LADINO In & Beyond the Home
2025-04-02 09:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | CA
In its thirteenth consecutive year, the ucLADINO conference supports and celebrates the growing preservation of Ladino language and culture in the Judeo-Spanish diaspora. The theme for this year’s ucLADINO conference centers around Ladino in and beyond the home, exploring language and culture in domestic spaces and in migration. How has Ladino taken shape within domestic worlds and how has Ladino adapted in transit, carried from one home to the next?

RSVP Here

Jewish Critiques of Zionism and the Weaponization of Antisemitism
2025-04-02 18:30 - 20:00 | CA
When: Wednesday, April 2, 6:30 pm
Register for location:
https://tinyurl.com/critiquesofzionism

Join us for a panel discussion between progressive and left-wing Jews about their relationships to Palestine and Israel, critical perspectives on the recent arrest of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, and interpretations and responses to charges of antisemitism deployed in opposition to racial justice work by the Trump administration, the UCLA administration, and the political right.

Featuring: Izzy Cortes, Michal David, Benjamin Kersten, Beth Ribet, and Noah Zatz
Chaired by Hannah Appel

Beyond Barbie
2025-04-06 - 2025-06-08 | Billy Wilder Theater, 10899 Wilshire Blvd.,, Los Angeles, CA, 90024, United States
Presented by the UCLA Film & Television Archive
When: April 6 – June 8
Where: Billy Wilder Theater, Hammer Museum
Free | No advance reservations. 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. The box office opens one hour before the event.
Writer Isabel Cristo describes the essence of girlhood as a “before time,” untouched by the weighty choices of adulthood — marriage, careers, caretaking. Though often disrupted by reality, girlhood remains a space of unfiltered potential, free from feminism’s historical burdens. Cinema has long confined it to familiar narratives, typically shaped by a girl’s longing for male validation. This series seeks to redefine coming-of-age narratives about girlhood by showcasing films made mostly by women filmmakers from across the globe whose work challenges conventions and is united in their shared focus on a girl’s desire to know and express herself. By foregrounding a protagonist’s self-discovery and agency, these narratives insist that a girl’s psyche — no matter how wounded or raw — is worth exploring. Infused with rare, aching empathy, they illuminate feminine characters whose multi-dimensional stories have too often been absent from cinema. Through them, girlhood emerges as complex, vibrant and inherently cinematic.
Learn more.

UCLA Center for Reproductive Science, Health and Education Distinguished Speaker Series
2025-04-07 17:00 - 18:00 | CA
Please join us for this timely event in which Elizabeth Dias, the New York Times national religion correspondent, will be discussing her bestselling book, “The Fall of Roe: The Riseof a New America,” co-authored with Lisa Lerer. Opening remarks will be provided by Dr.Tracy Johnson, dean of UCLA Division of Life Sciences.
Monday, April 7, 2025 5:00 p.m. PT
Book signing to follow
Location: California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI)UCLA Campus
Registration is required. Seating is first come, first served and is not guaranteed.
RSVP here.
About the event: Elizabeth Dias is the national religion correspondent for The New York Times andhas reported on religion and politics for 15 years. She covers the shifting expressions of belief andpower in American society, and the values, emotions and people that shape public life. She hasreported from more than 30 states and written about religion in four presidential elections. She joinedThe Times in 2018, and reported as part of the national and political reporting teams. Previously shecovered religion, politics and national news at Time magazine, where she traveled with Pope Francis,interviewed the Dalai Lama and explored conservative Christianity’s rise to power with the Trumpmovement. She is a graduate of Wheaton College and has a master of divinity degree from PrincetonTheological Seminary. She is from Arizona by way of Ohio, Germany and Canada, and now lives inWashington. She is the co-author of the national bestselling book “The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a NewAmerica,” with her New York Times colleague Lisa Lerer.

Criminal Justice Law Review 2025: On Carceral Feminism
2025-04-11 09:30 - 16:00 | CA
When: April 11 9:30-4pm
Where: Room 1420
RSVP: tinyurl.com/cjlrsymposium
Restorative Justice Panel & Individual Scholar Presentations

On the Relationship between American Feminism and the Criminal System at 9:45-10:20 Aya Gruber (USC Gould School of Law)
On Responses to Gender-Based Violence at 10:25-11:10
Leigh Goodmark (University of Maryland Carey School of Law)
On Immigration x Abolition Feminism at 11:15-12:00 Lee Ann Wang (UCLA)
On Participatory Defense Campaigns at 1:00-1:45 Colby Lenz (UCLA Center for the Study of Women), Alisa Bierria (UCLA)
On the Changing Landscape/Organizing Efforts to Resist at 1:45-2:20 Erica Miners (Northeastern Illinois University) Restorative Justice Panel at 2:25 – 3:50 Mimi Kim (California State University, Long Beach), Grace Carson (National Center on Restorative Justice, UCLA Law Alumni), Donna Coker (UMiami School

POSTPONED: Sahq, Dirt, Shaheed: Queer Poetics and Palestinian Resistance
2025-04-11 17:00 - 18:30 | UCLA Mathias Botanical Garden, 707 Tiverton Drive, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED TO FALL 2025.

Date: April 11, 2025
Time: 5 – 6:30 pm
Location: UCLA Mathias Botanical Garden
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:
UCLA Gender Studies
UCLA American Indian Studies Center
UCLA Near Easthern Languages and Cultures
UCLA American Indian Studies
UCLA English
UCLA Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Queer Studies
UCLA Asian American Studies
UCLA Asian American Studies Center

Among Women Across Worlds: North Korea in Global Cold War
2025-04-22 16:00 - 17:00 | 10383 Bunche Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
Professor, Suzy Kim, Rutgers University
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
4:00 PM (Pacific Time)
Bunche Hall, Rm 10383
While social movements may appear to have receded in the 1950s with the rise of Cold War domesticity and McCarthyism (much like the upsurge of authoritarianisms today), the Korean War galvanized women to promote women’s rights in the context of the first global peace campaign during the Cold War. Recuperating the erasure of North Korean women from this movement, this talk excavates buried histories of Cold War sutures to show how leftist women tried to bridge the Cold War divide through maternalist strategies. Socialist feminism in the context of a global peace movement facilitated a productive
understanding of “difference” toward a transversal politics of solidarity. The talk weaves together the women’s press with photographs and archival film footage to contemplate their use in transnational movements of resistance and solidarity, both then and now.
Suzy Kim is a historian and teaches at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She is author of Everyday Life in the North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950 published by Cornell University Press in 2013 and Among Women across Worlds: North Korea in the Global Cold War also published by Cornell in 2023. She is senior editor of positions: asia critique, and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Korean Studies and Yŏsŏng kwa yŏksa [Women and History], the Journal of the Korean Association of Women’s History. As a public scholar, she has been an advocate for social justice and peace in Korea as a founding member of Women Cross DMZ.
Learn more

UCLA Editor-in-Residence Public Events with Courtney Berger
2025-04-23 10:30 - 2025-04-24 17:30 | Hershey Salon
UCLA Editor-in-Residence Public Events with Courtney Berger, Executive Editor, Duke University Press
RSVP for one or both events.
Hershey Salon 158
Wednesday, April 23, 10:30 am-11:30 am: Talk
Talk: Writing Books People Will Want to Read: Advice for First-Time Authors
Thursday, April 24, 4:00-5:45 pm: Panel
Panel & Reception: Writing and Publishing as a Scholar-Activist

Talk: Writing Books People Will Want to Read: Advice for First-Time Authors
We will discuss some of the most common issues that first-time authors face during the writing and publishing process. Berger will offer guidance on how to conceptualize a scholarly book project, put together a book proposal, and make the most of the peer review process. She will also offer strategies for finding the right publisher and working with an acquisitions editor. This will be an informal workshop designed to help first-time authors navigate the publication process and think about the purpose and reach of their writing. There will be plenty of time for discussion, so please bring your questions!

Panel & Reception: Writing and Publishing as a Scholar-Activist
In this conversation, Courtney Berger (Executive Editor at Duke University Press) and members from the UCLA community—Colby Lenz, Juan Herrera, Kian Goh, Lee Ann Wang—will discuss the challenges and rewards of writing as both scholar and activist. We will address a range of questions that scholar-activists navigate in their work and in their writing. What does it mean to be a scholar-activist and how does it change the kind of writing you do? How do you negotiate the competing demands of activism and the university? How do you write in a way that will reach both scholarly and non-scholarly audiences? And how do you maintain ethical relations with the communities you work with while doing scholarly work?

About the Editor-in-Residence
Courtney Berger (she/they) is Executive Editor at Duke University Press. She joined the Press in 2003, after receiving her Ph.D. in English from Johns Hopkins University. Courtney acquires books across the humanities and social sciences, including American studies, Native American and Indigenous studies, Asian American studies, queer, trans, and gender studies, media and technology, and environmental humanities. Berger seeks out books that are theoretically and politically engaged and that speak to a wide, interdisciplinary audience. They have published books by many prominent scholars, but also enjoy collaborating with first-time authors who are in the process of establishing their critical voice.
Friendly Reminder: Seating is on a first come, first served basis. Due to the high percentage of no-shows, we do overbook our events. Therefore, a reservation does not guarantee a seat, so we suggest you arrive early. We appreciate your understanding and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Cosponsored By:
CSW|Barbra Streisand Center
UCLA Social Sciences
UCLA Humanities
UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music
UCLA Bixby Center to Advance Sexual and Reproductive Health Equity

"Evelyn Nakano Glenn and the Feminist Work of Studying Women's Labor"
2025-04-25 12:00 - 13:30 | Center for the Study of Women, 1500 Public Affairs
UCLA Transnational Gender and Labor Working Group Presents:
“Evelyn Nakano Glenn and the Feminist Work of Studying Women’s Labor” By Laura Hyun-Yi Kang, Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at UC Irvine
Join us for a public lecture on scholar Evelyn Nakano Glenn’s abiding commitment to illuminating the historical and contemporary experiences of working women as part of her prolific writing on racialized and gendered labor, citizenship, family and care work.
When: April 25th @ 12-1:30 pm
Where: CSW|Streisand Center conference space (1500 Public Affairs)
Lunch provided with RSVP.
RSVP: forms.gle/j4г77v8rCiBRDmia9

Black Study Days by Whistle Space
2025-04-28 - 2025-04-30 | CA
Mark your calendars: Black Study Days is happening April 28–30 at Kaufman Hall, UCLA!
Join Whistle Space for a powerful three-day symposium centering Black arts, scholarship, embodiment, and resistance. Hosted in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance and initiated by Associate Professor Will Rawls, Whistle Space is a platform for artistic and political research—part residency, part somatic nourishment.
Through conversations, workshops, and movement, we’ll explore the body as a site of knowledge, care, and power. This is a space for deep listening, radical imagination, and collective study.
When: April 28–30
Where: Kaufman Hall, UCLA
Free & open to UCLA graduate students

Faculty Writing Retreat: May 2025
2025-05-09 10:00 - 16:00 | Hershey Salon
Do you want to block out a day for writing and contemplation? The quarterly 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.
When: Friday, May 9, 2025, 10 am-4 pm
Where: Hershey Hall Salon Room 158
On-site space is limited. Virtual option available.
RSVP Here:
https://facultywritingretreat2025.eventbrite.com

"From Ground Zero" Screening
2025-05-09 14:00 - 17:00 | CA
Where: Kinsey Pavilion 1220B
When: Friday, May 9, 2 pm
Join us for a screening of From Ground Zero, an anthology project comprised of 22 short films created by filmmakers from Gaza. Launched by renowned Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi, the initiative was created during the current 2023/2024 conflict and aims to provide a platform for young Palestinian artists to express themselves through their craft.
Each film, ranging in length from three to six minutes, presents a unique perspective on the current reality in Gaza. The project captures the diverse experiences of life in the Palestinian enclave, including the challenges, tragedies, and moments of resilience faced by its people. Using a mix of genres including fiction, documentary, docu-fiction, animation, and experimental cinema, From Ground Zero presents a rich diversity of stories that reflect the sorrow, joy and hope inherent in Gazan life.

Symposium – Women and Goddesses in Jainism
2025-05-23 08:00 - 17:00 | Hershey Salon
Photo credit: Samyak Modi
When: Friday, May 23
Where: Hershey Hall Salon
Throughout the history of Jainism, one of the world’s oldest living religions, Jain women have played a crucial role. Jain renouncers, whose self-denying lifestyle is revered as the highest ideal, are predominantly female, while Jain laywomen tend to be significantly more religiously active than their male counterparts. In this symposium, speakers will provide a range of perspectives on human and divine womanhood in Jain life and thought. Talks will cover the definition of gender in Jain philosophical texts, Jain goddess-worship and changing gender roles in the contemporary Jain diaspora.
RSVP here for this in-person event.
Register here for a Zoom link.

SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE:
2:00 – 2:05: Welcome and introduction, Anahita Hoose (UCLA), symposium organizer & moderator
2:05 – 2:45: Ana Bajželj (UC Riverside): Defining Gender in Śvetāmbara Texts
2:45 – 3:30: Venu Mehta (Claremont School of Theology): Reconceptualizing “Goddess” in Jainism: Devotional Practices for the Jain Goddess Padmāvatī among the Śvetāmbar Mūrtipūjak Jains in Gujarat
3:30 – 3:45: Break
3:45 – 4:30: Shivani Bothra (Cal State Long Beach): Spiritual Equality or Social Boundaries: Redefining Gender Roles in Diasporic Jainism
4:30 – 5:00: Concluding Discussion

SYMPOSIUM PRESENTERS AND DESCRIPTIONS OF THEIR PAPERS:
Ana Bajželj is Associate Professor and Shrimad Rajchandra Endowed Chair in Jain Studies in the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of California, Riverside. She was previously a research fellow at the University of Rajasthan and the Polonsky Academy (Van Leer Jerusalem Institute), and she taught at the University of Ljubljana and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research focuses on Jain philosophy, particularly metaphysics, ethics, and philosophy of mind. She is the author of The Nature of Change in Jaina Philosophy (Ljubljana University Press, 2016, in Slovenian) and the co-author of Insistent Life: Principles for Bioethics in the Jain Tradition (UC Press, 2021). She is currently working on a monograph study of the Tattvārthasūtra and its commentaries.
“Defining Gender in Śvetāmbara Texts”
This presentation analyzes Jain canonical definitions of the term “man” (puruṣa) from a set of standpoints listed in the Sthānāṅga (Ṭhāṇaṃga). These include (1) name (nāman), representation (sthāpanā), and potentiality (dravya); (2) knowledge (jñāna), view (darśana), and conduct (caritra); (3) sexual orientation (veda), mark (cihna), and (verbal) expression (abhilāpa); and (4) superiority (uttamapuruṣa), mediocrity (madhyamapuruṣa), and inferiority (jaghanyapuruṣa), each with three further subcategories. The presentation explores the semantic range of the term indicated by these standpoints by examining similar passages in other Śvetāmbara texts and considers its significance within the broader context of the Jain discussions on gender.
Dr. Venu Mehta is an Assistant Professor of Jainism and Comparative Spiritualities at the Claremont School of Theology. Her research primarily focuses on Jainism, with a specialization in Jain regional-vernacular devotional literature, narratives, and practices. Her doctoral dissertation examines the devotion to the Jain goddess Padmāvatī among Śvetāmbar Mūrtipūjak Jains in Gujarat, highlighting the interplay between regional devotional expressions and broader Jain theological frameworks.
Beyond her work on Jain goddess traditions, Dr. Mehta’s scholarship extends to the Jain concept of forgiveness and the intersections of aparigraha (non-possessiveness) with human dignity, sustainability, and Gandhian economic thought. Her recent research and publications also engage in Jain-Hindu comparative theologies and spiritualities, particularly in relation to goddess traditions.
In addition to her expertise in Jain studies, Dr. Mehta teaches courses on South Asian religious traditions, comparative spiritualities, and gender and women in spiritual practices. Her methodological approach integrates ethnographic research with textual analysis, emphasizing the lived experiences, devotional expressions, and ritual practices of Jain communities.
“Reconceptualizing “Goddess” in Jainism: Devotional Practices for the Jain Goddess Padmāvatī among the Śvetāmbar Mūrtipūjak Jains in Gujarat”
This presentation explores how Śvetāmbar Mūrtipūjak Jains in Gujarat reconceptualize the goddess Padmāvatī through their devotional practices, positioning her as a central female form of divinity within Jain religious tradition. Though Jainism primarily emphasizes the worship of the Tīrthaṅkars, Padmāvatī, a śāsanadevatā (guardian deity) and yakṣī of Pārśvanāth, has been accorded exceptional devotion. By examining vernacular literature, narratives, and regional practices from the late sixteenth century to contemporary times, I argue that Jains in Gujarat have actively shaped a distinct space for goddess worship, elevating Padmāvatī from an attendant deity to Śakti, the Great Goddess, and the Mother Goddess. This process of reimagining Padmāvatī involves a synthesis of universal Jain values with regional devotional expressions, contributing to the dynamics of democratization, universalization, and regionalization in Jain religious life. Lay Jains play a crucial role in this transformation, engaging with Padmāvatī’s legacy through non-esoteric devotional practices and literature, thus reaffirming her place within their religious framework. Ultimately, this presentation highlights how Padmāvatī’s evolving identity reflects broader patterns of Jain devotionalism, redefining the boundaries of feminine divinity within the Jain tradition in Gujarat.
Shivani Bothra is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at California State University, Long Beach. Before this, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Rice University in Houston, USA, and taught as a lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She earned her doctorate from the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. Her focus is South Asian traditions, Jainism, and Nonviolence. Shivani’s primary research areas are religious education and transnational Jainism, emphasizing Contemporary Jains.
“Spiritual Equality or Social Boundaries: Redefining Gender Roles in Diasporic Jainism”
This paper critically examines how gender roles in Jain diasporic communities are being redefined or reframed in ways distinct from traditional Indian contexts. How do education, modern professions, business ethics, and transnational networks influence the agency and status of Jain laywomen? In what ways do diasporic Jain women navigate their identities, negotiating between Indian religious traditions and evolving feminist discourses in their new sociocultural environments? Drawing on structured interviews with early Jain diaspora women, this research aims to shed light on the evolving spiritual and social roles of Jain women in a transnational context, assessing the extent to which diasporic Jainism fosters new models of gender participation and leadership.
This event is presented by the UCLA Center for the Study of Religion. It is co-sponsored by the UCLA Center for the Study of Women | Barbra Streisand Center.

Fighting Two Battles: Inside California’s Inmate Firefighting Program
2025-05-27 19:30 - 21:30 | UCLA Hammer Museum – Galleries, 10899 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90024, United States
When: Tuesday May 27, 2025, 7:30 PM
Where: Hammer Museum
Learn more.
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. Box office opens one hour before the event.
Among those fighting the L.A. fires earlier this year were incarcerated individuals participating in California’s controversial inmate firefighting program. This forum examines the program from the perspectives of formerly incarcerated firefighters, including issues around compensation and potential program reforms.
Moderator Romarilyn Ralston, a black feminist abolitionist who served 23 years in prison and now leads the Justice Education Center for the Claremont Colleges, will guide a discussion with panelists Cody Ridley, Lead Captain of the Golden Eagles Hotshots at Sycuan Indian Reservation and a former inmate firefighter; Brooks Tims, combat veteran, EMT, and Lead Wildland Firefighter with the inmate firefighters program; and Amika Mota, Executive Director of Sister Warriors Freedom Coalition and former incarcerated firefighter who authored a moving op-ed in Teen Vogue on her experiences.

Photo caption: A line of inmates dressed in orange firefighting gear, digging a trench Inmate firefighters dig a containment line as they battle the Palisades Fire on January 11, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.

Cristina Pérez Díaz to present “From the Founding of the Country” on May 29
2025-05-29 17:00 - 19:00 | Dodd Room 248
The UCLA Departments of Classics, English, Spanish & Portuguese, Chicano/a & Central American Studies, as well as the Center for the Study of Women proudly present a reading of “From the Founding of the Country” by classicist, writer, and translator Cristina Pérez Díaz (University of Puerto Rico) followed by a conversation with UCLA Professor Patrícia Lino (Department of Spanish & Portuguese) on May 29 in Dodd 248 at 5pm.

Book Swap and Mini Library Launch
2025-06-02 10:30 - 2025-06-04 16:30 | Center for the Study of Women, 1500 Public Affairs
Join us for the CSW|Streisand Center Spring Book Swap! Bring a wrapped book or wrap one at our center; add a hint note, and swap with others. We will provide wrapping paper and gift tags for adding yours to the mix. Any genre is welcome.
We are also excited to announce the launch of our new mini library! Visitors are welcome to donate and check out books around social justice.
Come and enjoy a free book, refreshments, stickers, and good vibes!
When: Monday June 2-Wednesday, June 4
10:30 am-4:30 pm
Where: CSWIStreisand Center Office

Activists-in-Residence Closing Reception
2025-06-03 17:00 - 19:00 | 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
