This episode features a conversation with the UCLA graduate and undergraduate students who authored a new LCHP report exploring the history of both racism and the quest for racial justice at UCLA. The report and conversation examine the experience of students of color throughout the university's history, as well as examples of the individuals and movements that led the fight for racial justice at UCLA. This conversation features graduate student co-author Debanjan Roychoudhury, alumna Skylar Weatherford, and undergraduate student Kateri Son. It is moderated by Prof. Aomar Boum, advisor for the project.

Read the report here.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shocked and perplexed the world. UCLA Historian Jared McBride joins Then & Now for the third conversation in a mini-series examining this invasion through a historical lens. Professor McBride discusses the history of far-right nationalism in Ukraine from World War II until now, situating both Ukraine’s election of a Jewish president and Putin’s claims of “denazification,” within a historical frame. He also discusses the unique forces shaping and re-shaping Ukraine’s national identity throughout history.

Listen to the first two conversations in this miniseries, "Ghosts of the Past in the Russian Invasion of Ukraine," here. 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shocked and perplexed the world. This special two-part episode of Then & Now features two outstanding historical observers: Benjamin Nathans, Alan Charles Kors Endowed Term Associate Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, and J. Arch Getty, Distinguished Research Professor of History at UCLA, offer much needed background and perspective on Russia's actions.  Professors Nathans and Getty discuss the historical relationship between Russia and Ukraine, the roots of Ukrainian national identity, and Vladimir Putin’s historical pretext for the invasion.

This week's episode features the recording of Part 2 of the three part webinar series organized by the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy in partnership with the USC Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life and the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. This innovative series brings together scholars, thinkers, and policy-makers of different visions to reflect on the current impasse in Israel-Palestine and share proposals for the future.

This program features:
Dr. Julie Cooper, Political Theorist, Tel Aviv University
Dr. Micah Goodman, Israeli Intellectual and Author, Catch-67
Dr. Hussein Ibish, Senior Resident Scholar, The Arab Gulf States Institute
Dr. Areej Sabbagh-Khoury, Sociology and Anthropology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The third and final installment of this series will take place on Sunday, March 6th at 11am PT. RSVP here: www.tinyurl.com/deadlockpart3

LCHP Student Research Fellows and Geography Ph.D. students Sammy Feldblum and John Schmidt join Then & Now to discuss their new LCHP research report, The Transformation of Academic Labor: Past as Prologue at the University of California. Their research details the various factors leading to the UC’s increased reliance on contingent, non-tenured faculty lecturers over the past decades. They discuss the increased privatization of the university over the past fifty years, the implications of this privatization on student learning, and their recommendations for how to foster better working and learning conditions on campus.

This conversation is moderated by Dr. Caroline Luce, researcher and lecturer at UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment and communications chair for UCAFT, the union representing lecturers and librarians across the UC.   

Read their new report here. 

In honor of Black History Month and in the midst of the Winter Olympics, we revisit this episode on the "Black Athlete" that originally aired on July 6, 2020.

From Jack Johnson to Muhammed Ali, from Tommie Smith to Colin Kaepernick, Black athletes have played a huge role in the social and cultural history of the 20th and 21st centuries.  Ben Carrington, sociologist at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, joins Then & Now to discuss the "racial project" of the Black Athlete.  He observes how Black athletes have been fetishized, commodified, controlled, and celebrated, sometimes all at once. He compares the long history of this project to the present moment, when Black athletes, both at the professional and collegiate levels, are gaining greater agency over their lives and careers.

On October 21, 2021, cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed by a live round of ammunition fired by actor Alec Baldwin on the set of the movie Rust. Her death has prompted numerous discussions about what constitutes “safety” while working on a film set. Dr. Kate Fortmueller, Assistant Professor of Entertainment and Media Studies at the University of Georgia, examines the evolution of these discussions - and the evolution of general labor struggles in the film industry - throughout history. She discusses union bargaining power, COVID-19, the use of live rounds, and other policy regulations that collectively shape safety for actors and staff on film sets. UCLA History graduate student Avery Weinman is the guest host for this episode.

This wide-ranging conversation features Professor Mishuana Goeman, Professor of Gender Studies and American Indian Studies, and the inaugural Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Native American and Indigenous Affairs at UCLA. Professor Goeman discusses her personal journey into interdisciplinary scholarship, the relationship and tensions between academia and community-centered work, and the many tangible steps universities and other institutions can make toward reparative justice for Native Americans.

 You can find out more about her project “Mapping Indigenous LA” here.

Professor Manisha Shah, Franklin D. Gilliam Chair in Social Justice and director of the Global Lab for Research in Action at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, joins Then & Now producer Maia Ferdman in conversation about the long history of policy approaches to sex work. They discuss the motivations behind the prohibition and regulation of sex work as well as their public health and economic implications. They also discuss the “end demand” policy approach to sex work, which criminalizes those who purchase, rather than sell, sex. They then discuss the empirical evidence that supports the decriminalization of sex work.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which addresses the constitutionality of a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks. This case is the latest in a decades-long legal battle over the legality of abortion access, which may culminate in the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case affirming a woman's right to an abortion. Professor Cary Franklin, McDonald/Wright Chair of Law and Faculty Director of the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, joins Then & Now to discuss the recent oral arguments in their historical context.

This conversation is co-sponsored by the Williams Institute and the Promise Institute for Human Rights at the UCLA School of Law.