Supporting scholarship that examines a broad range of identities, values, policies and behaviors is essential to recognizing and engaging with the diversity of the human experience. The Division of Social Sciences remains steadfast in its commitment to rigorously pursuing meaningful research, and appreciates the key role graduate students play as future thought leaders.

As the end of the calendar year approaches, the Division of Social Sciences announces the launch of a new effort to raise $50,000 before December 31, 2020 for the Dean’s Fund for the Study of Diversity and Racial Inequality to support diverse graduate student scholars. This newly established fund will ensure that the Division’s graduate students are offered the resources and support necessary to more broadly examine issues of racial justice in the community and beyond.

If you are able, please join in supporting the Division’s graduate students today.  To give now, click HERE.

 

Cheryl L. Keyes

Chair, UCLA Department of African American Studies

Professor of African American Studies, Ethnomusicology and Global Jazz Studies

invites you to attend

“Black Lives Matter – Past, Present, and Beyond” Lecture Series

featuring

Christopher Lebron,

Associate Professor of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University

The Beautiful Ugly Struggle:

How Black Lives Mattered to Angela Davis and Amiri Baraka

Friday, November 20, 2020 at 9:00am PST

Live Streaming via Zoom

RSVP Here

Please submit your questions in advance of the webinar via email to:

hnadworny@support.ucla.edu by Thursday, November 19 at 5:00 p.m.

Instructions to join the webinar will be provided once your registration has been confirmed.

 

UCLA graduate student Marina Perez interviews Dr. Nancy Mithlo, UCLA Professor of Gender Studies, about her two new books, Knowing Art (University of Nebraska Press) and Making History: IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (University of New Mexico Press). Dr. Mithlo discusses her extensive research with Native communities and the power and beauty of Native art.

For Tovaangar (LA Basin, So. Channel Islands) pronunciation, click HERE.

Interview Chapters:

:14 – Intro

1:41 – Contemporary Indigenous art and why it’s so important

3:24 – American Indian curatorial methodologies

6:53 – What is it like to work with and talk with our elders? Especially David Warren.

10:18 – How do you analyze the artworks?

16:15 – Any advice for artists, students, researchers during the pandemic?

Art work shared:

By the Water’s Edge (1987) bronze, Copyright Chiinde LLC (photo courtesy of Allan Houser)

Dawn (1989) bronze, Copyright Chiinde LLC (photo courtesy of Allan Houser)

To learn more, check out Professor Mithlo’s book Knowing Native Arts and Making History: IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts

 

Subscribe to L.A. Social Science and be the first to learn more insight and knowledge from UCLA’s Division of Social Science experts and other faculty about upcoming video/audio sessions and posts about current issues.

 

 

U Heard It Here: Understanding the 2020 Election Outcome

Michael Chwe,

Chair and Professor with the Department of Political Science,

invites you to attend a panel discussion featuring the following:

Lynn Vavreck

Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics

Efrén Pérez

Professor, UCLA Department of Political Science and Psychology,

Director of Race, Ethnicity, Politics and Society (REPS) Lab

Daniel Thompson

Assistant Professor, UCLA Department of Political Science

moderated by:

Erin Hartman

Assistant Professor, UCLA Department of Political Science and Statistics

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

5:30 p.m. PST

Live streaming via Zoom

RSVP for the event here: https://ucla.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_eVjzJQIhTEiVV1Pro1t3lw

Please submit your questions in advance of the webinar via email to: hnadworny@support.ucla.edu

(by Monday, November 16 at 5:00 p.m.)

Instructions to join the webinar will be provided once your registration has been confirmed.

LA Social Science recently spoke with Dr. Tyrone Howard, Professor of Education, Pritzker Family Endowed Chair in Education to Strengthen Families, and Director of the Black Male Institute, about the state of education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Howard is seen as one of our country’s leader in multicultural education, social and political context of schools, urban education, social studies education, and educational experience of African American students.

Interview Chapters:

0:24 – Intro of Dr. Howard

1:10 – Is there any music or a book that has help you to get through this pandemic?

1:58 – Talk with us about the state of education?

8:00 – How are teachers dealing with this current moment?

10:23 – Talk with us about some of the projects you are working on which speak to moving the educational space toward a 25th century reality for all students?

14:15 – Any silver line to what we are currently experiencing?

 

Subscribe to LA Social Science and be the first to learn more insight and knowledge from UCLA’s Division of Social Science experts and other faculty about upcoming video/audio sessions and posts about current issues.

During Latinx Heritage Month, LA Social Science interviewed Brisa Smith Flores, a UCLA graduate student in World Arts and Culture, and Ky’tavia Stafford-Carreker, a recent UCLA pre-med graduate, about the contributions of Afro-Latinxs in the U.S. They discuss the genesis of the first Afro-Latinx student organization and undergraduate course in Chicana/o & Central American Studies at UCLA. They, also, discuss their own Afro-Latina identity.

Interview Chapters:

:05 – Intro

4:43 – What has been your experience as an Afro-Latina on the West Coast?

7:53 – How did you come to identify as Afro-Latina? And what that means to you?

11:29 – How did you establish the first Afro-Latina/o student organization at UCLA?

18:20 – Paper on anti-Blackness in Mexico using art history.

 

Subscribe to L.A. Social Science and be the first to learn more insight and knowledge from UCLA’s Division of Social Science experts and other faculty about upcoming video/audio sessions and posts about current issues.

UCLA Professor Eric Avila, was one of the scholars and community activists that was featured in the PBS film, Driving While Black: Race, Space and Mobility in America. The film is defined as “a ground-breaking, two-hour documentary film by acclaimed historian Dr. Gretchen Sorin and Emmy-winning director Ric Burns, which examines the history of African Americans on the road from the early 1900s through the 1960s and beyond.”

Watch the film now for free until November 11th HERE. It will be available for purchase after that date.

To learn more about the film, check out the following links:

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHZjzJN0sVg

Website: http://www.dwbfilm.com/

Recent Reviews:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/13/entertainment/driving-while-black-review/index.html 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/driving-while-black-race-space-and-mobility-in-america-tv-review

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/13/923170416/pbs-documentary-driving-while-black-examines-long-road-of-racism

 

 

Dr. Celia Lacayo, Associate Director of Community Engagement in the UCLA Division of Social Sciences, contributed to the KCET documentary, 187: The Rise of the Latino Vote. It focuses on a pivotal moment of California history, the passage of California’s Proposition 187 in 1994, which sought to deny public services to undocumented immigrants. The measure which sought to discourage the “immigrant threat,” served to mobilize non-immigrants and immigrants in Latino communities as well as their allies across the state. It transformed the state’s electoral politics.

Check out the next telecast on election day, Tuesday, November 3, 2020 at 6:30 PM PT on KCET-HD OR watch the full episode now HERE.

In addition to being an associate editor and contributor to LA Social Science, Dr. Lacayo is an adjunct professor in the UCLA Chicana/o & Central American Studies Department and the African American Studies Department.

As a guest author for Scatterplot, Dr. Aliza Luft, UCLA assistant professor of sociology, makes the case that American leaders have switched sides, embraced the Nazi separation playbook during this current administration, and turned their backs on agreements that Americans made during the “Greatest Generation” seventy-eight year ago. Dr. Luft makes clear that children are being hurt by xenophobic policy, and she reminds us of history, while allowing no excuses for inaction.

Dr. Luft’s historical comparison is timely and a call to action. To read the essay, click HERE.

UCLA Anthropology alumnus and Professor Robert B. Lemelson has made a generous gift to establish The Study of Black Life and Racial Inequality Program Fund that will provide critical support for graduate and undergraduate students who share a commitment to the study of Black Life and Racial Inequality in Anthropology.

As part of Anthropology’s commitment to ensure ongoing financial support for transformative positive social change, as well as provide much-needed material support for students engaged with these issues, Professor Lemelson’s gift will pave the way for more sustainable future support from alumni and friends who share Anthropology’s vision of impactful research and social justice.

To build on this vision, the Department of Anthropology is excited to support a student-initiated group focused on academic engagement, mentorship, and the professional development of Black graduate students in Anthropology. The Department will also offer a new mentoring course for diverse undergraduates led by the student group to be inaugurated in the Winter of 2021. Undergraduates in the course who are also interested in pursuing independent research will be encouraged to apply to the Department’s prestigious undergraduate Lemelson Anthropological Honors Program to further develop their research and professional careers.

The Department of Anthropology is deeply grateful to Professor Lemelson for his support of this vision and his generous gift, which will ensure the program’s success in years to come.

We invite the community to join us in this important initiative to support the study of Black Life and racial inequality by making an online gift HERE. If you are interested in making a gift by check, please contact Lisa Mohan at lmohan@support.ucla.edu. We appreciate your support of this important program.