In honor of Black History Month this February and the 40th anniversary of UCLA's Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, the Bunche Center will host a series of events starting this month.

 

"Black History Month is particularly significant because our center is celebrating its 40th anniversary," said Darnell Hunt, director of the Bunche Center. "Our center has a long history of promoting research, academia, culture and arts within the African American community, and this year is no different."

 

Throughout the 2009–10 academic year, UCLA's African American, American Indian, Asian American and Chicano studies centers will be celebrating 40 years of contributions to a wide range of academic disciplines and to civic life in Southern California and beyond. In 1969, UCLA became the first university to establish four ethnic studies centers; it remained the only campus in America with four such centers for more than four decades.

 

All events are free and take place on the UCLA campus. For more information, visit www.bunchecenter.ucla.edu.

 

Thursday, Jan. 21

Reception: 4:30 p.m.

Panel discussions: 6 p.m.

Royce Hall 362

 

Two panels will discuss the center's 40th anniversary. Speakers will include UCLA Chancellor Emeritus Charles E. Young, former UCLA Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs C.Z. Wilson, and the following past directors of the Bunche Center: Robert Singleton; Molefi K. Asante; UCLA Vice Chancellor for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate Division Claudia Mitchell-Kernan; M. Belinda Tucker, associate dean of the Graduate Division and professor of psychiatry and biobehavorial sciences; and Richard Yarborough, associate professor of English.

 

 

Wednesday, Feb. 10

Noon

A talk by Ruha Benjamin, postdoctoral fellow at the UCLA Center for Society and Genetics

Haines Hall 135

 

Against the backdrop of a nefarious history of abuse and neglect, this talk examines the contemporary relationship of African Americans to the scientific pursuit of medical novelties, as both objects of experimental practices and quasi-agents of a "biopolitics of inclusion." Drawing upon two years of ethnographic fieldwork, interviews and a mixed archive of documents and media, Ruha Benjamin analyzes the everyday stakes of stem cell treatments for African Americans and elaborates a notion of "organized ambivalence" to explain the complex relationship of African Americans to biomedicine.

 

 

Thursday, Feb. 11

Reception: 5:30 p.m.

Lecture: 7 p.m.

Grand Horizon Room, Covel Commons

 

Noted scholar Charles Henry, a UC Berkeley professor of African American studies and former president of the National Council for Black Studies, will deliver the 2009–10 Bunche Chair Lecture. He will discuss how Ralph J. Bunche, the UCLA alumnus who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950, and President Barack Obama transcended race to become prominent leaders.

 

 

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