Organized 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...

As more Americans become nonreligious, life-cycle rituals and other ceremonies that religious experts once performed are increasingly the responsibility of everyday people and ritual experts for hire. Very secular people avoid rituals or work hard to minimize their resemblance to religion. Secular people who have left strict religious groups often rebel by inverting the rituals...

Schedule: 8am-9am: Light breakfast 9am-12:30pm: Morning Session: The Movement of the Báb Welcome by Dr. Simon Joseph (UCLA) Moderated by Dr. Nahid Pirnazar (UCLA) Performance by Dr. Manouchehr Sadeghi Introduced by Dr. Latifeh Hagigi (UCLA) Presentations by Dr. Sholeh Quinn (UC Merced), Dr. Abbas Amanat (Yale University), and Dr. Janet Afary (UC Santa Barbara) 12:30pm-2pm:...

CHICAGO, Illinois – The height of the Civil Rights era merges with the hauntingly beautiful swinging sounds of Chicago jazz in award-winning reporter and psychologist Jean K. Carney’s debut novel, “Blackbird Blues” (Oct. 1, 2019, Bedazzled Ink Publishing). Following the death of her teacher and mentor Sister Michaeline, aspiring jazz singer Mary Kaye meets Lucius,...