Graduate Lecture & Mixer: War, Migration, and Asymmetrical Gender Transformations in Ukrainian Households
2026-02-25 16:30 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | 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.

Lecture: Kinship as Method: Rethinking Ethics, Collaboration, and Knowledge Production in Anthropology
2026-03-12 13:00 - 14:30 | Haines 352
Where: 353 Haines Hall
When: Thursday, March 12th, 2026 from 1 pm-2:30 pm
Lunch provided.
This lecture examines how long-term Indigenous collaboration in Papua New Guinea unsettles conventional anthropological approaches to ethics, method, and authorship. Grounded in kinship, reciprocity, and relational accountability, the work challenges extractive research models, short-term field engagements, and institutionalized ethics frameworks that separate knowledge production from moral obligation and social life. By treating kinship not as metaphor but as a methodological and ethical infrastructure, the lecture proposes alternative forms of collaboration, co-authorship, consent, and responsibility. These practices extend anthropology’s commitments to decolonial scholarship by reconfiguring what counts as evidence, expertise, and accountability in engaged environmental research.

Spring Book Swap + Books to Jails Drive
2026-03-17 - 2026-03-18
When: Tuesday March 17 – Wednesday, March 18, 10 am- 2 pm
Where: CSW|Streisand Center Office, 1500 Public Affairs (Located across from Jimmy’s Coffee House)
Join us for the CSW|Streisand Center Spring 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.

"Nakba as Wounding Ecology" with Dr. Sherena Razek
2026-04-02 12:00 - 13:45 | 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.

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
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.
We invite you to join us for the official launch of our 2025-2026 research report. We are excited to present our findings and recommendations with you.

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
Free registration here

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.
