40th Anniversary Celebration of the Center for 17th- & 18th-Century Studies

Join us in celebrating the 40th anniversary of the UCLA Center for 17th- & 18th-Century Studies, the nation’s first research center for early modern studies. Founded in 1985, the Center provides a forum for the discussion of central issues in the field of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century studies, and organizes a wide range of academic and cultural programs. Additionally, the Center administers the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, located on a historic property in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles, which serves as the research laboratory for a distinguished array of fellows working either in early modern studies or the fin-de-siècle world of Oscar Wilde.

The program will begin with a talk presented by UCLA Professor of English Helen Deutsch, who served as the Center & Clark’s Director from 2017 to 2020. At a moment when higher education is under siege, the study of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries might seem a luxury at best, irrelevant at worst. Professor Deutsch’s talk, a review and celebration of the Center and its history, refutes such assumptions. She will argue that the work of the Center and its partner the Clark—research, musical and theatrical performance, conferences, collaborations in many forms—is not a retreat to the past but rather an ongoing engagement with our present. Critical University Studies scholar Christopher Newfield has recently described universities as “places of unique challenge, novelty, and happiness, of intellectual revolutions and personal transformations.” The Center is just such a place, and our imaginative and intellectual investments in the past illuminate the ways in which such revolutions are both rooted in history and ongoing collective projects of the utmost relevance.

The registration form is available on our website.

The program is free to attend with advance registration, and will be held in-person at Royce Hall 314.

Registration will close on Wednesday, May 6 at 5:00 p.m.

Seating is limited; walk-in registrants are welcome as space permits.