UCLA Department of African American Studies

'Race and the Totalitarian Century' with Vaughn Rasberry
2018-05-15 17:00 - 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Race and the Totalitarian Century
A discussion with author Vaughn Rasberry
moderated by Justin Desmangles
Winner of the Ralph J. Bunche Award from the American Political Science Association, and the American Book Award, from the Before Columbus Foundation, Race and the Totalitarian Century: Geopolitics in the Black Literary Imagination, shows how a group of black writers challenged Cold War liberalism’s conceit that it stood in stark opposition to totalitarianism (Nazism and Stalinism). Writers such as Richard Wright, W. E. B. Du Bois, Shirley Graham, C. L. R. James, and John A. Williams, committed to global decolonization and black freedom, pointed to liberal democracies’ legacy of repression and injustice. As a result, they developed a perspective that reimagined the anti-fascist, anti-communist narrative through the lens of racial injustice, with the U.S. as a tyrannical force in the Third World but also as an ironic agent of Asian and African independence.

Tuesday, May 15th, 2018
5:00pm-7:00pm
History Conference Room, Bunche Hall 6275
CLICK HERE FOR THE FLYER
Vaughn Rasberry is Associate Professor of English at Stanford University. He works on African American and African Diaspora literature, 20th-century U.S. fiction, postcolonial theory, and philosophical theories of modernity
Justin Desmangles is the director of the Before Columbus Foundation and host of the radio broadcast New Day Jazz
This event is sponsored by the Department of African American Studies, Department of English, Gary B. Nash Chair & the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies.

Department of African American Studies Commencement Celebration
2018-06-16 11:30 - 13:00
Congratulations! The faculty and staff of the Department of African American Studies are looking forward to sharing this wonderful occasion with you.
Date: Saturday, June 16, 2018
Time: 11:30 A.M.
Location: Fowler Museum, Lenart Auditorium
Ticket Information:

Students may request up to 4 complimentary tickets for the Department of African American Studies Ceremony.
An additional four tickets per student are available at $12.00/each.
You should ONLY order tickets for your guests – you do not need a ticket for yourself.
Depending on how many tickets are ordered by all students, there may be extras available. If you would like additional tickets to the ceremony, please e-mail staff@afam.ucla.edu with your name, I.D.# and the number of EXTRA tickets you need (outside of what is ordered online).
Tickets are ordered through MyUCLA for college and departmental graduation ceremonies.
All ticket sales are final. No refunds will be issued for unused tickets.

Parking:

You can pre-purchase parking passes for your guests. The UCLA Central Ticket Office will sell pre-paid Commencement parking permits beginning in May ($12 per permit). The UCLA Central Ticket Office is open from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, Monday-Friday.
The closest parking structure to our venue is Parking Structure 4.
Students or guests with disabilities should contact the Center for Accessible Education (310) 825-1501 voice; (310) 206-6083 TDD, to receive information about parking and other assistance.

On Commencement Day:

Graduates are requested to arrive in front of the Fowler Museum, Lenart Auditorium in African regalia for check-in at 10:30am. Please be on time.
Seating is unreserved. Doors will open at 11:00am.
The ceremony will start promptly at 11:30pm and is expected to last about an hour and half.
Graduates will be asked to sit together in a separate section.

Please contact the Department of African American Studies staff for any questions: staff@afam.ucla.edu

Ethnic & Indigenous Studies Welcome
2018-10-01 16:00 - 18:00
Ethnic & Indigenous Studies Welcome
Monday, October 1st, 2018
4:00pm-6:00pm
James West Alumni Center
African American Studies, American Indian Studies, Asian American Studies, and Chicana/o Studies host the 2nd Ethnic and Indigenous Studies Welcome, open to all students, alumni and Bruin affiliates. Explore Ethnic and Indigenous Studies at UCLA. Please join us for FREE food, music, and giveaways with fellow students, faculty, and staff. Learn how Ethnic and Indigenous Studies fits into your UCLA experience and beyond. Welcome new Bruins!

RSVP HERE

Italy and the Geopolitics of Migration: Aesthetic Approaches
2018-10-04 09:00 - 20:00
Italy and the Geopolitics of Migration: Aesthetic Approaches
Thursday, Oct. 4
9:00am – 12:00pm at the Darren Star Theater (Melnitz Hall 1422)
1:00pm – 8:00pm at Royce Hall (Room 314)

Please click here to RSVP

Asmarina: Voices & Images of a Postcolonial Heritage: Screening and Q&A with filmmaker Medhin Paolos
2018-10-07 15:00 - 17:00
Asmarina: Voices & Images of a Postcolonial Heritage: Screening and Q&A with filmmaker Medhin Paolos
Sunday, Oct. 7th, 2018
at the Darren Star Theater (Melnitz Hall 1422)
225 Charles E Young Dr. E
Please click here for map and directions.

Black Convocation 2018
2018-10-09 17:30 - 20:00
Black Convocation 2018
Tuesday, October 9, 2018
5:30 PM – 8:00 PM
The Black Convocation is an annual event that welcomes new and returning students to the UCLA campus and makes them aware of the different organizations, departments, and resources available to serve them. It is an evening full of Bruin pride, providing encouragement, anecdotes about the past, and a glimpse of the future from UCLA faculty, staff, and alumni dedicated to supporting all students.
The Black Convocation is free and open to the public.
Maps & directions. Parking can be purchased at Parking Lot DD.
The 2018 Black Convocation at UCLA was organized by the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, UCLA Department of African American Studies, UCLA Black Alumni Association, Office of Residential Life (ORL), Afrikan Student Union (ASU), UCLA Career Center, UCLA Black Graduate Student Association (BGSA), Academic Advancement Program (AAP), UCLA Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Connecting Communities to UCLA (CCU), UCLA Community Programs Office & UCLA Student Affairs – Enrollment Management.
Register Here on Eventbrite!

A Poetry Reading by Major Jackson
2018-10-15 16:00 - 17:00
A Poetry Reading by Major Jackson
Monday, October 14th, 2018
4:00PM
193 Kaplan Hall

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

"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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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!

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).

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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)

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.
