Center for Race & Gender

APRIL 29 (livestream available) | UC Berkeley’s Palestinian & Arab Studies Program invites you to attend the 2026 May Ziadeh Distinguished Lecture in Palestinian & Arab Studies, “Writing in the Aftermath,” featuring renowned poet, essayist, and translator Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, the first Palestinian recipient of the National Book Award. 🗓️ Wednesday, April 29, 2026 ⏰ 6:00 PM 📍 Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall, UC Berkeley & Livestream 🔗 bit.ly/ZiadehLecture or link in bio 📚 Book signing of Lena’s latest poetry collection, Something About Living, to follow keynote address Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. She is the author of three books of poetry: Something About Living (UAkron, 2024), winner of the 2024 National Book Award and winner of the 2022 Akron Prize for Poetry; Kaan & Her Sisters(Trio House Press, 2023), finalist for the 2024 Firecracker Award and honorable mention for the 2024 Arab American Book Award; and Water & Salt(Red Hen, 2017), winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award and honorable mention for the 2018 Arab American Award. Her writing has appeared in journals including Los Angeles Review of Books, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Nation, Poets.org, Protean, Prairie Schooner, and many others. Tuffaha’s work has also been anthologized widely, including in The Long Devotion (Georgia Press), We Call to the Eye and the Night (Persea Press), and Gaza Unsilenced (Just World Books). She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington and an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writing Workshop. Tuffaha lives with her family in Redmond, Washington.

In March, we honor Women's History and Empowerment Month — and we aren't only celebrating progress. We're also confronting complexity. At our conference last week, Women on the Right in U.S. History, scholars examined women's pivotal roles in building conservative power in the U.S. Women have shaped every corner of American political life, including movements that curtailed women's rights. Thank you to all who came out and a special thanks to our speakers, including Kathleen Blee and Jennifer Burns. By examining these histories through the lenses of gender, race, religion, and sexuality, the conference deepened our understanding of women's political power and its paradoxes. #ucberkeley #BerkeleyEvents #ucberkeleyissi

BAD ASIANS presents a Studio Visit with hamsa fae BODY IS LAND: Transfemininity as Eco-Performance Broadcasting from her solo exhibition BODY IS LAND at Cash Machine, artist hamsa fae will be in conversation with Performance Studies PhD candidate Lena Chen to discuss her decade of practice in land-based animism. Her show includes a billboard installed at Glendale Ave in Atwater Village, down the street from the gallery. fae is a Vietnamese American artist working across expanded performance, technology, and social engagement. Her work reflects the political and spiritual mundane of trans womanhood: camming with strangers online, walking a nude runway, or plucking leg hair for hours. Working across geographies from California to the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, her practice situates the body as archive and interface, positioning transfemininity as a site of ecological remembrance and diasporic re-mythmaking. In this hybrid event, fae and Chen’s discussion will interrogate how bodies are mediated and rendered hypervisible within colonial and algorithmic systems. How can rituals of rest, pleasure, and erotic sovereignty act as counter-histories to performance art’s legacy of endurance and self-sacrifice? March 14, 2026 4-5 PM PT On Zoom and in person at Cash Machine (3305 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles) Register for webinar link: https://bit.ly/HamsaBodyIsLand Sponsored by Asian American Research Center, Institute of East Asian Studies, Othering & Belonging Institute - LGBTQ Cluster, Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies (AAADS) Program, Center for Race & Gender, Townsend Center for the Humanities

Gender & Women's Studies Presents: Trans Studies, Now? a symposium for a world on fire Wednesday, March 18th (3 - 4:30 pm) Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall, UC Berkeley Join The Department of Gender and Women’s Studies for an experiment in public thought. Using keywords as a place of departure our panelists will guide us through a conversation on trans politics, anti-trans antagonism, and the future of collective study.   Event co-sponsored by: Center for the Study of Sexual Culture, Center for Race and Gender, Department of African American Studies, Gender Equity Resource Center,  and LGBTQ Citizenship Cluster

Join us for an inspiring evening of conversation, community, and action on reproductive justice. 📚 Event: Abortion and Reproductive Justice – Book Talk 🗓️ When: Friday, February 13, 2026, 5:00–7:00 pm 📍 Where: Location provided upon registration 🎟️ RSVP: Use the registration form linked in bio to receive the event location. We’re gathering with movement leaders Marlene Fried and Loretta J. Ross, in conversation with Prof. Khiara M. Bridges, to discuss Abortion and Reproductive Justice: An Essential Guide for Resistance and the future of reproductive freedom. In the wake of Roe’s overturning and escalating attacks on abortion, bodily autonomy, immigrants, and gender-expansive people, activists of color are charting a path forward grounded in reproductive justice. This event offers a bold call to action and a practical guide for building an inclusive, intersectional movement that centers those most impacted. ✨ Co-sponsored by ACCESS Reproductive Justice, Women’s Health Specialists, and the UC Berkeley Center on Race & Gender. 🔗 RSVP link in bio.

How was the first day back? We at CRG are gently entering the spring semester, which also happens to be the beginning of a major year for the Center for Race and Gender – our 25th anniversary! To learn about what we've got planned for this semester and year ahead, we remind you to check out CRG's Event Calendar and to subscribe our e-newsletter, "CRG Happenings" for news and updates. (Links to both are in our bio.) In community, CRG Team

**TODAY** Join us for a talk (lunch included) 11.13 | 12 - 1:30 PM 691 Social Sciences Building (CRG Conference Room)  Exclusion By Design: Migrant Racialization and Temporary Legal Status with CRG Visiting Scholar (Summer + Fall 2025) Ming H. Chen, Professor of Law, Harry & Lillian Hastings Research Chair, and Faculty Director, Center for Race, Immigration, Citizenship & Equality (RICE), UC Law SF along with respondents Cybelle Fox, Professor of Sociology and Leti Volpp, Robert D. and Leslie Kay Raven Professor of Law in Access to Justice and Director of the Center for Race & Gender Migrants arrive in the United States on temporary visas ten times more often than on green cards, and more than half come from countries whose emigrants would be classified as non-White in the United States. Even so, immigration scholarship gives short shrift to temporary visas and treats them as race-neutral. This article contributes to the growing body of critical migration studies by demonstrating how immigration law assigns meaning to the race and legal status of temporary migrants. We find that temporary legal statuses are designed in ways that unnecessarily foster social exclusion through a process of racialization and hierarchical sorting by skills. Our empirical study of the distinctive experiences of three temporary worker categories deepens existing understandings of exclusion and racial subordination in the United States.

A week ago today we hosted literary legend Isabel Allende (@allendeisabel ) for a conversation with Dean Sara Guyer. What a beautiful rush this event was! Allende spoke with humor and honesty, sharing her experiences with grief, love, exile, and writing. The energy in the room was pure awe and appreciation. Thank you to the staff that made this event possible and all the guests who came out, both in-person and via livestream. Allende visited UC Berkeley as the Arts Research Center’s 25th Anniversary Speaker. For a quarter century now, ARC has acted as a hub and a meeting place, a space for reflection where artists, scholars, curators, and civic arts leaders from a variety of disciplines can gather and learn from one another. This event was presented by ARC with support from @berkeleyartshumanities and media co-sponsored by @ucberkeleyenglish , @crgberkeley , and the Departments of Comparative Literature. Photos by Grant Kerber

**JOIN US TODAY** Special Symposium - Big Tech, Democracy and Human Rights in South Asia 11.12 | 3 - 6:30 PM 10 Stephens Hall Institute for South Asia Studies Conference Room The Center for Race & Gender and the Center for the Study of Organized Hate invite you to a special symposium today on "Big Tech, Democracy and Human Rights in South Asia".  3:00 - 4:30 PM - Panel 1: Social Media Platforms: Impact on Democracy in South Asia Moderator: Zeba Warsi, Foreign Affairs Producer, PBS NewsHour Panelists: Susan Benesch, Executive Director, Dangerous Speech Project; Adjunct Professor, American University, and Faculty Associate, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University Sabhanaz Rashid Diya, Executive Director of Tech Global Institute Jeff Horwitz, Technology Reporter, Thomson Reuters 5:00 - 6:30 PM - Panel 2: Digital Hate and Disinformation: Transnational Implications Moderator: Alexa Koenig, Faculty Co-Director, Human Rights Center and Research Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law Panelists: Michael Kugelman, South Asia Analyst & Columnist, Foreign Policy Magazine Nighat Dad, Executive Director, Digital Rights Foundation Gerry Shih, Jerusalem Bureau Chief, The Washington Post Event organized by the Center for Race & Gender, and the Initiative on Political Conflict, Gender and People’s Rights at UC Berkeley, and the Center for the Study of Organized Hate, and co-sponsored by the Institute for South Asia Studies at UC Berkeley, and the Center for South Asia at Stanford University.

Feeling the mid-semester fatigue?  Come and join us today for a talk that will inspire and explore new possibilities. There will also be samosas, cupcakes, and chai. Food for thought. Food for the soul.  CRG Forum Series + CRG Research Initiative Event 10.24 | 5 - 6:30 PM 10 Stephens Hall (ISAS Conference Room) History for Peace: Experiments in Counter-Memory in India with Meena Megha Malhotra, The Seagull Foundation for the Arts, Kolkata, India Meena Megha Malhotra, Director of History for Peace, shares about the initiative of The Seagull Foundation for the Arts, a network of educators and members of civil society. The History for Peace project serves as a platform for discussion, debate and the exchange of ideas pertaining to teaching and learning of history for peace and understanding.  The objectives of the project are: Exploring multi and interdisciplinary and creative approaches, with emphasis on the arts Developing and collating resources Addressing bias and prejudice Promoting initiatives and the exchange of ideas across South Asia Teacher development For the past twenty-seven years, The Seagull Foundation for the Arts has been actively supporting, nurturing and disseminating creative and critical activity in the field of the arts in India, especially fine arts, theatre and cinema, out of a deep conviction and commitment to the belief that the arts are everybody’s responsibility and a social commitment.    Event hosted by CRG’s Political Conflict, Gender and People’s Rights Initiative and the Institute for South Asia Studies.

**UPDATE: In-person tickets are sold out! Please join us via Livestream at arts.berkeley.edu** BREAKING NEWS: Isabel Allende is ARC's 25th Anniversary Speaker! Join her and Dean Sara Guyer for a conversation on Nov 5th. 📆 11/5 at 5pm 📍Morrison Library 🎟Open to the public, free tickets on sale 10/13 at 2pm PST! 📸Livestream at arts.berkeley.edu ABOUT ISABEL ALLENDE: A native of Chile, Allende was forced into exile following the assassination of her uncle, President Salvador Allende. Since then, she has written over 27 books, including The House of the Spirits, Eva Luna, Daughter of Fortune, Ines of My Soul, Island Beneath the Sea, Maya’s Notebook, and The Japanese Lover. Allende’s non-fiction books include the memoirs Paula and The Sum of Our Days, as well as The Soul of a Woman, a meditation on Allende’s feminist roots. Chosen as one of Amazon’s best non-fiction books of the year, The Soul of a Woman is a work that Allende hopes will “light the torches of our daughters and granddaughters with mine.” Her book, The Wind Knows My Name was named to NPR‘s Books We Love. Allende is the founder of the Isabel Allende Foundation, which promotes and preserves the fundamental rights of women and children to be empowered and protected. She has received fifteen honorary doctorates, and has received the PEN Center Lifetime Achievement Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama awarded Allende the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, and in 2018 she received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation. Presented by ARC with support from @berkeleyartshumanities . Media co-sponsored by @ucberkeleyenglish , the Dept of Comparative Literature, and @crgberkeley .

Mark your calendars! At the end of the month, Pushcart Prize winning essayist Christina Rivera will give a book talk and reading, followed by a conversation with Shannon Jackson. 🗓️Wednesday, October 29 at 5pm 📍Arts Research Center, Hearst Field Annex D23 🎟️ Free & open to the public ✒️Reception & book signing to follow ABOUT CHRISTINA RIVERA: Christina Rivera (@christinarivera.writer ) is a Pushcart Prize-winning essayist from Colorado whose girlhood was bordered by coastlines of the Pacific Ocean. She is the debut author of MY OCEANS: Essays of Water, Whales, and Women (Northwestern University Press, March 2025) which was longlisted for the Graywolf Press Prize and a finalist for the Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature. Her work has won the John Burroughs Nature Essay Award (the highest annual honor for a creative nonfiction essay on place, science, and the environment) and appeared in Orion, The Kenyon Review, Longreads, The Cut, and Terrain.org, among other places. Christina credits the fragmentation of her writing to her two young children and is also the grateful recipient of creative residencies at Millay Arts, Craigardan, and the Wellstone Center. Learn more about Christina and MY OCEANS at ABOUT SHANNON JACKSON: Shannon Jackson (@shannonjacksonucb ) is the Cyrus and Michelle Hadidi Professor of the Arts & Humanities, director of the Environmental Arts & Humanities Initiative, Department Chair of the History of Art, and co-founder & former Director of the Arts Research Center This event is co-presented by the Arts Research Center and the Environmental Arts & Humanities Initiative and co-sponsored by the Departments of English, Comparative Literature, and Environmental Science, Policy, & Management, and the Center for Race & Gender. 🔗Click the link in bio for more info