UCLA Department of African American Studies

A Reading with Roxane Gay
2019-04-02 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
A Reading with Roxane Gay

Tuesday, April 2nd, 2019
12:00pm-1:00pm
Black Forum Room, Haines 153
(lunch will be provided)

Roxane Gay’s writing appears in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018, Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, Harper’s Bazaar, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many others. She is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. She is the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, the New York Times bestselling Bad Feminist, the nationally bestselling Difficult Women and New York Times bestselling Hunger: A Memoir of My Body. She is also the author of World of Wakanda for Marvel and the editor of Best American Short Stories 2018. She is currently at work on film and television projects, a book of writing advice, an essay collection about television and culture, and a YA novel entitled The Year I Learned Everything. In 2018, she won a Guggenheim fellowship.

Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace: From Watts to Detroit
2019-03-24 - 2019-03-25
“Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace: From Watts to Detroit”
Sunday, March 24th, 2019 | 4:30pm-7:30pm
Screening of “Amazing Grace” and Discussion
Monday, March 25th, 2019 | 10:00am-4:30pm
Discussions, Music & Celebration
Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace: From Watts to Detroit is a two-day event held on the Queen of Soul’s 77th birthday. The event will reflect on the influence and impact of Aretha Franklin’s groundbreaking gospel album, “Amazing Grace,” recorded in Los Angeles with the late Reverend James Cleveland and The Southern California Community Choir in 1972. This event will not only look at this historic recording but also celebrate the legacy and genius that is Ms. Aretha Franklin. We bring together world-renowned scholars, artists, and community members to acknowledge Aretha Franklin’s global impact, featuring one-of-a-kind discussions, presentations, and a celebratory reception.
SCHEDULE:
Sunday, March 24th, 2019 | 4:30pm-7:30pm at the California NanoSystems Institute Auditorium
4:30pm-5:00pm | Welcome
Scott L. Waugh, UCLA Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost
Commissioner Mike Davis, Board of Public Works Commission President Pro-Tem
5:00pm-6:30pm | Screening of “Amazing Grace”
6:30pm-7:30pm | “Amazing Grace” Discussion
Kimberlé Crenshaw, Columbia Law School and UCLA Law School
Lynnée Denise, DJ Scholar
Salamishah Tillet, Rutgers University- Newark
Scot Brown, UCLA
Monday, March 25th, 2019 | 10:00am-4:30pm at the California NanoSystems Institute Auditorium
10:00am-10:15am | Welcome
Darnell M. Hunt, UCLA Dean of Social Sciences
David Schaberg, UCLA Dean of Humanities
Lynnée Denise & Marcus Anthony Hunter
10:15am-11:15am | Opening Keynote
Ed Pavlic, University of Georgia
11:15am-12:30pm | How Sweet the Sound: Blues Ministry & Black Power
Moderator: Wade Dean, UCLA
Ashon T. Crawley, University of Virginia
Fredara Hadley, Oberlin College & Conservatory
Shana Redmond, UCLA
Zandria F. Robinson, Georgetown University
12:30pm-1:15pm | Lunch & Music by DJ Tracy Adams
1:15pm-1:20pm | Remarks by Kyle T. Mays, UCLA
1:20pm-2:30pm | The Soul Print: Music, Place, & Albums
Moderator: Dominique Rocker, UCLA
Emily J. Lordi, UMass Amherst
Lynnée Denise, DJ Scholar
Marcus Anthony Hunter, UCLA
Mark Anthony Neal, Duke University
2:30pm-2:40pm | Remarks
Jessica Care Moore, Poet, Activist & Producer
Oliver Wang, Cal State Long Beach
2:40pm-3:40pm | Closing Keynote
Jessica Care Moore, Poet, Activist & Producer
Joi Gilliam, Singer & Songwriter
3:45pm-4:30pm | Closing Reception
arethafranklin.eventbrite.com
Important Notice:
This event is oversold. Please keep in mind that your RSVP does not guarantee you a seat; seating is first-come, first-served for those that RSVP’d.
If you can’t make it to the event on Monday, March 25th, you’re still in luck – we will be Live-Streaming the event all-day on the Department of African American Studies YouTube channel.
The link is below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV7X3rTXFfI

Parking
Parking will be available in Structure 8 for $12.00 (all day) by Pay-By-Space.
There will also be limited parking available in Structure 9 for $12 (all day) only through the PARKMOBILE app.
For more information on parking, https://transportation.ucla.edu/campus-parking/visitors

Other
Please note that tripods, monopods, food and beverages are not allowed inside the auditorium.
Please email triciapark@afam.ucla.edu for any questions/concerns.

Gender, Slavery, and Freedom
2019-03-15 09:30 - 15:30

Free LA: The New Frontier of Abolition?
2019-03-14 19:00 - 21:00
We are excited to announce a performance and public dialogue with Bryonn Bain, the creator and lead performer of the award-winning “Lyrics from Lockdown.” The event, “Free LA: The New Frontier of Abolition?” will be held Thurs, 7-9pm at the California African American Museum. See you there!

Where Do We Go From Here? Preserving Los Angeles's Black Business History
2019-03-14 13:00 - 15:00
Where Do We Go From Here? Preserving Los Angeles’s Black Business History
Thursday, March 14th, 2019
1:00pm-3:00pm
Charles E. Young Research Library, Main Conference Room
What does the history of black entrepreneurship add to our understanding of black communities, politics, and economic life?
This roundtable brings together long-term business owners who were interviewed for the UCLA Center for Oral History Research’s recent interview series “Where Do We Go From Here? Histories of Long-Term Black Business Ownership, Community, and Family in Los Angeles County.” They’ll discuss the challenges and opportunities for black businesses, their own business strategies, and the contributions black businesses make to the larger African American community. They’ll also reflect on how black businesses might be documented and how oral history can contribute to those efforts.
RSVP HERE: lablackbusiness.eventbrite.com
Moderator: Yolanda Hester is a researcher and writer whose work has focused on public histories in Los Angeles’ African American community. She was the interviewer for the Center for Oral History Research’s series on black business ownership in Los Angeles County. Most recently, she has worked with the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and the William Grant Still Art Center researching and editing a project celebrating the forty-year history of the center’s Black Doll Show and is also collaborating on a project documenting the history of Operation Bootstrap and Shindana Toys, two organizations that grew out of the Watts Rebellion. She received her master’s degree in African American studies from UCLA.
Roundtable participants:
Vivian Bowers: Third-generation owner of Bowers & Sons Cleaners, a family business that has been in operation since the 1940s.
Carl Dickerson: Founder of Dickerson Employment Benefits, an insurance company that has been in existence since 1965.
Gregory Dulan: Second-generation restauranteur and owner of soul food restaurant Dulan’s on Crenshaw.
Kim L. Hunter: Founder of Lagrant Communications, a marketing communications agency, and Lagrant Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes diversity in the advertising, marketing, and public relations fields.
Gail Taylor: Third-generation owner of Woods Valentine Mortuary, which has been in operation since 1928.
William Taylor: Founder of A+ Moving, a moving and storage company founded in the early 1970s.

Kamau Daáood and Mark de Clive-Lowe
2019-03-13 19:00 - 21:00
Kamau Daáood and Mark de Clive-Lowe
Wednesday, March 13th, 2019
7:00pm
Jan Popper Theater

“I was taught that the concept of the local artist is a noble one. That to live and work in a community and to be known for that work, is very dignified.” – Kamau Daáood
Performance poet Kamau Daáood, widely acknowledged as a major driving force behind Los Angeles’ black cultural renaissance, will perform with musical maverick Mark de Clive-Lowe on piano.

Presented by the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music Global Jazz Studies IDP, the UCLA History Department, the UCLA African American Studies Department and the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies

Click Here for More Information & RSVP

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: A Reading With Saidaya Hartman
2019-03-13 16:00 - 18:00
The UCLA Department of Gender Studies Hosts
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: A Reading With Saidiya Hartman
March 13, 2019, 4:00pm
Cornell Hall Room D313, Anderson School of Management
RSVP Required: https://waywardlivesucla.eventbrite.com

Saidiya Hartman, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, will read from and discuss her new book, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval.
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments examines the social revolution of black intimate life in New York at the beginning of the twentieth century in a breathtaking work of history and literary imagination.
In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman examines the revolution of black intimate life that unfolded in Philadelphia and New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. Free love, common-law and transient marriages, serial partners, cohabitation outside of wedlock, queer relations, and single motherhood were among the sweeping changes that altered the character of everyday life and challenged traditional Victorian beliefs about courtship, love, and marriage. Hartman narrates the story of this radical social transformation against the grain of the prevailing century-old argument about the crisis of the black family.
In wrestling with the question of what a free life is, many young black women created forms of intimacy and kinship that were indifferent to the dictates of respectability and outside the bounds of law.
Beautifully written and deeply researched, Wayward Lives recreates the experience of young urban black women who desired an existence qualitatively different than the one that had been scripted for them—domestic service, second-class citizenship, and respectable poverty—and whose intimate revolution was apprehended as crime and pathology. For the first time, young black women are credited with shaping a cultural movement that transformed the urban landscape. Through a melding of history and literary imagination, Wayward Lives recovers their radical aspirations and insurgent desires.
Sponsored by the Department of Gender Studies with generous co-sposorships from the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, the Humanities and Social Sciences Divisions, the Departments of African American Studies and English, and the Center for the Study of Women.

The Dreamer and the Dream: Afrofuturism and Prophetic Visions of Blackness
2019-03-06 10:00 - 11:30
The Dreamer and the Dream
Afrofuturism and Prophetic Visions of Blackness
Wednesday, March 6th, 2019
10:00am-11:30am
Haines Hall 215
A talk by Dr. Roger Sneed: Afrofuturism as a way of Black people expressing their identity through speculative fictions is fairly new, and yet it is not new. We can trace the Black use of speculative fiction to articulate visions of Blackness and critique white supremacy back to W.E.B. DuBois’s 1920 short story “The Comet.” However, Afrofuturism has made a resurgence, due in part to the phenomenal success of Black Panther, ongoing interest in the work of Octavia Butler, and the rise of the “blerd” (a portmanteau of “black” and “nerd”). Today’s talk uses an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as a focal point for investigating the intersections of Afrofuturism and Black Religious Thought.

Black Excellence 2019
2019-02-28 12:00 - 15:00
Thursday, February 28th, 2019
Thomas Bradley International Hall, Room 300 | 12:00pm-3:00pm
BLACK EXCELLENCE 2019
Celebrating & Networking with Successful Professionals

Join the Career Center for our 2nd annual Black Excellence: Celebrating & Networking with Successful Professionals event on February 28th from 5pm-9pm in Bradley Hall. In honor of Black History Month and UCLA’s Centennial, we will reflect on the major impacts Black Alumni have contributed to our institution over the years.
This event will feature an engaging professional panel, dinner, and networking with several prestigious Black Alumni across various industries including: business, education, entertainment, and STEM Fields. This event is open to all students and we hope that you will join us for a night that you will never forget.
For more information, please email Erin Haywood (ehaywood@career.ucla.edu) or Precious Robinson (probinson@career.ucla.edu)

Life After Undergrad: Gap Year(s)
2019-02-27 16:00 - 18:00
Life After Undergrad: Gap Year(s)
Wednesday, February 27th, 2019
4:00pm-6:00pm
Campbell Hall 1224

Not quite sure what your plans are after undergrad? Don’t worry! AAP’s Graduate Mentoring and Research Programs is hosting a workshop on what to do in between undergrad/grad school. The event is Wed, February 27th, 4-6pm at Campbell Hall 1224.
This event was listed in courtesy of AAP’s Graduate Mentoring and Research Programs

A Screening of "Horror Noire"
2019-02-26 18:00 - 21:00
A Screening of New Documentary Film
Horror Noire
produced by Tananarive Due
Tuesday, February 26th, 2019
6:00pm-9:00pm
Boelter Hall 3400

Click here for the Trailer

The Nelson George Mixtape: Volume 1
2019-02-21 18:00 - 20:30
“The Nelson George Mixtape: Volume 1”
Discussion with Nelson George and Scot Brown, Music by Greg Everett

Thursday, February 21st, 2019
Dodd Hall 175 | 6:00pm-9:00pm
6:00pm-7:30pm Discussion; 7:30pm-8:30pm Reception & Book Signing
Nelson George is an author, filmmaker and critic who specializes in celebrating African-American culture. His books include the award winning music histories Where Did Our Love Go?: The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound, The Death of Rhythm & Blues. Hip Hop America and The Hippest Trip in America: Soul Train. His music based novels include The Plot Against Hip Hop and To Funk and in L.A. As a screenwriter he wrote the features CB4 and Strictly Business. He directed the HBO film Life Support starring Queen Latifah and a number of documentaries including A Ballerina’s Tale about dancer Misty Copeland. His episodic TV credits include being a writer/producer on Netflix’s The Get Down and producer on Cinemax’s Tales from the Tour Bus. He’s currently working on a screenplay for Amazon Studios and prepping a number of documentaries. His latest book is the independently published The Nelson George Mix Tape.
Published by Pacific.

The Making of An African American and Latinx History of the United States
2019-02-07 13:30 - 14:30
Please join us on Thursday, February 7th, 2019 at 1:30 for a talk with Paul Ortiz about his new book An African American and Latinx History of the United States.

Illumination: Artwork by Verlena L. Johnson
2019-02-06 16:00 - 18:00
Please join us on Wednesday, February 6th, 2019 in Haines Hall 153 as multi-media visual artist Verlena L. Johnson will discuss her artwork from the 1990s to the present.

Mark Q. Sawyer Memorial Lecture in Racial and Ethnic Politics
2019-01-10 12:00 - 14:00
The Inaugural
Mark Q. Sawyer Memorial Lecture in Racial and Ethnic Politics

Thursday, January 10, 2019
12:00-2:00PM
at the Black Forum Room in Haines Hall 153

Holiday Party
2018-12-13 12:00 - 15:00
Join us for food, drinks, music, and games at our annual holiday party!
RSVP HERE

Making Sudan Count: the Economic Imaginaries of Decolonization
2018-12-06 12:00 - 13:00
Please join us as special guest speaker Alden H. Young gives a talk about the economic imaginaries of decolonization on December 6th, 2019 at 12PM in the Black Forum (Haines Hall 153).

Barbadian Emigration to Liberia: Transnational Blackness in the Making of a Black Nationality
2018-12-04 12:00 - 13:00
Please join us on Tuesday, December 4th, 2019 in the Black Forum (Haines Hall 153) as special guest speaker Caree Ann Marie Banton gives a talk about transnational Blackness. This event is free and open to the public, we hope to see you there!

Talk by Sobukwe Odinga: "African Solutions to American Problems: US Strategic Interests and Regional Conflict in the Horn of Africa."
2018-12-03 12:00 - 13:00
Please join us next Monday, December 3rd, for a talk by Sobukwe Odinga: “African Solutions to American Problems: US Strategic Interests and Regional Conflict in the Horn of Africa.” The talk will be held in Rolfe Hall 2125.

African Solutions to American Problems: US Strategic Interests and Regional Conflict in the Horn of Africa
2018-12-03 12:00 - 13:00
Please join us Monday, December 3rd, 2018 as special guest speaker Sobukwe Odinga gives a talk in the Black Forum (Haines 153) at 12PM. This event is free and open to the public, hope to see you there!

Cameron Rowland Art Workshop
2018-12-03
Please join us on Monday, December 3, for the third and final art workshop given my Cameron Rowland.

How Extended Family Health Affects Household Financial Status
2018-11-29 12:00 - 13:00
How Extended Family Health Affects Household Financial Status

Jermaine Toney
National Science Foundation (NSF) Postdoctoral Research Fellow | Cornell University

NOVEMBER 29TH, 2018
12:00PM-1:00PM
Black Forum Room, Haines Hall 153
As a postdoctoral scholar supported by the National Science Foundation, Jermaine Toney’s work builds upon the field of household finance. His current work examines the link between household financial status and health. His doctoral training was in economics. The title of his dissertation was “Essays on the Stratification in Wealth in the United States.” He offered these essays as a contribution to our understanding of wealth accumulation, reproduction, and inequality, with a particular focus on race. This contribution was informed by an analysis of the structural factors of wealth, including the role of intergenerational family connections

"Citizen Outsider: Racism and State Violence in France and Beyond"
2018-11-27 12:00 - 13:00
Citizen Outsider: Racism and State Violence in France and Beyond

Jean Beaman
Assistant Professor, Sociology | Purdue University

November 27th, 2018
12:00PM-1:00PM
Black Forum Room, Haines Hall 153
Jean Beaman joins Purdue as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology. She received her Ph.D., M.A., and B.A. degrees from Northwestern University. Prior to joining Purdue, she had postdoctoral fellowships at Duke University and the European University Institute (Florence, Italy). Her research addresses how marginalized individuals conceptualize their social locations, based on race, ethnicity, citizenship, and socioeconomic status. Specifically, her current book project is an ethnographic examination of France’s North African second-generation and issues of upward social mobility, race and ethnicity, and cultural citizenship. Her other research and teaching interests include urban sociology; sociology of culture; HIV/AIDS; international migration; and ethnography and qualitative methods.

Cameron Rowland Art Workshop
2018-11-26 12:00 - 14:00
Please join us for the second art workshop given by Cameron Rowland.

Black Feminism & the Practice of Care
2018-11-16 09:00 - 16:30
Black Feminism & the Practice of Care
Friday, November 16th, 2018
9:00am-4:30pm
9:00am Breakfast, 9:30am Conversations begin, 4:30pm Light Reception
UCLA Faculty Center, Sequoia Room
Audre Lorde famously maintained that “caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” This gathering explores the concept of care against the backdrop of Lorde’s quote, through the lens of black feminist epistemology and praxis. It deliberately understands care as a community practice of generating power, as well as an individual ethic of self-love, and asks how ideas about care shape our political activism, critiques of power, and dreams of freedom. It also seeks to reimagine black wellbeing within a self-help culture that privileges whiteness and normative femininity, and explores how black people have cared for one another across time and space. Finally, it reconsiders the most familiar narratives of stress and depletion to show how black lives are diminished by state violence, historical trauma, neoliberal assaults, heteropatriarchal norms, ravaging kin ties, and intramural violence. How can we engage new possibilities for self-care, radical healing, wholeness, and joy?
Conversations by…
Aisha Finch | UCLA
Beverley Hanson | Sistren Theater Collective
Cheryl Harris | UCLA
Courtney Marshall | Phillips Exeter Academy
Erica Ball | Occidental College
Honor Ford-Smith | York University
Imani Johnson | UC Riverside
Jasmine Seydullah | Vassar College
Jessica Johnson | Johns Hopkins University
Jessica Millward | UC Irvine
Judith Casselburry | Bowdoin College
LaKisha Simmons | University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Marne Campbell | Loyola Marymount University
SA Smythe | UC Irvine
Sarah Haley | UCLA
Terrion Williamson | University of Minnesota
Tiffany Willoughby-Herard | UC Irvine
Register here:
BFPC2018.EVENTBRITE.COM
Flyer Here
Sponsored by the UC Consortium for Black Studies in California, the Center for the Study of Women, the Department of Gender Studies, the Office of Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity,
the Division of Humanities, the Division of Social Sciences, and the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies

Please note that this is a fragrance-free event

Black History in Dark Times: Reflections of an Historian
2018-11-15 16:00 - 18:00
Please join us for a talk with historian and scholar, Peter Hudson. More information on the flyer attached.

The Black Blackout: New Media Erasure of Black Narratives - And How to Fight Back
2018-11-01 12:30 - 14:00
Please join us for a talk and discussion with Esther Iverem, writer, artist and executive producer of “On the Ground: Voices of Resistance from the Nation’s Capital” on Pacifica Radio.

2018 IAC Fall Forum
2018-10-18 15:00 - 17:00
2018 IAC Fall Forum
Save the Date!

Thursday, October 18, 2018
3:00pm to 5:00pm

UCLA James West Alumni Center

Please join us for presentations from the Institute of American Cultures visiting scholars for 2018-2019
More information to follow.

Organized by the Institute of American Cultures and co-sponsored by the American Indian Studies Center, the Asian American Studies Center, the Bunche Center for African American Studies, and the Chicano Studies Research Center.

Lyrics from Lockdown
2018-10-18 - 2018-10-20
Lyrics from Lockdown
Thursday, October 18, 2018 – Saturday, October 20, 2018
Hip Hop Culture
A critically acclaimed exposé of the ways race, class, power, and privilege shape prisons and policing in America, Lyrics from Lockdown is a story of survival that reveals how the justice system can radically change a young person’s life. In this one-man multimedia production, prison activist, actor, author, and Hip Hop theater innovator Bryonn Bain tells his own unbelievable true story by weaving together the voices of more than 40 characters. Each show is followed by a town hall dialogue.
BUY TICKETS HERE

Cameron Rowland- Art Workshop
2018-10-16 12:00 - 13:30
CAMERON ROWLAND
ART WORKSHOP
OCTOBER 16th, 2018 | 12:00pm-1:30pm
Future Workshop Dates:
November 26th, 2018 and December 3rd, 2018
Please join us this Tuesday, October 16th at Noon in the Black Forum (153 Haines) for one of three workshops given by artist Cameron Rowland.
Check out Cameron Rowland’s latest exhibition D37 this weekend. For more on Cameron and the D37 exhibit please visit the following link: https://www.moca.org/storage/app/media/CameronRowland_D37_Pamphlet.pdf
Lunch will be provided at the workshop
RSVP HERE
