The Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice UBC

09/01/2026

Kick off the academic year by joining faculty, students, staff, associates, and friends of the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice for our annual Welcome Back Social.

🗓️ Tuesday, September 29, 2026
🕑 2:00 – 5:00 PM
📍 Jack Poole Hall, Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre

Refreshments will be provided. Learn more and register here: https://grsj.arts.ubc.ca/events/event/welcome-back-2026/

Please RVSP by Sunday, September 13. See you there!

08/24/2026

Join Dr. Yoav Litvin for a lecture co-sponsored by GRSJ as he discusses his new book, "Wired to Steal: A Neurobehavioral Model of Colonial Aggression from 9/11 to 10/7", co-written with Professor Ilan Pappe.

Register here to save your spot: https://www.jotform.com/form/262286662057261?utm_id=97758_v0_s00_e0_tv2_a1demo0gjv3hwi&fbclid=IwY2xjawT5VclwZG9mAWV4dG4DYWVtAjEwAGJyaWQRMThpbFB3b3IyVVRBSWIwb2tzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEev7OZQETxbgG413hPEz28Z4FqCLWl-a1mEjL7_WGcrPAQWVck6F6BEUxBIl8_aem_QVpmPUxL2mk9TbVATHun5Q

Join UBC MES and Dr. Yoav Litvin for a lecture titled "Wired to Steal: A Neurobehavioral Model of Colonial Aggression from 9/11 to 10/7" on Thursday, September 17th. Registration is required (see QR code in image or go to https://www.jotform.com/form/262286662057261

Co-sponsored by UBC Public Humanities Hub UBC School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and The Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice UBC

05/20/2026

Yasuko Tamaki started her journey at the Learning Exchange as a student in the English Conversation Program, later becoming a facilitator leading English conversation sessions, at other times, a leader of special community activities.

Yasuko is now graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in Asian Studies and minoring in Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, and has been accepted into a Master’s program.

Learn more about Yasuko’s experience at the Learning Exchange, as well as her perspective on being a newcomer to Canada and having to learning a new culture.

Read the whole story here: https://learningexchange.ubc.ca/2026/05/11/yasuko-tamakis-second-life/

05/15/2026

Congratulations to our 2026 graduates!

We are extremely proud of all of our students who completed their programs this year. The dedication, collaboration, and community-building that accompanied their journeys is something absolutely worth celebrating. Congrats to the GRSJ and CSIS class of 2026!

03/19/2026

Save your spot for Dr. Elif Sari and Dr. Rana Abughannam's upcoming GRSJ Noted Scholars Speaker event!

Join us for a conversation about about the colonial and carceral frameworks that render people “stuck” in undesired conditions and people’s grassroots approaches to “counter” these violent, confining conditions. Full details below, RSVP required:

RSVP here: https://grsj.arts.ubc.ca/events/event/timespaces-of-stuckness-and-countering-with-elif-sari-and-rana-abughannam/

Title: “Timespaces of Stuckness and Countering”
Speakers: Elif Sari and Rana Abughannam
When: Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Where: Buchanan Tower, Room 1099, UBC (In-Person Only)

02/27/2026

Save your spot for Kateřina Kolářová's upcoming GRSJ Noted Scholars Speaker event!

Join us for a conversation about Kateřina Kolářová’s 'Rehabilitative Postsocialism', which offers a timely interdisciplinary and intersectional analysis of how disability, race, class, and gender operate as ideological tools within the postsocialist Czech Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia). Full details below, RSVP required:

RSVP here: https://grsj.arts.ubc.ca/events/event/inadaptable-noncitizens-racialized-capital-and-lessons-from-postsocialist-neoliberalisation-with-katerina-kolarova/

Title: "Inadaptable (Non)Citizens, Racialized Capital and Lessons from Postsocialist Neoliberalisation"
Speaker: Kateřina Kolářová
When: Wednesday, March 4, 2026
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Where: Buchanan Tower, Room 323, UBC (Hybrid event)

02/13/2026

Save your spot for Christine Kim and Renisa Mawani's upcoming GRSJ Noted Scholar Speaker event!

Join us for a conversation about the challenges of working within discourses of human rights and emergency, with the speakers proposing alternative methods for historical research that are attentive to our persistently colonial present. Full details below and at link in bio, RSVP required.

Title: “Methods for Tracing Empires: a conversation on war, race, and migration”
Speakers: Christine Kim and Renisa Mawani
When: Wednesday, February 25, 2026
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Where: Buchanan Tower, Room 323, UBC (Hybrid event)
A light lunch will be provided.

RSVP here: https://grsj.arts.ubc.ca/events/event/methods-for-tracing-empires-a-conversation-on-war-race-and-migration-with-christine-kim-and-renisa-mawani/

01/16/2026

Save your spot for Dr. Jodi A. Byrd’s upcoming GRSJ Noted Scholar Speaker event! Join us for conversation about how Indigenous visions of dystopias reveal how video games encode settler structures of governance even athey provide vital modes of resistance to Indigenous erasure.

Full details below and at link in bio, RSVP required.

This event is co-sposored by Green College, UBC Critical Play Lab, & the UBC Pop Culture Cluster.

Title: Indigenomicon: A Conversation
Speaker: Dr. Jodi A. Byrd
When: Wednesday, January 28, 2026
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Where: Buchanan Tower, Room 323, UBC (Hybrid event)
A light lunch will be provided.
RSVP here: https://grsj.arts.ubc.ca/events/event/indigenous-relationality-in-the-grind-of-the-sh*tty-future-with-dr-jodi-a-byrd/

About the Speaker:
Jodi A. Byrd is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and professor of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago. Their first book The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism (University of Minnesota Press, 2011) won the 2013 Best First Book of the Year award from the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, and the 2012 Wordcraft Circle Award for Academic Work of the Year.

The Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice Noted Scholars Series (co-sponsored by Green College, UBC Critical Play Lab, & UBC Pop Culture Cluster) presents: “Indigenomicon: A Conversation”   Dr. Jodi A. Byrd WHEN & WHERE Wednesday January 28, 2026 12-1pm Buchanan Tower, Room ...

01/05/2026

Reminder! Ignite, the undergraduate journal for GRSJ, is re-launching this spring and the team is looking for submissions. Deadline to submit is January 9, 2026.

Volume IX's theme is Worldbuilding. From the co-editors, "We are particularly interested in how student scholars and activists can make theory work for them. This means considering how theoretical frameworks can guide, inform, or amplify social justice imperatives."

https://grsj.arts.ubc.ca/news/re-igniting-the-grsj-undergraduate-academic-journal/

12/12/2025

GRSJ is looking for an Assistant Professor of Teaching Without Review to join us this year at the UBC Vancouver Campus. Applicants with educational leadership and coursework focused on globalization, political economy, and social justice are encouraged to apply.

Deadline to apply is January 23, 2026.

Full details available here: https://www.arts.ubc.ca/academic-postings/gender-race-sexuality-and-social-justice-assistant-professor-of-teaching-without-review/