Welcome Reception – Fall 2023

Royce 306

Please join us to welcome in the new academic year, see old friends and meet new people. Click here to let us know that you will be coming by October 5th. Thank you!

Diary of a Black Jewish Messiah: David Reubeni’s How-To Manual of Messianic Redemption

Zoom

In the 16th century, a Hebrew-speaking, battle-scarred, Black-skinned Jew named David Reubeni appeared suddenly in Venice with a desperate plan to restore Jewish pride and political independence. Why did kings, bishops, rabbis, bankers, and even a pope, open their homes and wallets for him? Some answers from one of the weirdest documents of Jewish history,...

Righting the American Dream

Kaplan 365

Zoom or In-Person event Click here to register In this book talk, author Diane Winston explores how after two years in the White House, an aging and increasingly unpopular Ronald Reagan looked like a one-term president, but something changed in 1983. Reagan spoke of his embattled agenda as a spiritual rather than a political project...

Shirdi Sai Baba’s Presence: Mediums, Mediations, and Mobilities

Royce Hall 306/Zoom

In-person and Zoom Register here for both in-person or Zoom The South Asian saint Shirdi Sai Baba has an ever-growing global diaspora. His inspiration and healing energies are boons reinforced for many by his defiance of religious communitarianism. In welcoming all castes, creeds, and nationalities, Baba offers an alternative to the divisiveness of his time...

The Formation of Classical Islam from Muhammad to the Abbasids

Haines 39/Zoom

In person (Kaplan 365) or on Zoom Register here for both in-person or Zoom attendance Returning to UCLA by popular demand, this lecture by Walid Saleh (University of Toronto) provides an overview of the major features of Classical Islam that solidified during the early Abbasid period. Such features include the  rise of major religious sciences...