The Dreamer and the Dream: Afrofuturism and Prophetic Visions of Blackness
Haines 279A 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.”...
CHESUCRISTO: The Fusion in Image and Word of Che Guevara and Jesus Christ
Kaplan 365After his death, Che Guevara became an icon and was even compared to Jesus Christ. Many images, poems, plays, and films bear witness to this remarkable process, which made studious use of Christian iconography. In this way, Che Guevara became a Christ figure for our times. In order to explain their real affinity, the author...
The Seventeenth Century Judeo-Persian Adaptation of the Buddha Biographies
Royce 306Elisha ben Shemuel’s Shahzadeh va-Sufi or The Prince and The Sufi is a seventeenth century Judeo-Persian adaptation of the life of Buddha, known in the west as the story of Barlaam and Josaphat. The plot, that of the prince who abandons a life of privilege and opulence for spiritual enlightenment, has traveled through centuries in...
On the Soul
Royce 306This discussion of the soul departs from the concept of the soul that for thousands of years has occupied the attention of philosophers and theologians and pervaded religious discourse. Morris is concerned with what William James referred to as ‘the popular soul,’ the soul as it is invoked by expressions such as ‘an expansive soul,’...
Between Bible and Qur’an
Royce Hall, Rm 314The Qur’an draws on three major earlier traditions, those of Judaism, Christianity tradition, and pre-Islamic paganism, and while the Qur’an presents itself as a continuation and confirmation of the Torah and the Gospel, its style deviates significantly from that found in Biblical texts. Western scholarship has focused on Biblical influence in terms of the characters...
Shout to the Lord: Making Worship Music in the Evangelical America
Royce 306How do people make worship music? What does it take to turn songs into worship and to turn worship into songs? This deep study of more than 75 leaders in Evangelical worship across America sheds light on the way that songwriters, worship leaders, and music industry professionals make music that can serve the needs of...
Restoring the Synagogue Soundtrack
Powell LibraryIn this talk “Jewish Religious Music in Nineteenth-Century America: Restoring the Synagogue Soundtrack”, Professor Judah Cohen of Indiana University explores the very creation of what we know today as “Jewish music.” There were no professional cantors in synagogues in early America. Choirs were non-existent. Synagogue practice mirrored that in European synagogues. But all that changed...
Trialogue: Beyond the Boundary Conceptual Models of the (Religious) Stranger in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Royce 306This panel discussion is open to members of the UCLA and Los Angeles communities who are interested in exploring a key issue of concern in contemporary religious and cultural studies. The forum also is the culmination of the upper-division seminar course Religion 120. The course is designed to introduce students from a broad spectrum of...
2019-20 Calendar of Events
Click here for 2019-20 Calendar of Events
Symposium: “On the Matter of Blackness in Europe: Transnational Perspectives”
Charles E. Young Research Library and Royce HallOrganized by the UCLA Department of African American Studies Co-Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Religion A Symposium featuring Keynote Speaker Gloria Wekker, Professor Emerita at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, and a renowned scholar of Black feminism, Dutch anticolonialism, and diaspora. Key Symposium questions will include: How do marginalized experiences of Blackness within...