Distinguished by its virtuosity, probing musical insight, and impassioned, fiery performances, the Ariel Quartet has garnered critical praise worldwide for more than twenty years. The Quartet serves as the Faculty Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, where they direct the chamber music program and present a concert series in addition to maintaining a busy touring schedule in the United States and abroad. Recent highlights include the Ariel Quartet’s Carnegie Hall debut, as well as the release of a Brahms and Bartók album for Avie Records. In 2020, the Ariel gave the U.S. premiere of the Quintet for…
Lecture by Abby Gibson, Ph.D. Candidate in History, University of Southern California. Recipient of the 2024–25 Kenneth Karmiole Endowed Graduate Research Fellowship The Montana Vigilantes, as they have become known within the popular nostalgia of the Wild West, were almost immediately and are still often hailed as heroes of the frontier in their brave efforts to fill in for the American justice system in the wild days before statehood. In 1866, English schoolteacher and recent arrival to Montana Territory, Thomas J. Dimsdale, published a passionate defense of the events of January and February 1864–The Montana Vigilantes!–which is held in the William…
Conference organized by Carla Gardina Pestana (UCLA) and Gabriel de Avilez Rocha (Brown University) Co-sponsored by the Joyce Appleby Endowed Chair of America in the World The diverse peoples who converged on the Caribbean before 1700 held a range of differing beliefs, ideas about the natural world, and understandings of social, political, and spiritual order. Considering how Indigenous, African, and European systems of thought and faith clashed, adapted, and transformed will be the focus of this second meeting. We invite participants to consider how culturally specific systems of knowledge were expressed and transformed under emergent rubrics of what would become known…
زن در قانون اساسی ایران Women’s Rights and the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran Sunday, March 9, 2025 | 11:30 am – 1:30 pm Zoom Registration: https://ucla.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pM3LdrXXSriCfDMGfzVg8w The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, ratified after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, stands as the country’s foundational legal framework, requiring all subsequent laws to align with its principles. The revolution itself was propelled by widespread calls for social and political reform, with significant factions advocating for democracy, human rights, and gender equality. Iranian women played a prominent role in this movement, underscoring the aspirations for a more inclusive and…
:گاهشماری و هویت چگونه تقویم خورشیدی ایران ۱۴۰۰ سال پایدار ماند و نماد بارزی از هویت ملی شد؟ Calendar and Identity: Why did the Persian solar calendar survive for 1400 years and become an important feature of Iranian identity? Sunday, April 6, 2025 at 4:00pm, Royce Hall 314 Alternate live stream on Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/97895439218 (No need to register in advance, just click the link at 4:00pm on April 6 to join) Since the end of the Sasanian era the Persian solar calendar, and the associated rite of Nowruz, endured as became a significant features of Iranian, and to some…
Calendar and Identity: Why did the Persian solar calendar survive for 1400 years and become an important feature of Iranian identity? Monday, April 7, 2025 at 3:00pm, Bunche Hall 10383 Alternate live stream on Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/95885037418 (No need to register in advance, just click the link at 3:00pm on April 7 to join.) Since the end of the Sasanian era, the Persian solar calendar—and the associated rite of Norouz—has endured and grown to become a significant feature of Iranian, and to some extent the Persianate, cultural identity. With Hijra as its starting point but based on vernal equinox, it is…
Abstract: At the end of the 1650s, Melchiorre Cafà, a Maltese sculptor, was newly established in Rome. Rome was the most significant site for sculptural production in Europe at that time. It was also a Golden Age of sculpture as artists vied for papal commissions and pushed the limits of their medium. They transformed hard stone into weightless apparitions. But, in his early days in the Caput Mundi, Cafà returned home conceptually. He carved in the humble material of wood the patron saint of his island, St. Paul, to be sent back to Malta. Today the sculpture is at the…
Striving for Expertise Guest Speaker: Carla Pestana (UCLA) Scholars often refer to Samuel Pepys as an early example of a state bureaucrat, his career as a civil servant in the burgeoning Restoration bureaucracy offering documentation of an important shift in governance. Of equal note—and perhaps greater interest—is the way Pepys himself aimed for expertise. Not content to serve as a cog in a larger bureaucratic machine, Pepys sought to educate himself about the workings of the navy and of sailing ships, going beyond the demands of his own office to achieve a deeper understanding. In doing so, he once again…
“Between Two Worlds: The Roma and Early Global Print Cultures” Guest Speaker: Kristina Richardson (University of Virginia) Richardson will show that Roma and other traveling people not only utilized block printing between 800 and 1450 in North Africa and West Asia but also introduced print technology in their new homes when they migrated to Central Europe in the 1410s. Traveling people were the links bridging the early print cultures of North Africa, West Asia, and Central Europe. Kristina Richardson is the John L. Nau Professor of History at the University of Virginia. Her research focuses on premodern non-elite Arab history,…
