Statement by Members of the Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies (ELTS) and the Program in Digital Humanities on the University’s Failure to Protect Student Protestors

“Wandering Women” Book Talk with Laura Di Bianco

Laura Di Bianco is an Assistant Professor of Italian Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Her scholarly work lies at the intersection of Modern Italian Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, and Environmental Humanities. Her first book, Wandering Women. Urban Ecologies of Italian Feminist Filmmaking (Indiana University Press, 2023), investigates the work of contemporary Italian women directors...

“De-Integrate! German-Jewish Notes on the Present.” A lecture by Max Czollek

Royce Hall 236 10745 Dickson Court, Los Angeles, CA

One of the most influential young voices of contemporary Germany, author Max Czollek, will speak onthe occasion of the publication of De-Integrate! A Jewish Survival Guide for the 21st Century (RestlessBooks, 2023), the English version of his much-discussed first volume, expertly translated by Jon Cho-Polizzi. Join us as Max offers his sharp observations as well...

Physiognomy at the Crossroads of Magic, Science, and the Arts

The symposium will examine how the study of a person’s facial features and expressions, as indicative of ethnicity or character, has evolved from the crossroads of magic, religion, and primitive medicine to our present-day preoccupation with wellness and beauty. The presentations will follow a chronological and intertwining sequence to encompass physiognomic expressions in art, literature,...

“Autumn Beat” film screening with Antonio Dikele Distefano

Italian author-turned-director Antonio Dikele Distefano is working to increase representation in new Italian cinema. Distefano is developing films that bring Black performers onto the world stage so they're no longer invisible. Autumn Beat (2022) tells the story of two brothers, Tito and Paco, who have the same dream: to break into the rap music world....

“The Clinic of Silence” with Catherine Perret

Catherine Perret is a French scholar, philosopher, art critic, psychoanalyst, and author. Please join us for Catherine Perret's lecture on Fernand Deligny, an educator and activist who invented a radically new approach to autism.  Join Zoom Meeting: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/92946036075 Meeting ID: 929 4603 6075 From the thirties to the sixties, Fernand Deligny became famous in France...

Alice Hasters “Black Germans between Erasure and Tokenism”

Journalist and author Alice Hasters is a major contemporary Black German voice. Her bestselling 2019 book Was weiße Menschen nicht über Rassismus hören wollen, aber wissen sollten (What White People Don’t Want to Hear About Racism, But Should Know Anyway) led to animated public debates about race and racism in Germany. In her lecture, Hasters...

Archive Asylum: Archiving and Researching Endangered Literatures

War and flight endanger the literature of affected countries. Authors struggle to survive. They are unable to write. They lose their libraries, manuscripts, pictures and other valuable objects. In response to these political and social challenges, how can we build up an archive for asylum and offer these literatures the place they serve in research?...

A conversation with Marjorie Perloff and UCLA professors Laure Murat and Efrain Kristal

UCLA Professors Laure Murat and Efrain Kristal will host a talk and Q&A with Marjorie Perloff.  Marjorie Perloff is Sadie D. Patek Professor of Humanities Emerita at Stanford University. She is also Florence Scott professor Emerita of English at the University of Southern California. Marjorie Perloff, author of numerous books on topics ranging from 20th...

“Tombs. Writing one’s family history.” Annette Wieviorka

Is it possible to be the historian of one's own family, when one already serves as its archive? What resources exist to enable this undertaking? How might one craft a story from it all? In her talk, Annette Wieviorka will discuss these and related questions, which she grappled with herself upon deciding to tell the intersecting...

Graduate Student Speaker Series – Featuring Franco Baldasso

Franco Baldasso is Assistant Professor of Italian and Director of the Italian Program at Bard College and co-Director of the Summer School “The Cultural Heritage and Memory of Totalitarianism” at Sapienza University in Rome. His work focuses on the complex relations between Fascism and Modernism, the legacy and memory of political violence in Italy, and the idea...