"Nakba as Wounding Ecology" with Dr. Sherena Razek
2026-04-02 12:00 - 13:45 (America/Los_Angeles) | Haines 352
Culture, Power, Social Change presents “Nakba as Wounding Ecology” with Dr. Sherena Razek, President’s and Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, UCLA, Gender Studies.
When: Thursday, April 2
Lunch: 12 pm. Talk: 12:15 – 1:45 pm
Where: Haines Hall 352
No registration required. First come, first served for lunch.
Join a talk by Dr. Sherena Razek, Nakba as Wounding Ecology, with lunch provided.
In this talk, Sherena reflects on how the Palestinian condition can reshape the way we understand the climate crisis, approaching the Nakba as a form of “wounding ecology.” Moving across land and body, symbol and materiality, she brings together questions of settler colonialism, indigenous resistance, and environmental catastrophe in ways that highlight their deep interconnectedness and urgency.
Dr. Sherena Razek is a diasporic Palestinian feminist educator, scholar, activist, and labor organizer. She is currently a President’s and Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Gender Studies at UCLA and earned her PhD in Modern Culture and Media from Brown University. Her research engages Palestinian visual culture, anti-imperialist struggle, and decolonial feminist ecologies, and her writing has appeared in The Journal of Palestine Studies, Women & Performance, InVisible Culture, and Social Text.

Conversation with Sara Porkalob
2026-04-06 15:30 - 17:00 | East Melnitz Hall, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, 235 Charles E Young Dr N, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
When: Monday, April 6, 3:30 – 5 pm
Where: East Melnitz Hall 302

Join us for a causal conversation with playwright and performer Sara Porkalob, whose work explores Filipina-American identity, family history, and intergenerational storytelling. The discussion will focus on Dragon Mama, the second installment of The Dragon Cycle, following students’ viewing at the Geffen Playhouse.

Gender, Criminalization, Authoritarianism, and Agency with Andrea Ritchie
2026-04-08 11:00 - 12:30 | Rolfe 2125
When: April 8th from 11:00AM -12:30PM
Where: Rolfe 2125
Join us for a powerful conversation on gender criminalization, authoritarianism, and agency with Andrea Ritchie. This event will explore how systems of policing and surveillance disproportionately impact marginalized communities while examining the broader rise of authoritarian practices.
Andrea Ritchie is a writer, lawyer, and activist for women of color, especially LGBTQ women of color, who have been victims of police violence. Drawing on her extensive work as a scholar, organizer, and author, Ritchie will unpack the ways in which gender is used as a tool of control within legal and social systems.

UCLA Center for Reproductive Science, Health and Education Distinguished Speaker Series ft. Teresa K. Woodruff
2026-04-08 16:00 | CNSI Auditorium
Where: California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI), UCLA Campus

When: Wednesday, April 8th at 4pm PT
Teresa K. Woodruff, Ph.D. is a leader in higher education and an internationally recognized biologist specializing in reproductive science. Woodruff is president emerita of Michigan StateUniversity (MSU) and MSU Research Foundation Distinguished Professor in the Department of Obstetrics,Gynecology, and Reproductive Biology as well as in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at MSU. In 2006, she coined the term “oncofertility” to describe the merging of two fields: oncology and fertility preservation. Working at the national level, Woodruff championed a new National Institutes of Health Policy mandating the inclusion of both male and female biological variables in fundamental research. As a leading research scientist, teacher and mentor, Woodruff was awarded the National Medal of Science byPresident Joe Biden in 2025 and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science
RSVP Here

Dreaming Together: California Student Survivors Reimagining Campus Responses to Sexual Violence
2026-04-10 10:00 - 12:00 | Royce Hall
Event Video

Event Details
Where: Royce 314 + Zoom
When: Friday, April 10th from 10:00 AM-12:00 PM PT
Survivors + Allies is a UCLA-student organization within the CSW|Barbra Streisand Center dedicated to advocating with and for survivors of sexual violence and sexual harassment (SVSH). Over the past year, we conducted a mixed-methods research study across California college campuses, including the University of California (UC), California State University (CSU), and community college systems, to better understand the conditions that enable or prevent student-survivor healing.

Beyond the Concrete: A Conversation About the Lost Art of Letter Writing with John Rodriguez
2026-04-14 16:00 - 17:00 | Virtual
When: April 14, 2026 at 4 pm PST
Where: Virtual
John Rodriguez is a UCLA alumnus whose sentence was commuted by the California Governor in 2017 after he discovered a life-changing passion for education while incarcerated. Today, he serves as the Education and Communications Manager at Root & Rebound, leveraging storytelling to bring visibility to overlooked narratives. John dreams of returning to prison someday—not as an inmate, but as a teacher with the power to help others find their way out through education. Prabhat Gautam will be introducing and interviewing John Rodriguez.
The event is part of a Fiat Lux Seminar “Law, Justice, Literary Production, and Education Behind Bar” in the Department of English. This talk is co-sponsored by the CSW|Streisand Center.
All all welcome to attend via zoom.
Meeting ID: 927 8244 7447
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Thinking Gender 2026: Feminist and Queer Ecologies
2026-04-17 | James West Alumni Center, 325 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Thinking Gender 2026
36th Annual Graduate Student Research Conference
“Feminist and Queer Ecologies”
Friday, April 17, 2026
James West Alumni Center, UCLA Campus
View Conference Program and Schedule
Watch Videos from Thinking Gender 2026

Join us for a day of graduate student presentations highlighting innovative research at the intersections of gender, sexuality, environment, and justice. The conference will feature keynote speaker Cutcha Risling Baldy (Cal Poly Humboldt; NAS Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab & Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute), whose work centers Indigenous feminisms, land relations, and food sovereignty.
“Feminist and Queer Ecologies,” explores how environments and ecologies are shaped, understood, and contested through relations of sex, gender, and sexuality. The theme also considers how feminist and queer theorists, artists, and organizers have drawn on ecological processes and environmental knowledge to build new insights, movements, and practices.
Gendered and colonial ideas of wilderness, domesticity, and reproduction have historically shaped landscapes and environmental policy. At the same time, feminist and queer methodologies—from place-based storytelling to multimodal practice—offer critical tools for climate resilience, environmental justice, and community well-being. Around the world, social movements resisting environmental injustice—from Standing Rock to Flint, from the Everglades to rural India—have been led by women and gender-expansive people. Climate change and climate justice continue to affect communities differentially along lines of gender, sexuality, race, and class, revealing how struggles for ecological flourishing are inseparable from feminist and queer justice.
Feminist and queer ecologies demand multidisciplinary collaboration. This year’s theme invites environmental scientists, humanists, social scientists, artists, organizers, and practitioners to come together across methods, disciplines, temporalities, species, and geographies. It encourages experimentation with scientific inquiry, ethnography, storytelling, political theory, environmental history, modeling, and other forms of knowledge-making and truth-telling.

Conference Keynote:
“Indigenous Women Know How to Save the World: Framing a California Indigenous Ecofeminist Ethic.”

This talk builds a California Indigenous ecofeminist ethic grounded in place, fugitivity, resistance, and humor. It asks what it means to rethink how we talk about climate change and to recognize how land, water, and more than human relatives model resilience, refusal, and justice. By examining examples from California such as the damming, diversion, and even paving over of rivers, this talk argues that environmental devastation is not a future fear but an ongoing history that Indigenous peoples have survived and theorized for generations. Green colonialism, conservation land grabs, and the expectation that Indigenous communities must solve climate change while contributing the least to it exposes the absurdity and gaslighting in contemporary environmental discourse and policy. At the same time, Indigenous women who have long been leaders in ecological knowledge and restoration are kept busy navigating patriarchal structures rather than being supported as the scientific and cultural leaders they already are. Ultimately, this talk explores how the world around us is already feminist, already resistant, and already offering models for collective thriving beyond capitalism, patriarchy, and extraction. Indigenous peoples carry structures and methodologies that are sustainable, relational, and deeply grounded in place. We have lived them. And we are still building these futures now.
Cutcha Risling Baldy, Associate Professor of Native American Studies at Cal Poly Humboldt researches Indigenous feminisms, California Indians, Environmental Justice, Traditional Ecological Knowledge and decolonization. She is also the Co-Director of the NAS Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab & Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute.
In 2025 Dr. Risling Baldy along with Co-Director Dr. Kaitlin Reed were awarded the James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award for their work with the lab. Her book: We Are Dancing For You: Native feminisms and the revitalization of women’s coming-of-age ceremonies received “Best First Book in Native American and Indigenous Studies” at the 2019 Native American Indigenous Studies Association Conference. She received her Ph.D. in Native American Studies at UC Davis; her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from San Diego State University; and her B.A. in Psychology with a Specialization in Health and Development from Stanford University. She is also the volunteer Executive Director for the Native Women’s Collective, a nonprofit organization that focuses on the continued revitalization of Native American arts and culture. She is Hupa, Karuk, and Yurok and enrolled in the Hoopa Valley Tribe.
Thinking Gender Blog Posts

Fire Tender Film Screening
Tuesday, February 10, 2026
12:15–1:15 PM | CSW|Streisand Center
Join us for a screening of Fire Tender, directed by Roni Jo Draper (Yurok), 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.

Cosponsors
African American Studies Department
American Indian Studies Center
American Indian Studies Department
Anthropology Department
Asian American Studies Center
Asian American Studies Department
Bixby Center to Advance Sexual and Reproductive Health Equity
Center for Community Engagement
Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice & Health
Chicana/o and Central American Studies Department
Chicano Studies Research Center
Critical Race Studies Program (Law)
Department of Geography
Disability Studies
English Department
Gender Studies Department
Graduate Division
Humanities Division
Information Studies Department
Institute of American Cultures
Institute of Society and Genetics
Institute of the Environment and Sustainability
Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin
International Institute
Iris Cantor Women’s Health Center
Labor Center
Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies
LGBTQ Campus Resource Center
LGBTQ Studies Program
Luskin Center for Innovation
Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies
School of Engineering
School of the Arts and Architecture
School of Theater, Film and Television
Social Welfare Department
Sociology Department
Water Resources Group
Friendly Reminder: Seating is first-come, first-served. Due to frequent no-shows, we overbook our events; a reservation does not guarantee a seat. Please arrive early. We appreciate your understanding.

Book Event: Queer Throughlines: Spaces of Queer Activism in South Korea and the Korean Diaspora
2026-04-21 14:00 - 16:00 | 10383 Bunche Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
Prof. Ju Hui Judy Han (UCLA) joined by Prof. Giancarlo Cornejo Salinas (UCLA), Prof. Grace Kyung-won Hong (UCLA), Laura Hyun Yi Kang (UC Irvine), and Dr. Yeong Ran Kim
Tuesday, April 21, 2026
2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Bunche Hall, Room 10383

About the Book
Queer Throughlines draws on years of direct participation, interviews, and ethnography to examine transnational Korean LGBTQ+ activism since the 1990s. Han maps the sites and routes of leftist and queer political movements, highlighting challenges posed by Christian conservatives in both South Korea and the United States. The book uses the concept of “throughlines” to weave together a web of movement stories across time and space: a coalition of Los Angeles-based LGBTQ+ activists and allies fighting an anti-gay petition campaign led by Korean immigrant churches; queer activists involved in anti-war protests in Seoul; progressive clergy embracing inclusivity and risking heresy charges and excommunication; and queer and trans activists refusing to be sidelined form visions of political change underway. These moments do not always line up in a straightforward narrative of victory of progress, yet they create powerful lines of solidarity, community, and kinship.
Moderated by Grace Kyung-won Hong (Asian American Studies and Gender Studies at UCLA, it will begin with brief comments by Ju Hui Judy Han (Gender Studies at UCLA) and then shift to an open ended dialogue among panelists, with Giancarlo Cornejo Salinas (Gender Studies at UCLA), Laura Hyun Yi Kang (Gender & Sexuality Studies at UC Irvine), and Yeong Ran Kim.
Discussion
Moderated by Prof. Grace Kyung-won Hong, Dept. of Asian American Studies, UCLA

Our Universities on the Brink: The Institution and the Commons
2026-04-23 12:00 - 13:30 | Haines 352
CULTURE, POWER, SOCIAL CHANGE PRESENTS…
Charlie Hale, Dean of Social Sciences,
UC Santa Barbara
Our Universities on the Brink: The Institution and the Commons
Thursday 4.23.26
Haines Hall 352
12:15 PM
This paper builds from the premise that, to confront the multiple forces of disruption, all who inhabit universities are called upon to engage critical university studies. This is especially crucial for those who belong to the imagined “we” that Dean Hale invokes at the outset, since “our” efforts to advance and defend an alternative social purpose of the public university are most vulnerable to these forces. His analysis explores the general contours and contradictions of this work, and more specifically, what happens when the efforts are supported by the dean’s office.
Both the analysis, and his ideas for possible ways forward, rest on a distinction between the institution and the commons. This notion of the commons offers a means to fortify our defenses and inspire a collective sense of purpose as we engage in a necessary, and hopefully short-lived, strategic retreat.
Charlie Hale is the author of Resistance and Contradiction: Miskitu Indians and the Nicaraguan State, 1894-1987 (1994); and “Más que un indio…” Racial Ambivalence and Neoliberal Multiculturalism in Guatemala (2006); editor of Engaging Contradictions: Theory, Politics and Methods of Activist Scholarship (2008); co-editor (with Lynn Stephen) of Otros Saberes: Collaborative Research with Black and Indigenous Peoples in Latin America (2014); author of articles on activist scholarship, identity politics, racism, land rights and territorial autonomy, resistance to neoliberalism among Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples of Latin America. Director of LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections (UT Austin, 2009-16) and President of the Latin American Studies Association (2006-7).

"Dolores": Free Spring Film Screening by CSW|Streisand Center
2026-04-23 14:00 - 15:30 | 1500 Public Affairs
When: Thursday, April 23rd from 2-3:30pm
Where: Center for the Study of Women | Streisand Center, 1500 Public Affairs
Join us at CSW|Streisand Center for our Spring Film Screening of Dolores.
Dolores (2017) is a documentary directed by Peter Bratt that chronicles the life of Dolores Huerta, the undervalued co-founder of the United Farm Workers union. The film highlights her crucial role in fighting for labor rights, racial justice, and feminism, while exploring her life as a mother of 11 and her battle against sexism.
This event is FREE of cost! Additionally, popcorn and tea will be provided at the screening. We would love to see you there!

Political Ontology of the Closet with Sinan Birdal, Gender and Diversity Researcher, Freie Universitat Berlin
2026-04-30 12:30 - 14:00 | Rolfe Hall 2125
Political Ontology of the Closet: Elite Minorities and Sectarian Majorities in the Wilhemine Empire
When: Thursday, April 30, 12:30-1:45 pm
Where: 2125 Rolfe Hall
This talk develops a political ontology of minority articulation by examining divisions within the 19th century homosexual movement under conditions of repression. Sedgwick’s analysis of this movement emphasized the epistemological impasse between minoritizing and universalizing discourses of sexuality.
This talk shifts the focus from epistemology to political ontology.
Drawing on historical reconstruction and critical discourse analysis, the talk examines divisions within the German homosexual movement by focusing on the political thought and activism of Benedict Friedlaender, who attempted to mobilize a political field linking SPD revisionists, extra-parliamentary socialist critics, and left liberals in opposition to his main rival Hirschfeld’s SPD-loyal reform strategy. Friedlaender’s interventions demonstrate how competing sexual epistemologies reflected movement cleavages and contending strategies of minority and majority building. In this context, the talk develops a theory of political articulation by analyzing the relationship between party politics, social movement fragmentation, and coalition

Dean’s Lecture in Humanistic Inquiry: Kate Manne on Sensitivity and Survival
2026-04-30 16:00 - 18:00 | Royce 314
The Inaugural Dean’s Lecture in Humanistic Inquiry
Thursday, April 30
4 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Royce Hall Room 314
Free admission. Reception with light refreshments to follow lecture. Advance registration strongly recommended.
Presented by the UCLA College Division of Humanities
The Dean’s Lecture in Humanistic Inquiry is a biennial lecture dedicated to exploring cross-cutting topics and ideas in humanistic research and examining how humanistic inquiry connects to the most pressing questions of the day.
About our inaugural speaker
Kate Manne is a professor at the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University. She specializes in moral, social and feminist philosophy, and has written three books: DOWN GIRL: The Logic of Misogyny (Oxford University Press, 2018), ENTITLED: How Male Privilege Hurts Women (Crown, 2020) and UNSHRINKING: How to Face Fatphobia (Crown, 2024). In addition to her academic work, she regularly writes opinion pieces and essays for a wider audience, including in outlets such as The New York Times, The Cut, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Nation and Time. She writes a Substack newsletter, More to Hate, exploring misogyny, fatphobia and their intersection.
About Professor Manne’s lecture
Sensitivity and Survival
Accusations of oversensitivity are nowadays very common. Are they typically warranted? Is there in fact a scourge of snowflakes?
In this lecture, Kate Manne will distinguish three things that are commonly meant by “oversensitivity”: over-identification of instances, over-extension of the relevant concepts and over-reactions to the relevant harms or forms of injustice, such as sexism, misogyny and racism. Her talk will draw on two rich humanistic traditions: feminist epistemology and non-ideal theory.
While acknowledging that oversensitivity of all three kinds can and does occur, Manne will highlight and explore the comparatively under-emphasized converse dangers: the under-identification of instances, the under-extension of concepts, and under-reactions or the undermining of warranted reactions, respectively. In view of this, she concludes that what is called oversensitivity is often simply sensitivity: a normatively valuable and justified way of reacting to harms and injustices that often go under the radar in society as we know it.
Please visit this page to register.
Event cosponsors
Thank you to our cosponsors: UCLA Department of Philosophy, UCLA Department of Gender Studies, UCLA Center for the Study of Women | Streisand Center, and UCLA Program in Experimental Critical Theory

Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead | Book Talk and Signing with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
2026-05-12 14:30 - 16:30 | James West Alumni Center, 325 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
When: Tuesday, May 12th at 2:30pm
Where: Founder’s Room, James West Alumni Center
Join Leanne Betasamosake Simpson for a book talk and signing for her newest work, Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead. Leanne
Betasamosake Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg musician, writer, and academic. She is the author of eight books, including As We Have Always Done (winner of the NAISA subsequent book prize) and the novel Noopiming which was short listed for the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Dublin Literary Prize. Leanne’s new work, Theory of Water is a national best seller and won the Writer’s Trust Hilary Weston Prize for non-fiction. Leanne has lectured and taught extensively at universities across Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Europe and has over twenty years experience with Indigenous land based education.

Beyond Representation: Practicing Feminist Engineering featuring Regan Patterson
2026-05-20 15:30 - 17:00 | Center for the Study of Women, 1500 Public Affairs
Date: Wednesday, May 20th
Time: 3:30-5 PM
Location: Center for the Study of Women|Streisand Center
1500 Public Affairs
All are welcome! Open to students, faculty, staff, community members. Dr. Regan F. Patterson is an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, Principal Investigator of the Engineering Environmental Justice Lab, and a UCLA CSW|Barbra Streisand Environmental Justice Fellow. She was previously the Transportation Equity Research Fellow for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. Dr. Patterson earned her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from UC Berkeley.
Her research focuses on air quality, sustainable transportation, community engagement, and environmental justice. More specifically, she examines and models the impacts of transportation and infrastructure policies, alongside place-based, community-driven interventions, on air pollution exposure disparities and environmental justice outcomes.
No registration required. Seating is first come, first served.
Light refreshments to be provided.

Memory, Madness, Messianism: Thinking with My Father, the Messiah
2026-05-21 17:00 | Rolfe Hall 2125
Date: May 21st
Time: 5 P.M.
Location: 2125 Rolfe Hall (UCLA)
Featured Speaker: Gil Hochberg, Ransford Professor of Hebrew, Comparative Literature, and Middle East Studies at Columbia University, discussing her new memoir, My Father, the Messiah.
UCLA Panel:

Hannah Jakobsen (Comparative Literature)
Rachel Lee (English/Gender Studies/Institute of Society & Genetics)
Michael Rothberg (English/Comparative Literature)

Presented by: The Working Group in Memory Studies and the Abolition Medicine & Disability Justice (AM&DJ) Project.
Co-sponsored by: UCLA Center for the Study of Women/Barbra Streisand Center; UCLA Departments of Gender Studies, Comparative Literature, and English; UCLA Division of Humanities; and the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies.
Parking: Pay-by-space available in Lot Five (Level Six) and Lot Three.

Feminist Armenian Research Collective Workshop: New Directions in Music, Arts, and Performance Studies
2026-05-26 - 2026-05-27 | Schoenberg Music Building, 445 Charles E Young Dr E, Los Angeles, 90095, United States
When: May 26th-27th
Where: UCLA Schoenberg Music Building, Green Room
View full schedule here.
Join us for the Feminist Armenian Research Collective’s (FemARC) Third Workshop, New Directions in Music, Arts, and Performance Studies, which will be held at UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music’s Schoenberg Music Building on May 26–27, 2026. This workshop was organized by Melissa Bilal, Promise Chair in Armenian Music, Arts, and Culture at UCLA and Lerna Ekmekcioglu, McMillan-Stewart Professor of History at MIT.

On May 26th, panels will run all day in the Green Room from 9:30 am to 6:00 pm, followed by an album-launch concert “Piano Works of Koharik Gazarossian” by Nare Karoyan at Schoenberg Hall. The workshop’s concluding discussion session will take place on May 27th (10:00 am – 11:30 am) in the Green Room.

Cozy Book Swap + Books to Jails Drive
2026-06-02 10:00 - 2026-06-04 14:00 | 1500 Public Affairs
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: Tuesday, June 2nd – Thursday, June 4th, 10 am- 2 pm
Where: CSW|Streisand Center Office, 1500 Public Affairs (Located across from Jimmy’s Coffee House)

The Fire-Break: Latinx Fire Mitigation Workers and Settler Land Control in Southern California
2026-06-04 12:15 - 14:00 | 352 Haines Hall
CULTURE, POWER, SOCIAL CHANGE PRESENTS:
The Fire-Break: Latinx Fire Mitigation Workers and Settler Land Control in Southern California
Thursday 6.4.26 | Haines Hall 352 | 12:15 PM | Pizza served at noon
This presentation discusses the settler practice of managing fire risk to valorize property in Orange County’s wildland urban interface.
The presentation draws on four years of ethnographic research with Latinx fire mitigation workers in the chaparral canyon ecologies of Orange County. It also incorporates over three decades of archival materials from the Orange County Fire Authority and Dr. Zarate’s family’s involvement with the County of Orange fire mitigation program. The presentation contends that workers employ Migrant Ecological Knowledge, a practice grounded in the geographies of dispossession and displacement, to create forms of care and life in places where personal risks related to health, legal, and social precarity accumulate. These affective and social practices amongst workers denaturalize fire management across Southern California as a structure of risk-production that expands settler claims to land through regimes of racialized labor that seek to have Latinx migrants do the work of protecting property from fire and cultural obsolescence.
Salvador Zarate is an assistant professor in the department of anthropology at UC Irvine. His work dovetails ethnographic research with historical methods and centers on questions of racialized gender, labor, and the ecology. His recent work explores Latinx residential gardening, drought as a science of land domination, and wildfire as a cultural practice of racial domination and settler conquest. He has published in Anthropology of Work Review, Journal of Political Ecology, Feminist Formations, Catalyst, Practicing Anthropology, Latino Studies, Aztlan, and others. His co-written book on the politics of doing transformative community research, Transforming Science, will be published in May of this year.

Fetal Subjects and Legal Personhood in the Pre-Modern Catholic World: Theology, Medicine, and the Law
2026-06-08 - 2026-06-10 | 306 Royce Hall
The UCLA Department of History Presents: Fetal Subjects and Legal Personhood in the Pre-Modern Catholic World: Theology, Medicine, and the Law
Conference Program • June 8-10 • 306 Royce Hall, UCLA
Monday June 8
Block One: Theology and Embryology
10:00 | Daniel Sennert and the Problem of the Soul: From Generation to Theological Suspicion Joel Klein, The Huntington Library
10:45 | Politics of the Pure Body: Theology and Diplomacy in the Immaculate Conception Ana Sanchez Casado, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
11:30 | Out of Context: Sermons, Scripture, and Ensoulment in Cangiamila’s Sacred Embryology Karin Ekholm, Virginia Theological Seminary
Block Two: Evangelizing The Spanish Empire
1:15 | Cangiamila in Alta California: Pastoral Obstetrics in the Missions of Colonial California Anne Reid, CSU Fullerton
2:00 | Of Witnesses and Practitioners: Ordinary People, “Experts,” and Accounts of Cesarean Operations in the Spanish Empire Adam Warren, The University of Washington at Seattle
2:45 | The Early Uptake of Cesarean Surgery in Arizpe, Arizona, 1766
Elizabeth O’Brien, UCLA
4:30-6:00 Keynote 1: Abortion in Early Modern Italy John Christopoulos, University of British Columbia
Tuesday June 9
Block Three: Body and Soul in Iberia and Belgium
9:30 | “Peramorde Déu”:Cross-confessionalMidwiferyintheLateMedievalMediterranean World
Debra Blumenthal, UCSB
10:15 | Sacred Dietetics, or Ordinary and Extraordinary Fasting Spencer Weinreich, UCLA
11:00 | Aborting the Archive: Pregnancy Criminalization in Early Nineteenth Century Galicia
Mary Kate Wolken, University of Minnesota
11:45 | Cangiamila’s Afterlives: Ideological Conflict and the Postmortem Caesarean Section in Belgium Jolien Gijbels, Free University of Brussels
Block Four: Philanthropy, Obstetrics, and Midwifery in Sicily and France
1:30 | Fetal Subjects and Foundling Subjects in Early Modern Sicily Erin Maglaque, Durham University
2:15 | Midwifing Baptism: Promoting Catholicism through Parochial Midwifery Education in Languedoc Scottie Buehler, Texas State University
3:00 | When the Fetus Becomes a Child: Historicizing Fetal Viability in the Early 19th Century Jennifer Kosmin, Auburn University
4:30-6:00 Keynote 2: The Dangerous Womb: A History of Pregnancy Loss and Blame Kathleen Crowther, University of Oklahoma
Wednesday June 10
Block Five: Slavery and Legal Personhood
10:00 | Partus Sequitur Ventrem, Fetal Life, and Gendered Slavery in Colonial and 19th-Century Brazil Cassia Roth, University of California, Riverside
10:45 | Bearers of Interest: Slavery and Legal Personhood in Early Modern Havana Adriana Chira, Emory University
Zoom link:
https://ucla.zoom.us/j/4674787380

Second Chance Film Festival presented by PEP x BUS
2026-06-28 | Billy Wilder Theater, James Bridges Theater
A day of powerful stories, honest conversations, and community.

Join Prison Education Program & Bruin Underground Scholars for the Second Chance Film Festival, featuring screenings and discussions centered on incarceration, reentry, and what a second chance can look like.
UCLA James Bridges Theater
Sunday, June 28th
10:30 AM – 5:30 PM
Come watch films like The Alabama Solution, The Strike, and The Inside Scholars followed by meaningful conversation and reflection.
RSVP here.

"Legacy": Free Screening by UCLA Film & Television Archive
2026-06-28 19:00 - 21:00 | Billy Wilder Theater, 10899 Wilshire Blvd.,, Los Angeles, CA, 90024, United States
When: Sunday, June 28th at 7:00pm
Where: Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum
Join UCLA Film & Television Archive for a free screening of “Legacy”!
Directed by Karen Arthur, a first-time filmmaker, and independently produced, “Legacy” confounds 1970s Hollywood’s expectations with the introduction of a new kind of cinematic woman. Bissie (played by Joan Hotchkis) is a woman unraveling under the pressures of a vapid and materialistic society. She stuns audiences with her honesty that is confrontational, yet heartfelt, and her vulnerability.

Graduate Bruin Resource Fair
2026-09-17 10:30 - 13:00 | Royce Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, United States
CSW|Streisand Center is excited to join the UCLA Graduate Bruin Welcome Resource Fair! Stop by our table to pick up free swag and learn about resources for graduate students from the feminist research center.

UCLA’s True Bruin Welcome: Academic Open House
2026-09-23 10:00 - 16:00
When: Wednesday, September 23, 10 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.

Center for Reproductive Science, Health & Education Seminar Series
2026-10-02 - 2027-05-29
UCLA CRSHE Seminar Series 2026–2027
The UCLA Center for Reproductive Science, Health & Education (CRSHE) is pleased to announce its 2026–2027 Seminar Series, bringing together leading researchers and clinicians from across UCLA to explore the frontiers of reproductive science, metabolism, genetics, and women’s health. Held monthly throughout the academic year, each seminar spotlights a distinguished faculty member’s research and its impact on human health.
All seminars are free and open to the UCLA community. Learn more and register at reprohealth.ucla.edu/events.
Schedule
October 2 — Andrea Hevener, PhD
Professor-in-Residence, Medicine
November 6 — Heather Christofk, PhD
Professor, Biological Chemistry
December 11 — Peter Bradley, PhD
Professor, Microbiology, Immunology, & Molecular Genetics
January 8 — Rajita Patil, MD
Associate Clinical Professor, Obstetrics and Gynecology
February 5 — Sriram Eleswarapu, MD, PhD
Associate Clinical Professor, Urology
March 5 — Sanaz Memarzadeh, MD, PhD
Professor, Obstetrics and Gynecology
April 2 — Karen Reue, PhD
Distinguished Professor, Human Genetics
May 7 — Elaine Hsiao, PhD
Associate Professor, Integrative Biology and Physiology
May 29 — Yalda Afshar, MD, PhD
Associate Professor, Obstetrics & Gynecology
Spanning nine months and disciplines from molecular genetics to urology to maternal-fetal medicine, this year’s series reflects CRSHE’s mission to advance interdisciplinary understanding of reproductive science and health across the lifespan. Whether your interest lies in metabolic disease, immunology, cancer biology, or clinical obstetrics and gynecology, the series offers a window into the research shaping the future of the field.
For dates, times, locations, and registration details for each session, visit reprohealth.ucla.edu/events.

Immigrant Acts: A Symposium
2026-10-08 15:00 - 19:00 | UCLA Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center, Laureate Room, 425 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, 90095, United States
When: Thursday, October 8, 2026 3:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Where: Luskin Conference Center

Lisa Lowe’s groundbreaking book Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics made Asian American gendered radicalization central to understanding the relationship of state, capital, and culture. This 30th anniversary symposium traces its profound impact on a broad and sometimes unexpected set of debates across disciplines, geographies, and generations.
This event will take place in person at the University of California, Los Angeles in the Meyere and Renee Luskin Conference Center. The event is brought to you by The Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Department of Asian American Studies at UCLA with the generous support of the Asian American Studies Center at UCLA, The Barbra Streisand Center for the Study of Women, and the Gender Studies Department at UCLA
Featuring

Neda Atanasoski, Professor & Chair, Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, University of Maryland
Josen Diaz, Associate Professor, Department of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, University of California Santa Cruz
Gayatri Gopinath, Professor and Director, Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, New York University
Grace Hong, Professor, Department of Gender Studies, University of California Los Angeles
Jodi Kim, Professor, Department of English and Creative Writing, Dartmouth University
Jacob Lau, Associate Professor and Director, Program in Queer Studies, California State University Northridge
Chandan Reddy, Associate Professor, Department of Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies, University of Washington
Stephanie Smallwood, Associate ProfessorDepartment of History, University of Washington

with a response from Lisa Lowe, Professor, American Studies, Yale University

Leveraging the "Menopause Moment" to Demand Women's Health
2026-10-13 17:00 - 19:30 | James West Alumni Center, 325 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
When: Tuesday, October 13
5:00 PM – 7:30 PM
Where: James West Alumni Center, Los Angeles, CA

​Celebrating Jennifer Weiss-Wolf’s new book, When in Menopause: A User’s Manual and Citizen’s Guide, this discussion will bring together policy experts, UCLA’s leading menopause care provider, Dr. Rajita Patil, and groundbreaking reproductive scientist, Dr. Amander Clark to discuss why menopause care that is high-quality, inclusive, and affordable is still so difficult to access; why we still see a chronic inattention to and underinvestment in women’s health and research; and ways we can understand and use the “menopause moment” to reshape the national conversation about equity in women’s health. The evening will also feature special guests and refreshments.
​This event will be in person and streamed live online. A link to stream the event live will be sent to all attendees.

Distinguished Speaker Series featuring Dr. Daisy Robinton
2026-10-27 16:00 - 17:00 | CNSI Auditorium
UCLA Life Sciences Center for Reproductive Science, Health & Education presents:
Distinguished Speaker Series featuring Dr. Daisy Robinton, Founder & CEO of Oviva Therapeutics
Join us for a conversation with Dr. Daisy Robinton, a Harvard-trained molecular biologist and UCLA alumna leading the charge in women’s healthspan research. As founder of Oviva Therapeutics, Dr. Robinton is pioneering therapeutics that target ovarian physiology to help women live longer, healthier lives.
October 27, 2026 | 4:00 PM
California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI), UCLA
Registration coming soon
