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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260529T140000
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DTSTAMP:20260506T192343Z
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UID:7083-1780063200-1780068600@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Gods and the Abyss: Encountering Oceanic Agency at the Edge of the Ancient World
DESCRIPTION:This presentation examines how coastal communities in antiquity conceived of the sea not merely as a physical environment\, but as a powerful\, living force endowed with agency. Such perceptions became especially vivid in the aftermath of coastal catastrophes. The Gulf of Cádiz\, on the southwestern edge of the Iberian Peninsula\, serves as the primary case study. Its broad floodplains and pronounced tidal regimes made it highly vulnerable to extreme events\, including storm surges and tsunamis\, which repeatedly reshaped both the landscape and human experience. By tracing how societies from antiquity to the present have responded to episodes of catastrophic marine flooding through religious practice and ritualized forms of engagement\, the paper explores the complex interplay between human action and the more-than-human agency of the sea. \nManuel Álvarez-Martí-Aguilar is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Málaga (Spain) and currently a Getty Villa Scholar. His research interests include modern historiography of the ancient world and the cultural intersections between local Iberian communities—especially Tartessos—and the Phoenicians. His recent work focuses on the impact of earthquakes and tsunamis on coastal communities of the Iberian Peninsula\, as well as their resilient responses to these kinds of environmental shocks with often catastrophic consequences. He has co-edited\, with Francisco Machuca Prieto\, the volume Historical Earthquakes\, Tsunamis and Archaeology in the Iberian Peninsula (Springer\, 2022) and co-organised the workshop Fluid Horizons: Charting Ancient Environmental History and Blue Humanities (University of London\, 2024). \nCo-sponsored with the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures and the Kershaw Chair of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Studies \n 
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/gods-and-the-abyss-encountering-oceanic-agency-at-the-edge-of-the-ancient-world/
LOCATION:Kaplan 365
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260531T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260531T160000
DTSTAMP:20260413T202533Z
CREATED:20260413T201623Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260413T202533Z
UID:7058-1780236000-1780243200@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:(De)medicalization and the Dying Body: Sallekhanā\, Kinship\, and the Limits of Liberal Bioethics
DESCRIPTION:In this talk\, Miki Chase (U of Wisconsin-Madison) explores how trajectories of illness and care\, such as terminal cancer or anticipated cognitive decline\, are reinterpreted through Jain doctrinal frameworks in the narratives of adult children of women who undertake the Jain ritual fast to death (sallekhanā or santhāra). Drawing on ethnographic accounts of women’s deaths in contemporary urban Jain households\, Chase traces how narratives of bodily decline are reframed not as losses to be managed through medical intervention but as conditions of spiritual possibility that invite ascetic detachment and renunciation. Rather than resisting biomedical or bioethical paradigms outright\, these narratives inhabit a complex zone of overlap where cognitive clarity is both a medical and religious ideal; the attenuation of pain is karmically elevated rather than clinically managed; and the logic of institutionalized care is subtly displaced not by the absence of obligation but by alternate forms of care. In tracing the limits of bioethical paradigms that presume the necessity of medicalization and institutional oversight\, this talk describes how “illness narratives” and “santhāra narratives” coalesce to challenge prevailing understandings of what it means to die well\, and how suffering\, pain\, and the medicalized body is accounted for in the lives—and deaths—of Jain women. \nRSVP here to attend in person \n(Parking information for Royce Hall) \nRegister here for Zoom link \nMiki Chase is Assistant Professor in South Asian Studies and holds the Śrī Anantnāth Endowed Chair in Jain Studies. Her research and teaching focuses on intersections of religion\, law\, and gender in questions of care around death and dying in India\, with a specific focus on Jainism. \nDr. Chase received her PhD from the Department of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University\, and her doctoral work received the Mohini Jain Presidential Chair in Jain Studies Best Dissertation Prize (2024). Her research focuses on the contemporary practice of the legally contested Jain voluntary ritual fast until death known variably as sallekhanā\, santhāra\, or samādhi-maraṇa\, examining how lay Jains reconcile ideals and concepts outlined in scripture with the interreligious pressures of urban life and modernization of death\, foregrounding the centrality of women’s moral subjectivities in such negotiations. Her research has been funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and the American Institute for Indian Studies (AIIS)\, including the Rachel F. and Scott McDermott Junior Research Fellowship. Her book in progress is tentatively titled The Ambiguity of the Vow: Law\, Kinship\, and Gender in Pathologizing the Jain Fast Until Death. \n 
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/demedicalization-and-the-dying-body-sallekhana-kinship-and-the-limits-of-liberal-bioethics/
LOCATION:Royce Hall 306
ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261015T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261015T173000
DTSTAMP:20260812T183937Z
CREATED:20260812T183937Z
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SUMMARY:Study of Religion Welcome Reception
DESCRIPTION:Lift a glass to the new academic year and meet friends old and new! \nWelcome remarks by Dean Stern and Professor Bakhos at 4:30p. \nRSVP required by October 11. See you there!
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/study-of-religion-welcome-reception/
LOCATION:Royce Hall 306
CATEGORIES:CSR
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://religion.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/autumn-leaves_2.resized.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261026T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261026T171500
DTSTAMP:20260814T170818Z
CREATED:20260812T184127Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260814T170818Z
UID:7157-1793030400-1793034900@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:The Paradox of Pointless Suffering
DESCRIPTION:Why do we suffer? Why do people die young? Is there any point to our excessive pain\, physical or emotional? This talk explores the ways that we have tried to minimize or eliminate suffering\, and examines people’s attempts to find ways to live with pointless suffering. Ultimately\, to be fully human—and to have healthy culture—means to acknowledge a mysterious paradox: we must simultaneously accept suffering and oppose it. \nRSVP to attend in person \nRegister for Zoom link \nScott Samuelson studied philosophy at Grinnell College (BA\, 1995\, valedictorian) and Emory University (PhD\, 2001).  He is currently a Professor of Practice in the Departments of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Iowa State University. In 2014\, he was named Distinguished Humanities Educator by the Community College Humanities Association.  Inspired by his students\, he wrote his first book The Deepest Human Life: An Introduction to Philosophy for Everyone (University of Chicago Press\, 2014)\, which has been well received not just by prominent reviewers but by numerous non-philosophers who found their philosophical voice with its help.  The book has been translated into Chinese and Portuguese.  Samuelson has published articles in the Wall Street Journal\, the Huffington Post\, the Chronicle of Higher Education\, The Philosopher’s Magazine\, and Christian Century.  His article “Why I Teach Plato to Plumbers” in The Atlantic has been widely circulated.  He’s been interviewed on NPR and given various public lectures and talks\, including a TEDx talk “How Philosophy Can Save Your Life.” \nScott Samuelson was the recipient of the 2015 Hiett Prize in the Humanities. \nCo-sponsored by the UCLA Center for Buddhist Studies.
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/the-paradox-of-pointless-suffering/
LOCATION:Royce Hall 306
CATEGORIES:CSR
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://religion.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Scott-Samuelson-header.png
ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261113T093000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261113T151500
DTSTAMP:20261013T214147Z
CREATED:20261013T213904Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261013T214147Z
UID:7220-1794562200-1794582900@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:D. T. Suzuki: Letters\, Lectures and Legacies
DESCRIPTION:This Workshop explores the cultural\, religious\, and intellectual legacy of Daisetsu Teitaro (D. T.) Suzuki (1870–1966)\, the preeminent figure who introduced Zen and Mahayana Buddhism to the modern Western world. This event brings together scholars\, curators\, and practitioners to discuss and reflect on Suzuki’s polymath contributions and their enduring\, cross-cultural impact. Discussions will span a broad range of topics\, including interpretations and evaluations of Suzuki’s Buddhist philosophy and translations\, archival discoveries of his lecture manuscripts and interpersonal correspondence\, and his connections with Japanese American communities and local religious institutions. \nGenerously funded by the UCLA Center for Buddhist Studies\, this one-day workshop will feature several highlights: a keynote address by Professor Richard M. Jaffe of Duke University; an exhibition of Buddhist archival materials\, including artifacts and manuscripts related to Suzuki’s 1950-60s U.S. sojourns preserved in the UCLA Library Special Collections; and a roundtable dialogue bridging academic research with contemporary spiritual practice and community engagement. \nFind the Schedule of the day and register here. \nKeynote address: “Promoting Buddhism from West to East: D. T. Suzuki’s California Sojourns”: \nMost studies of D. T. Suzuki’s time in the United States focus on his extended residencies in LaSalle\, Illinois at the turn of the nineteenth–twentieth centuries and in New York City in the 1950s. California\, however\, due to its geographic location\, particularly in the era before convenient transcontinental air travel and concentration of Japanese Americans\, was a convenient way station and source of sustenance for Suzuki each time he traversed the American continent. In this paper\, Professor Jaffe explores Suzuki’s trips through and extended stays in California. Using archival documents\, some housed in the UCLA Libraries\, Jaffe will highlight the many exchanges Suzuki had with Californians as he adapted his presentation of Buddhism for diverse American audiences. \nSponsors: Center for Buddhist Studies\, UCLA Library\, Center for the Study of Religion.
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/7220/
LOCATION:Charles E. Young Research Library\, Main Conference Room\, 280 Charles E Young Dr N\, Los Angeles\, 90095\, United States
CATEGORIES:CSR
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://religion.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/D.T.-Suzuk_updated-header.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261117T123000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261117T133000
DTSTAMP:20261019T232254Z
CREATED:20261019T223317Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261019T232254Z
UID:7247-1794918600-1794922200@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Upheavals of Faith: Deconversion\, Value Conflict\, and Grief
DESCRIPTION:Why do people grieve a faith they have chosen to leave? If they no longer believe\, what exactly have they lost? Ultimately\, leaving a religion is rarely the simple loss of a world. Recent philosophical work has argued that deconversion can be an occasion for grief\, comparable to bereavement in its power to unsettle one’s experiential world (Williams\, 2024). Such accounts describe what this grief is like but leave unexplained why some deconversions take this experiential shape and others do not. This talk by Joshua Waugh (UCLA) aims to offer an explanatory account. \nRSVP here for the in-person event by Thursday\, November 12. \nRegister here for a Zoom link. \nA light lunch will be served.
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/upheavals-of-faith-deconversion-value-conflict-and-grief/
LOCATION:Kaplan 365
CATEGORIES:CSR
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://religion.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/broken-faith-e1792452159659.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20270112T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20270112T171500
DTSTAMP:20261021T221711Z
CREATED:20261021T221711Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261021T221711Z
UID:7255-1799769600-1799774100@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Idol Talk: False Worship in the Early Christian World
DESCRIPTION:Are idols real? Do gods or demons dwell in them or around them? Or are they empty\, devoid of existence except in the mind of the idolater? Ancient Christians and Jews gave very different answers to these questions. \nRSVP for this in-person event. \nSonja Anderson (UCLA\, B.A.; University of Notre Dame\, M.T.S.; Yale University\, M.A.\, M.Phil.\, Ph.D.) teaches courses in ancient Christianity and Judaism\, religious violence\, gender and Catholicism\, apocalypticism\, and religion and medicine. Her current book project\, Idol Talk: False Worship in the Early Christian World\, will be published with Edinburgh University Press and explores how ancient Christians and Jews used idolatry polemic to claim a distinctive identity for themselves over against their pagan peers and how scholarly narratives have replicated this claim to uniqueness. Her training is in ancient biblical and parabiblical texts\, but lately she is interested in the history of Catholic book publishing in 20th–21st-century America\, and in being more anti-AI with every passing day. Her favorite place to be is in conversation with students and colleagues about the weirdness of how we imagine ancient religion. She is a Benedictine oblate of Saint John’s Abbey.
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/idol-talk-false-worship-in-the-early-christian-world/
LOCATION:314 Royce Hall
CATEGORIES:CSR
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://religion.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Sonja-Anderson-talk-header.png
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