Speaking Across Conflict Workshop for Staff and Faculty - 10/15
2025-10-15 12:00 - 14:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
The Dialogue across Differences Initiative at UCLA is proud to offer an interactive opportunity for staff, administrators, and faculty to delve deeper into a core skill for having more constructive conversations across charged political differences.
Based on the methodology of Resetting the Table, a nationally renowned organization dedicated to building honest and open communication, this workshop will allow participants to practice speaking about divisive political topics using effective skills. The session will be highly interactive, and we ask that participants be present for its entirety. It will be led by Maia Ferdman.
Location: This session will be held in-person only on the UCLA campus and will not be recorded. Location shared upon RSVP.
RSVP link

Speaking Across Conflict Workshop for Graduate Students
2025-10-28 12:00 - 15:00
The Dialogue across Differences Initiative at UCLA is proud to offer an interactive opportunity for graduate students to delve deeper into a core skill for having more constructive conversations across charged political differences.
Based on the methodology of Resetting the Table, a nationally renowned organization dedicated to building honest and open communication, this workshop will allow participants to practice speaking about divisive political topics using effective skills. The session will be highly interactive, and we ask that participants be present for its entirety.
Location: This session will be held in-person only on the UCLA campus and will not be recorded. Location shared upon RSVP.
RSVP here.

Speaking Across Conflict Workshop for Students - 11/5
2025-11-05 09:00 - 12:00
The Dialogue across Differences Initiative at UCLA is proud to offer an interactive opportunity for UCLA students to delve deeper into a core skill for having more constructive conversations across charged political differences.
Based on the methodology of Resetting the Table, a nationally renowned organization dedicated to building honest and open communication, this workshop will allow participants to practice speaking about divisive political topics using effective skills. The session will be highly interactive, and we ask that participants be present for its entirety.
Location: This session will be held in-person only on the UCLA campus and will not be recorded. Location shared upon RSVP.
RSVP here.

Viral Harm, Contested Definitions: Antisemitism and the Politics of Listening
2025-11-12 11:00 - 12:00 | Royce Hall, 236
Hosted by the Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, ISH postdoctoral fellow Dr. Kathryn Huether will present her talk Viral Harm, Contested Definitions: Antisemitism and the Politics of Listening, on November 12th at Royce Hall.
Dr. Huether’s talk will examine how antisemitism is transmitted and amplified through sound on contemporary social media platforms, situating this analysis within today’s contested debates over how antisemitism itself is defined. Moving beyond text-based definitions to examine music, ambient audio, and meme-driven clips, she will show how these sonic practices blur parody and hate, evade moderation systems, and circulate antisemitic affect through the viral logics of digital culture.
This talk is being hosted by the Alan Dr. Leve Center for Jewish Studies. To register, click here.

Compassion in Practice: Providing Water and Shelter in Gaza
2025-11-17 18:00 - 20:00
A Conversation with Seba Abudaqa and Tom Kellner, co-founders of Clean Shelter
This event will feature the work of Clean Shelter, a grassroots organization registered in Germany that delivers immediate relief to displaced communities in Gaza through essential sanitation and shelter solutions. Founded by Seba Abudaqa, a Palestinian from Gaza living between Munich and Cairo, and Tom Kellner, an Israeli based in Berlin, the organization focuses on concrete action on the ground, providing shelter, sanitation, and water. Since January 2024, Clean Shelter has established multiple IDP camps, installed water desalination units and constructed water infrastructure, and provided aid to more than 150,000 displaced people across Gaza.
Seba and Tom will speak about what brought them together and what motivates them in the midst of the overwhelming challenges of Gaza.
Register here.

Racial Exhaustion: How to Move Through Racism in the Wake of DEI
2025-12-02 17:00 - 19:00
Book Launch with Vice Provost for Inclusive Excellence Ralina Joseph
Ralina L. Joseph, a university professor, educator, administrator, and advocate whose work focuses on issues of equity, access, and belonging in higher education and beyond, is UCLA’s new vice provost for inclusive excellence. In her new book, Racial Exhaustion: How to Move Through Racism in the Wake of DEI, Joseph draws on personal narrative, real-world dialogue, and critical race scholarship to explore how radical listening can help us navigate conversations about race. Racial Exhaustion challenges us to recognize and address the fatigue that racial discourse brings while offering strategies to foster more equitable communication and productive change.
Vice Provost Joseph will be joined in conversation by Prof. Robin Kelley (History), Prof. Salma Mousa (Political Science), and Dr. D’artagnan Scorza (LA County Anti-Racism, Diversity, and Inclusion Initiative)
RSVP Here.

Speaking Across Conflict Workshop for Faculty and Staff
2026-01-13 12:00 - 14:30
The Dialogue across Differences Initiative at UCLA is proud to offer an interactive opportunity for staff, administrators, and faculty to delve deeper into a core skill for having more constructive conversations across charged political differences.
Based on the methodology of Resetting the Table, a nationally renowned organization dedicated to building honest and open communication, this workshop will allow participants to practice speaking about divisive political topics using effective skills. The session will be highly interactive, and we ask that participants be present for its entirety. It will be led by Maia Ferdman.
Location: This session will be held in-person only on the UCLA campus and will not be recorded. Location shared upon RSVP.
RSVP link.

The Politics of Migrant Scapegoating: A Conversation on Inclusion and Exclusion
2026-01-29 18:00 - 20:00
Prof. Claire Adida is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and faculty co-director at the Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford University. Her research on the topic of immigration and kindness investigates how countries manage new and existing forms of diversity, what exacerbates or alleviates outgroup prejudice and discrimination, and how vulnerable groups navigate discriminatory environments. Prof. Adida will be joined conversation by Prof. Hiroshi Motomura, faculty co-director of the UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy, and Prof. Abel Valenzuela, the dean of UCLA’s Division of Social Sciences.
Register for this event here.

An Interfaith Dialogue on Justice, Forgiveness, and Compassion
2026-02-24 18:00 - 20:00
In our deeply fractured world, religion serves both to connect and offer wisdom and to foster conflict and division. Over the course of centuries, it has been frequently invoked to justify brutal violence, but can it be an effective tool to advance justice? To explore different perspectives on the topic of faith, forgiveness, and justice, we will be joined by a distinguished panel of religious leaders: Father Greg Boyle, Rabbi Sharon Brous, Valarie Kaur, and Imam Dr. Jihad Turk.
Father Greg Boyle is a Jesuit priest and director of Homeboy Industries, the world’s largest gang intervention and rehabilitation program. Rabbi Sharon Brous is the senior and founding Rabbi of IKAR, a Jewish spiritual community in Los Angeles. Valarie Kaur is a civil rights leader and activist, filmmaker, educator, best-selling author, and founder of the Revolutionary Love Project, a movement to reclaim love as a force for justice. Imam Dr. Jihad Turk is the founding President of Bayan Islamic Graduate School, a preeminent Muslim institution of higher education.
Event time TBD. Registration link coming soon.

Speaking Across Conflict Workshop for Faculty and Staff
2026-04-09 12:00 - 14:30
The Dialogue across Differences Initiative at UCLA is proud to offer an interactive opportunity for staff, administrators, and faculty to delve deeper into a core skill for having more constructive conversations across charged political differences.
Based on the methodology of Resetting the Table, a nationally renowned organization dedicated to building honest and open communication, this workshop will allow participants to practice speaking about divisive political topics using effective skills. The session will be highly interactive, and we ask that participants be present for its entirety. It will be led by Maia Ferdman.
Location: This session will be held in-person only on the UCLA campus and will not be recorded. Location shared upon RSVP.
RSVP here.

Symposium on Sound and Hate
2026-04-10 10:00 - 16:00 | Schoenberg Music Building, Lani Hall
This half-day symposium at UCLA will examine the intersection of sound and hate, highlighting how auditory experiences can propagate, resist, and reflect social animosities. Bringing together diverse perspectives from sound studies and related fields, the event will deepen understanding of how sound influences, challenges, and shapes the dynamics of hate in society. The keynote address, “Sectarian Reckonings: The Politics of Voice and Song in Post-Authoritarian Syria,” will be delivered by Shayna M. Silverstein, Associate Professor in the Department of Performance Studies and faculty member of the Middle Eastern and North African Studies program at Northwestern University. Her talk explores public reckonings with sectarian violence in Syria from the 2010s conflict to the precarious present, offering guided listening to sonic practices—from chant and song to rock and livestream audio culture—that respond to sectarianized hate, violence, and animosity. Additional speakers include UCLA School of Music Associate Professor Jenny Johnson, UCLA Initiative to Study Hate (ISH) Research Manager Dr. Amalia Mora, and the symposium’s curator Dr. Kathryn Huether (ISH and Leve Center for Jewish Studies Postdoctoral Fellow-Antisemitism Studies).

Bridging and Belonging with Professor john powell
2026-04-15 18:00 - 20:00
Professor john powell is a renowned scholar and advocate in the areas of civil rights, structural racism, housing, constitutional law, equality, democracy, and belonging. He is the director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, where he holds the Robert D. Haas Chancellor’s Chair in Equity and Inclusion and is a Professor of Law, Ethnic Studies, and African American Studies. Prof. powell has served as the National Legal Director of the ACLU and is well-known for the development of an “opportunity-based” model for thinking about affordable housing, racialized space, and the many ways that housing influences other opportunity domains including education, health, health care, and employment.
Event time TBD. Registration link coming soon.
