided in the beautiful setting of Hershey Hall Salon.
The writing retreat provides a peaceful place to write as well as meals; please bring your computer and any other materials you may need to work. If you have an extension cord, please bring it, as power outlets are limited. Also bring some extra clothes for layers, as the space sometimes tends to be cool.
We also offer a parallel virtual retreat with brief introductions and check-ins.
During lunch, there will be an optional conversation about the writing process..
If you register to attend in person and your plans change, please let us know immediately so that we may offer your spot to the long waitlist. No-shows will not be granted an in-person spot at future writing retreats.
If you are no longer able to attend in person, please e-mail csw@csw.ucla.edu to let us know.
Cosponsored by: CSW|Streisand Center, the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture, the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research & Creative Activities (ORCA), UCLA Humanities, UCLA Social Sciences, UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television
Save the date for future Faculty Writing Retreats:
Registration will be available the week following the most recent retreat.
Friday December 5
Friday February 20
Friday March 6
Friday May 15

Beyond Sanctuary: UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy
2025-11-14 10:00 - 16:30 | CA
When: Friday, November 14th from 10am to 4:30pm
Where: 2355 Public Affairs Building, UCLA
RSVP Here
UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy presents “Beyond Sanctuary”, a series of dialogues intended to restituate the imperial vest in the global histories — and posssibilites — of decolonization and abolition.

Women's Daily Life in Exile Lecture
2025-11-17 18:00 - 20:00 | CA
Where: UCLA Bunche Hall, Rm 10383
When: Monday, November 17, 2025 / 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM (Pacific Time)
After being deported from their homes, Armenian women experienced vastly different fates depending on where they were sent within the Arab-speaking provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Those on the eastern deportation route faced famine and disease but largely avoided mass killings, while those sent north were confined in desert tent camps and many were massacred in 1916. This lecture, led by Dr. Anna Aleksanyan and Dr. Taner Akçam of UCLA’s Promise Armenian Institute, will explore the varied experiences of these women and the gendered dimensions of the Armenian Genocide. This event is organized by The Promise Armenian Institute at UCLA.
Join the Zoom Webinar here.

Fiebre de carnaval: una conversación con Yuliana Ortiz Ruano
2025-11-18 16:00 - 17:00 | CA
The Spanish & Portuguese Department would like to invite you to a conversation with Ecuadorian novelist and poet Yuliana Ortiz Ruano. In this conversation, Ortiz Ruano will discuss her recently translated novel Carnival Fever (Fiebre de Carnaval), her practice as a writer, and the intersections of decolonial thought and Black and Caribbean intellectual traditions in Latin America.
When: November 18, 2025, 4:00 PM
Where: Lydeen Library, Rolfe Hall 4302
This event will be in Spanish. Light refreshments will be served.
Yuliana Ortiz Ruano is an Afro-Ecuadorian writer, poet, and teacher, as well as a DJ of Afro-Caribbean music. She has published several books of poetry and prose, including the multi award-winning Fiebre de carnaval (Carnaval Fever), which was chosen as one of the 50 best books of 2022 by El País. She is also the author of the poetry books Sovoz, Canciones del fin del mundo, y Cuaderno del imposible retorno a Pangea, and the book of short stories Litorales. She was selected by the International Writers in Residence program in Granada, Spain in 2023, and was chosen for the Translator Choice II award at the LATINALE Latin America Literature Festival in Berlin. Her first novel, Carnaval Fever, won the Joaquín Gallegos Lara Award (Ecuador), the Primo Romanzo Latinoamericano Award (Italy), and the PEN Translation Award (UK).

Lynn Hershman Leeson: Private I
2025-11-18 19:30 - 21:30 | CA
When: Tuesday, November 18, 2025, at 7:30 PM
Where: Hammer Museum
Pioneering conceptual artist Lynn Hershman Leeson, known for her six-decade exploration of technology, identity, and surveillance, joins Margot Norton, Chief Curator at BAMPFA, for an evening of video screenings and discussion. Leeson will reflect on her visionary works including the Roberta Breitmore series to her innovative interactive installations and her new book Private I, which examines the intersections of art, technology, and selfhood in today’s hyper-connected world.
No registration required. Seat is first come.

Faculty Writing Retreat - December 2025
2025-12-05 10:00 - 16:00 | CA
Join CSW|Streisand Center for a day-long retreat where you can concentrate on your own work alongside like-minded colleagues!

Friday, December 5th
10 am – 4 pm Hershey Hall Salon (Room 158)
Do you want to block out a day for writing and contemplation? The Faculty Writing Retreat is your solution. Join us for a day-long retreat where you can concentrate on your own work alongside like-minded colleagues—we will hold the world at bay for you. Breakfast and lunch will be provided in the beautiful setting of Hershey Hall Salon.
The writing retreat provides a peaceful place to write as well as meals; please bring your computer and any other materials you may need to work. If you have an extension cord, please bring it, as power outlets are limited. Also bring some extra clothes for layers, as the space sometimes tends to be cool.
We also offer a parallel virtual retreat with brief introductions and check-ins.
During lunch, there will be an optional conversation about the writing process.
If you register to attend in person and your plans change, please let us know immediately so that we may offer your spot to the long waitlist. No-shows will not be granted an in-person spot at future writing retreats.
If you are no longer able to attend in person, please e-mail csw@csw.ucla.edu to let us know.
Cosponsored by: CSW|Streisand Center, the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture, the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research & Creative Activities (ORCA), UCLA Humanities, UCLA Social Sciences, UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television
Save the date for future Faculty Writing Retreats:
Registration will be available the week following the most recent retreat.
Friday February 20
Friday March 6
Friday May 15

Surrealism & Antifascism: A Symposium
2025-12-06 14:00 - 18:00 | CA
Where: 3910 Los Feliz Boulevard
When: Dec 6th, 2pm-6pm PST
This unique gathering brings together artists, scholars, UCLA students and the public to explore the power of surrealist methods—past and present—as tools for resisting systems of domination and imagining new possibilities for being. From spiritual resistance to cultural subversion, surrealism has long offered a way to sidestep the normative, the colonial, and the fascistic in pursuit of radical freedom. Together, we will examine the contradictions and complexities within the Surrealist tradition and its entanglements with institutional power, gender, and race. This symposium is a call to those who believe that art, performance, spirituality, and speculation can resist the flattening forces of fascism and imagine other worlds.
Get tickets here! Tickets are free to UCLA students & PRS members with code UCLAstudent11 / $10 general admission

Cozy Book Swap + Books to Jails Drive
2025-12-08 - 2025-12-11 | CA
Join us for the CSW|Streisand Center Cozy Book Swap! Bring a wrapped book, add a hint note, and swap with others!
Additionally, donate a popular book to LA County Jails in partnership with LA County Library as a part of our Books to Jails Drive.

What kinds of books to donate to the Books to Jails Drive (per LA County Library Guidelines)

Fantasy novels
Adventure novels
Mystery novels
Sci-Fi and Fantasy novels
Spiritual books
Poetry
Self-help books
Books in Spanish

Donation guidelines

NO hardcovers – ONLY paperback books
NO textbooks or academic books
NO depictions or descriptions on how to commit crimes
MUST be in good condition / shape

Learn more about our mini library and the books to jails partnership.
When: Monday, December 8th – Thursday, December 11th, 10 am- 2 pm
Where: CSW|Streisand Center Office, 1500 Public Affairs (Located across from Jimmy’s Coffee House)

Cinema's First Nasty Women: Breaking Plates and Smashing the Patriarchy
2026-01-23 19:30 - 21:30 | Billy Wilder Theater, 10899 Wilshire Blvd.,, Los Angeles, CA, 90024, United States
When: January 23, 2026 7:30 pm
Where: Billy Wilder Theater
Admission: Free; no registration required.
Cinema’s First Nasty Women returns to the Billy Wilder Theater! Its name a riff on the feminist cri de cœur that arose during the 2016 presidential election, Cinema’s First Nasty Women is an ongoing, curated project to rediscover and revel in the anarchic spirit of women comedians who brought a rebellious energy to the early silent screen. Organized by an international team of film archivists and scholars, Maggie Hennefeld, Laura Horak and Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi, this new travelling program of restored titles from the project comes with a special twist. Archival collections can inspire new research which in turn helps grow new audiences, but they can also inspire new films. Based in Australia, with The Physical TV Company, filmmaker and author Karen Pearlman has built a feminist film practice that puts cinema’s past and present in dialogue in brilliantly constructed, canon-busting short film essays. For “Cinema’s First Nasty Women: Breaking Plates and Smashing the Patriarchy,” Pearlman drew on the project’s images and energy for her latest short, Breaking Plates. The Archive is thrilled to have Pearlman as our guest at the Billy Wilder Theater with a selection of her work along with the Los Angeles premiere of Breaking Plates and the silent slapstick female performers that inspired it.
Programmed by Paul Malcolm with Maggie Hennefeld, Laura Horak, Karen Pearlman and Richard James Allen. Notes written by Senior Public Programmer Paul Malcolm.
Presented by the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Total runtime: 103 min.

From Pitch to Publish in the Public Humanities
2026-02-02 - 2026-02-03 | Royce 314
Join award-winning writers and journalists Lauren Markham and Chris Feliciano Arnold for two days of panels and workshops.

From Pitch to Publish in the Public Humanities
When: February 2–3, 2026
Location: Royce 314
Free and open to the public.

Today, it is vital that scholars’ work is made widely available and accessible to the public. Is your research part of the public discourse? Do you have stories the public at large would benefit from knowing? Do you want to reach a broader audience, an audience beyond the peer-reviewed academic outlets? Do you want to learn how to pitch your specific story and research to non-academic publications? We have invited two writers and journalists, Lauren Markham and Chris Feliciano Arnold, to offer insights on the public humanities writing, pitching, and publication process in a series of panels, workshops, and individual feedback sessions.
Public Events
Monday, February 2, 10:30AM–12:00 PM (Royce 314)
Workshop: “Enliven Your Prose with Research Details: Public Workshop with Chris Feliciano Arnold and Lauren Markham.”
Discover how vivid storytelling and well-chosen details can transform scholarly work into engaging, resonant prose. This hands-on workshop explores how to integrate research into narrative writing—making complex ideas accessible without sacrificing depth or rigor. Through interactive exercises, close reading, and discussion, participants will learn strategies for bringing their data, fieldwork, and analysis to life on the page.
Monday, February 2, 4:00–5:00 PM (Royce 314)
Conversation: “Pitching and Working with Opinion Editors with Chris Feliciano Arnold and New York Times Opinion Staff Editor Isvett Verde.”
Explore strategies and best practices for effectively pitching and collaborating with newspaper editors on op-eds and opinion pieces. Gain insight into the editorial process, from crafting compelling and concise pitches that capture an editor’s attention to understanding the nuances of tone, timing, and topic relevance. This session will cover how to balance academic rigor with public accessibility, navigate editorial feedback, and establish long-term relationships with editors to amplify scholarly perspectives in the media.
Tuesday February 3, 4:00–6:00 PM (Royce 314)
Panel: “Writing for the Public in Times of Peril, a panel with Chris Feliciano Arnold, Lauren Markham, The Atlantic Senior Editor Honor Jones and VQR Editor Paul Reyes.”
This panel of authors and editors will address the crucial role of academics in bridging the gap between scholarly research and public discourse during times of crisis, uncertainty, and societal upheaval, including the ethical, intellectual, and practical challenges that scholars face when translating complex ideas into accessible language for broader audiences. Refreshments will be provided.
Panelist & Writer Bios

Chris Feliciano Arnold is the author of The Third Bank of the River: Power and Survival in the Twenty-First-Century Amazon (Picador 2018). He directs the MFA in Creative Writing program at Saint Mary’s College of California.

Lauren Markham is an award-winning writer and journalist based in California whose work regularly appears in outlets such as Harper’s, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine and VQR, where she is a contributing editor. She is the author of the award-winning The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life, the California Book Award shortlisted A Map of Future Ruins: On Borders and Belonging (2024) and the recently-released Immemorial.

Isvett Verde is a staff editor in the Opinion section of The New York Times, where she helps shape conversations on immigration, culture and identity. She is also an adjunct professor of Latinx Media studies at The City College of New York. She earned a B.A. in French from Florida International University, and an M.A. in Spanish-language Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Her writing has been featured in the anthology titled, “Home in Florida: Latinx Writers and the Literature of Uprootedness.”

Honor Jones is a senior editor at The Atlantic, and previously at The New York Times Opinion section, where she edited cover stories and special issues for the Sunday Review. She is also the author of a novel, Sleep.

Paul Reyes is the editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review, where he develops a variety of content, including investigative reporting, essays, photography portfolios, poetry, criticism, and fiction. Before joining VQR, he was a senior editor with The Oxford American. His work as an editor has led to two National Magazine Awards (as well as several nominations), the Overseas Press Club Award, inclusion in the Pushcart Prize anthology along with regular appearances in the Best American anthologies. His book, Exiles in Eden, an investigative narrative of the 2008 housing crisis, was praised as “a wrenching chronicle of our new hard times” (Publishers Weekly) and “an engrossing memoir of American dreaming and financial devastation” (Mother Jones). His essays and reporting have appeared in VQR, The Oxford American, Harper’s, The New York Times, Literary Hub, Mother Jones, and elsewhere. His writing has earned him a Literature Fellowship in Nonfiction from the National Endowment for the Arts, a nomination for the Harry Chapin Media Award, and a nomination for the National Magazine Award in Feature Writing.

Cosponsored by:
Center for the Study of Women|Streisand Center, Division of Social Sciences, Division of Humanities, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Creative Activities, School of Music, School of Arts and Architecture, and School of Theater, Film, and Television.

Fire Tender Film Screening
2026-02-10 12:15 - 13:15 | Center for the Study of Women, 1500 Public Affairs
Tuesday, February 10, 2026
12:15–1:15 PM
Center for the Study of Women|Streisand Center (Google Maps)
Join us for a screening of Fire Tender, directed by Roni Jo Draper (Yurok) and Marissa Lila, followed by a discussion.
Fire Tender tells the story of Yurok tribal members returning to traditional fire practices as an essential form of land stewardship. The film centers on Margo Robbins—grandmother, cultural educator, healer, and Indigenous fire practitioner—who is leading efforts to restore Yurok fire sovereignty: the right to use fire for tribal land care, a practice outlawed under settler colonial policies. Through her work, Robbins challenges more than a century of environmentally destructive anti-fire policies that have endangered Yurok lands and restricted access to the natural resources necessary for clean water, food, and traditional lifeways.
Seating is first come, first served. No registration required.
Attendees are welcome to bring their lunch for the 30-minute screening and discussion to follow.
This event is part of programming for Thinking Gender 2026: “Feminist & Queer Ecologies.” Register for the conference.
About the Filmmakers
Director: Roni Jo Draper, PhD (Yurok, she/they), is an emerita professor in the Department of Teacher Education at the David O. McKay School of Education, Brigham Young University, where she taught courses in multicultural education, women’s studies, and literacy. Dr. Draper began her work as a scholar investigating disciplinary literacies and seeking to uncover the texts and literacies needed to participate and learn in disciplinary settings such as mathematics, science, and the arts. Her work has appeared in various journals for researchers and teachers including the Harvard Educational Review, the American Educational Research Journal, the Journal of Teacher Education, the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, and the Mathematics Teacher. Currently, her research interest has focused on the challenge to prepare teachers to create classrooms that allow our most minoritized children to thrive. She is a former high school mathematics teacher and is proud of her work serving students at risk of not completing high school. In her recent work, she has turned to Indigenous storytelling to share stories that center the lives of Indigenous peoples. She has produced the film Scenes from the Glittering World, about the lives of three Navajo young people attending a remote high school on the Navajo Nation. Draper is also the writer, producer, and director of the documentary Fire Tender, which centers on the lives of Yurok fire practitioners.
Co-director: Marissa Lila (she/they) is a Thai-American documentarian who grew up in Hong Kong and Thailand and is now based in Salt Lake City. As a multicultural filmmaker, she directs and produces projects with characters who cross boundaries set by dominant cultures or identities. Lila’s projects have been selected to play at international film festivals (DOC NYC, Camden, IFF, Big Sky Documentary FF, and MountainFilm). Two projects she produced, Transmormon and Oxygen to Fly, went viral with over 160 million total views. These projects were featured in The Huffington Post, New York Times, The Atlantic, People Magazine, and Dazed. Lila is co-founder of OHO Media, a creative content agency for which Lila creates documentaries and documentary-based branded content. Lila directed, produced, and wrote for the docu-reality television series The Generations Project, for which one of the episodes she produced won a Regional Emmy. Lila also spent six years creating educational content to increase equitable outcomes for students inclusive of race, ethnicity, language, cultural, sexual orientation, or ability.
Producer: Jenn Lee is an immigrant from Taiwan who grew up in Utah and has worked over 20 years in social impact. Besides Fire Tender, she has produced and supported award-winning narrative and documentary films such as “The Dating Game” (2025), “Home Court” (2024), “Mija” (2022), “The Dilemma of Desire” (2020), “Jane and Emma” (2018), and LGBTQ+ films “Pray Away” (2021) and “Faithful” (2017). Prior to film work, she was a UCLA graduate student studying gender (sex-ratio) imbalance in China and attending Thinking Gender conferences.
Learn more about the film.

Calling In: Navigating Challenging Conversations with Dr. Loretta Ross
2026-02-10 19:30 - 21:30 | UCLA Hammer Museum – Galleries, 10899 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90024, United States
Presented by the Hammer Museum.
Copresented with the Center for the Study of Women|Streisand Center at UCLA and the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute

Join renowned activist, professor, and 2022 MacArthur Fellow Loretta J. Ross to explore the powerful practice of “Calling In.” With five decades in the human rights movement, Ross offers a transformative approach to move from conflict to constructive dialogue. In her new book, Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You’d Rather Cancel, Ross addresses the challenge of building coalitions and community in a polarized world, and offers a compassionate alternative through accountability, empathy, and connection.
ATTENDING THIS PROGRAM?
Ticketing: Admission is free. Your seat will be assigned to you when you pick up your ticket at the box office. Seats are assigned on a first come, first served basis, limit one per visitor. Box office opens one hour before the event.
Member Benefit: Subject to availability, Hammer Members can choose their preferred seats and pick up tickets for one additional guest. Members receive priority ticketing until 15 minutes before the program. Learn more about membership.
Parking: Self-parking is available under the museum. Rates are $8 for the first three hours with museum validation, and $3 for each additional 20 minutes, with a $22 daily maximum. There is an $8 flat rate after 6 p.m. on weekdays, and all day on weekends.

Bibliotactics: Libraries and the Colonial Public in Vietnam Book talk with Cindy Anh Nguyen (UCLA)
2026-02-12 14:30 - 16:30 | CA
When: Thursday, February 12, 2026 2:30 PM – 4:30 PM (Pacific Time)
Where: DataX Impact Forum Murphy Hall, Rm 3312
Bibliotactics examines the Hanoi and Saigon state libraries in colonial and postcolonial Vietnam, uncovering the emergence of a colonial public who reimagined the political meaning and social space of the library through public critique and day-to-day practice.
RSVP here.

Book Talk: The Homosexual and the Oligarch: Perverse Figurations and Social Reproduction
2026-02-13 11:00 - 12:30 | Hybrid
When: Friday, February 13, 11 am-12:30 pm
Where: Hybrid | UCLA Center for the Study of Women| Barbra Streisand Center, 1500 Public Affairs Building
Based on Dr. Tamar Shirinian’s recent book, Survival of a Perverse Nation: Morality and Queer Possibility in Armenia (Duke University Press, 2024), this talk will introduce the audience to two perverse figures: the homosexual and the oligarch.
Both figured prominently in national anxieties in the 2010s in Armenia as dangerous to the nation and its survival, and formed particular rhetorics of the nation’s perversion toward annihilation. Focusing on these two figures, the talk reflects upon neoliberalization’s threats against social reproduction by examining the moralization of political-economic processes and asks what a queer theory of political economy offers to the critique of late capitalism.

Graduate Lecture & Mixer: War, Migration, and Asymmetrical Gender Transformations in Ukrainian Households
2026-02-25 16:30 - 18:00 | 10383 Bunche Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
Where: Bunche Hall, Rm 10383
When: Wednesday, February 25, 2026 from 4:15 PM – 5:45 PM
RSVP Here

Join the Center for European and Russian Studies for their quarterly Graduate Student Lecture by Natasha Bluth (PhD candidate in Sociology Department) and Mixer, open to all UCLA students, staff and faculty. The lecture by Natasha Bluth (Department of Sociology) is entitled “War, Migration, and Asymmetrical Gender Transformations in Ukrainian Households” and will include a presentation, time for Q&A, culminating in an informal mixer for students of all disciplines with an interest in Europe and/or Russia. This event is cosponsored by the UCLA Department of Sociology and UCLA Center for the Study of Women | Streisand Center and will be held in Bunche Hall Room 10383 on Wednesday, February 25, 2026 at 4:15 pm.

Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine has generated profound demographic shifts in Ukrainian society and the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. These dynamics are also deeply gendered: international protection policies and Ukrainian mobilization laws have facilitated the mass displacement of Ukrainian women and children while restricting the mobility of men. Drawing on fieldwork with Ukrainian families in Krakow, Poland, and Ukraine, between 2022 and 2025, this talk explores how these gendered processes are shaping three dimensions of household life: wartime migratory decision-making, marital relations, and coming-of-age experiences for young adults. I show that while war and displacement tighten traditional gender norms, they also create new opportunities for women to transcend these norms—at the same time that horizons narrow for men. These results carry important implications for Ukrainian families and for the future of Ukraine, where gender politics have become a key terrain of differentiation from Russia. In response, The Center for European and Russian Studies hosts a quarterly graduate student lecture and mixer.

Otro Corazón 3: Queering Sor Juana: A Symposium
2026-02-26 | Northwest Campus Auditorium
“Sor Juana the Younger and the Elder,” digital photograph by Alma Lopez @2019(models: Alicia Gaspar de Alba as the Elder, and Alicia Billalobos, UCLA Chicana/o Studies alumna, as the Younger)
When: February 26, 2026
Where: Northwest Campus Auditorium, UCLA

Organized by the UCLA Center for Musical Humanities in partnership with the Dean of Social Sciences and the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies
Co-sponsored by The Center for 17th & 18th Century Studies, the Chicano Studies Research Center, and the Center for the Study of Women/Barbara Streisand Center
Free and open to the public, but all attendees, including participants and audience members, must register online. Lunch and reception will be provided for registered guests only.
“Otro Corazón 3: Queering Sor Juana” builds on past symposia organized by Alicia Gaspar de Alba in her “Corazón” series,1 and is offered as part of a year-long celebration of her 32-year academic career at UCLA, focusing on her lifetime of research and creative engagement with Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the 17th-century Mexican nun/poet/scholar who is hailed all over the world as the “first feminist of the Americas” and the Mexican “Tenth Muse.”
OTRO CORAZON 3: QUEERING SOR JUANA
SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM
9 am: Registration
9:30 am: Welcome and Introductory Remarks by Professor Raymond Knapp and Dean Abel Valenzuela
10:30-12 noon: Panel 1. La Décima Musa: Classic Sor Juana
Speaker: Cesar Favila, UCLA
Speaker: Charlene Villaseñor Black, Oxford University
Speaker: Emilie Bergman, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Gabriela Rodriguez Gomez (UCLA Chicana/o Studies PhD)
12-1 pm: Boxed Lunch
1:30-3 pm: Panel 2. “La Peor de Todas”: Sapphic Sor Juana
Speaker: Emma Perez, University of Arizona
Speaker: Alma López, UCLA
Speaker: Carla Lucero, Independent Opera Composer
Moderator: Ariel Hernandez (UCLA Chicana/o Studies grad student)
Coffee Break
4-5:30 pm: Performances
4 Arias from “JUANA”– A Spanish-language chamber opera based on the historical novel, Sor Juana’s Second Dream3 by Alicia Gaspar de Alba. Music by Carla Lucero.
Libretto by Carla Lucero and Alicia Gaspar de Alba
Showcase Program
“Fili”, performed by Meagan Martin (Mezzo-Soprano) as Sor Juana
“Hombres necios” performed by Meagan Martin and Maria Valdes-Gomez (Soprano) as la Condesa
“Sin vos” (abbreviated version) performed by Maria Valdes-Gomez
“Amor eterno” performed by Meagan Martin and Maria Valdes-Gomez
Accompanied by pianist, Peter Walsh
Screening of “Sin Vos” video (opera on film, recorded at the Ebell of Los Angeles, sung by Michelle Allie Drever as la Condesa. María Dominique Lopez portrays Sor Juana. Film created by Carson Gilmore of Vox Visceralis. Music recorded in Prague with BNO Chamber Orchestra through PARMA Recordings and is available on Navona Records)
Q&A: Carla Lucero and Alicia Gaspar de Alba
6 pm: Reception

Lecture: Intersectional Environmental Justice with Amelia Moore, Cornell University
2026-02-26 12:30 - 14:00 | 352 Haines Hall
Where: 353 Haines Hall
When: Thursday, February 26th, 2026 from 12:15pm-1:45pm
In this talk, Professor Moore will share her ideas about how engaged scholars can utilize intersectional environmental justice theory and praxis to combat our era of political polarization, ecological precarity, generational social inequity, and planetary uncertainty. Drawing examples from two decades of inter and anti-disciplinary island-based research, she describes both problematic and promising forms of socioecological knowledge production, the frameworks that can inform our methodologies, and the implications of this work for the future.
