The reading group kicks-off the quarter discussing the introduction from Cord Whitaker's Black Metaphors, titled "Moving Backward: Blackness in Modernity, Early Modernity, and the Middle Ages". The text is here. Please read the meeting ground rules prior to attendance. Register for the meeting here. Open to UCLA Faculty and Graduate Students. Questions? Contact memsa.ucla@gmail.com. Future meetings will...

The reading to be discussed is "Creating Chichimec-Uanacaze Ethnic Identity," Chapter 4 from Angélica Jimena Afanador-Pujol's The Relación de Michoacán: (1539-1541) and the Politics of Representation in Colonial Mexico. The Introduction to the book is also included as optional reading, which may be very helpful in providing a context for the Relación. You can find...

For the final winter quarter meeting of the MEMSA premodern race reading group, discussion centers on Sylvia Wynter's "Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation-- An Argument." UCLA graduate students and faculty from all departments and all participatory levels are welcome to join the discussion, whether you want to contribute...

A conference organized by the officers of UCLA MEMSA: Chase Caldwell Smith (History), Richard Ibarra (History), and Stefanie Matabang (Comparative Literature); sponsored and hosted by the CMRS Center for Early Global Studies. Keynote Speakers: Roland Betancourt (UC Irvine) and Nicholas R. Jones (UC Davis) Research on the premodern intersection of race, gender, and sexuality has steadily increased as a result of the efforts of...