Second Annual Spotlight Talk by Johanna Drucker, Distinguished Professor and Breslauer Professor Emerita, Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles Paul Landacre was a wood engraver and artist whose first published work, California Hills (1931), established his reputation within the Fine Press community of Los Angeles. Highly skilled as an engraver, he produced a considerable corpus of acclaimed work, and he also kept scrupulous records of all aspects of his activity—account books, correspondence, sketches, and personal memorabilia. These materials provide an in-depth look at his professional life, and his connections to a singular network of artists and intellectuals in the region. But the…
Conference organized by Carla Gardina Pestana (University of California, Los Angeles) and Gabriel de Avilez Rocha (Brown University) Co-sponsored by the Joyce Appleby Endowed Chair of America in the World The Caribbean became global through successive aggregations of disparate peoples across a wide span of time. Long before the arrival of Europeans, the Caribbean Sea served as a bridge among the more than 700 islands that dot the area. For millennia, Indigenous people moved among islands and between them and the adjacent mainland, motived by settlement, trade, and conflict. The circulation of peoples accelerated with the advent of Europeans who seized lands, killed many…
Conference organized by Carla Gardina Pestana (University of California, Los Angeles) and Gabriel de Avilez Rocha (Brown University) Co-sponsored by the Joyce Appleby Endowed Chair of America in the World The Caribbean became global through successive aggregations of disparate peoples across a wide span of time. Long before the arrival of Europeans, the Caribbean Sea served as a bridge among the more than 700 islands that dot the area. For millennia, Indigenous people moved among islands and between them and the adjacent mainland, motived by settlement, trade, and conflict. The circulation of peoples accelerated with the advent of Europeans who seized lands, killed…
Lecture by Ida Altman, Professor Emerita, University of Florida As Iberians in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries expanded into the Atlantic world they intentionally and unintentionally created conditions for the unprecedented convergence of peoples and cultures in the Caribbean that would transform them and the region as a whole. The dimensions and complexities of that process can be identified at nearly all levels. Over time, as other European nations became active in the Caribbean, contraband or extra-legal trade and efforts to stake out territorial claims generated other forms of convergence. Other Europeans followed many of the precedents that…
Organized by Yinghui Wu (University of California, Los Angeles) and Kunqu Opera Society USA Co-sponsored by UCLA Asia Pacific Center and Center for Chinese StudiesLocation Kunqu Opera, with over 600 years of history, is one of the world’s oldest theatrical traditions, alongside Greek drama and Indian Sanskrit theatre. This lecture features two distinguished experts: a first-class national actor known for his xiaosheng roles and an associate professor at Chinese Culture University in Taiwan, specializing in chou roles. They will explore Kunqu Opera’s unique performance conventions and the artistry of chou roles through a blend of explanation and demonstration. Additionally, actors from the Kunqu Opera Society…
Nezāmi and the Iranian World November 21–22, 2024 | UCLA Royce Hall 306 A symposium and workshop convened by Domenico Ingenito (University of California, Los Angeles) Morning Refreshments at 8:30am Conference beings at 9:00am “Nezāmi and the Iranian World” is a two-day conference (November 21–22, 2024) that brings together specialists of Persian literature, junior faculty, and graduate students to facilitate in-depth conversations on Nezāmi in a stimulating intellectual environment at UCLA. Nezāmi Ganjavi’s five romances in verse, collectively known as the Quintet (Khamsa), are regarded as the most precious examples of medieval Iran’s literary refinement. Drawing upon a vast repertoire…
Byzantium Within a Medieval Eurafricasian Literary Polysystem: Historiography, Fictional Tales, and the Practices of Narrative Representation Byzantium and its literature has been excluded from the national canons of European literatures. While there are some obvious reasons for this exclusion in the 18th–19th century, it is woth noting that also Byzantinists supported this exclusion by promoting the alterity of Byzantine culture in relation to “Medieval Europe.” The talk will examine two types of entangled premodern narratives as examples which show the application of new criteria that would allow us to think inclusively in terms of broader “medieval” literary polysystems and…
November 22, 2024 | 4:00PM – 6:00PM Dodd Hall 167 & Zoom RSVP HERE Join us on November 22, 2024 for a colloquium with Thomas Kelly, Princeton University. The talk will take place in Dodd Hall 167 from 4:00PM – 6:00PM with a reception to follow. Bias: Some Surprising Truths In this talk, I’ll argue for three claims about bias that many people find deeply counterintuitive if not obviously false: (i) Externalism about bias: a person can count as biased because of their social environment, even if all of their internal cognitive processes are functioning impeccably; (ii) Rationality requires…
In person (Kaplan 365) or on Zoom Could knowledge about biodiversity loss be advanced through inquiry into the study of religion? Emerging from a lab that integrates humanities, arts, and sciences into research on coastal change in Virginia, this talk shows how different conceptions of religion and spirituality open unique lines of inquiry into human dimensions of environmental change. RSVP here for the in-person event. Register here for the Zoom link to the event. Willis Jenkins is John Allen Hollingsworth Professor of Ethics and chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. Jenkins writes along…
