Will & Lois Matthews Samuel Pepys Lecture
April 7, 2004
Thanks to the generosity of Professor William Matthews, the Center’s second Director, and his wife Lois, the CMRS presents an annual lecture, named in honor of the seventeenth-century British wit and diarist Samuel Pepys and scheduled to coincide (as closely as possible) with the date of Pepys’ own annual celebration of his recovery from surgery on March 26, 1658. This year’s featured speaker, CMRS Visiting Professor Ramón Mujica (Universidad Mayor de San Marcos, Peru) will describe and illustrate medieval and Renaissance survivals in the Baroque art of viceregal Peru.
“Travel Sickness: Medicine and Mobility from Antiquity to the Renaissance”
April 19, 2004 A discussion by Peregrine Horden, Reader in Medieval History at Royal Holloway College of the University of London. This meeting of the CMRS Roundtable is co-sponsored by the UCLA Department of English, the UCLA Department of History, and the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
Peregrine Horden is author (with Nicholas Purcell) of a monumental study The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History (Blackwell, 2000); the second volume, Liquid Contents: A Study of Mediterranean History, is in progress. He is editor of collections as wide-ranging as The Novelist as Philosopher: Modern Fiction and the History of Ideas; Freud and the Humanities; and Music as Medicine: The History of Music Therapy since Antiquity. Peregrine Horden holds degrees from Oxford University. He is also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Historical Society, and is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He is currently at work on a new book, Households, Healing and Hospitals in the Early Middle Ages: A Comparison of Europe and the Middle East.
“Toledo, City of Three Faiths, and the Survival of Mozarabic Culture There”
April 28, 2004 A lecture by Ian Michael, King Alfonso XIII Professor of Spanish Studies Emeritus at the University of Oxford, and Emeritus Fellow of Exter College. Co-sponsored by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. For more information, please contact the Spanish Department at 310.825.1036.
“Petrarch and the Philosophy of Passion”
April 29-May 1, 2004
This three-day conference commemorates the 700th anniversary of the birth of Francesco Petrarca (1304-74). Petrarch was the most celebrated writer of his time, and the influence of his lyric poetry on European literature was immense. In many ways, his poetry is the source of western ideas about poetry itself and about the nature of displaced and idealized passion, and the triumphs and failures of romantic love. The program is co-organized by Professors Massimo Ciavolella (Italian, UCLA), Michael J. B. Allen (English, and Italian, UCLA), and Roberto Fedi (University of Perugia).
Annual Shakespeare Symposium: Shakespeare—Text, Stage, Screen
May 8, 2004
Each year, the Center hosts a symposium devoted to an in-depth examination of Shakespeare’s works. This year’s symposium, coordinated by Professor Debora Shuger (English, UCLA), will present some new ways of editing, staging, and filming Shakespeare.
CMRS Faculty Roundtable
May 12, 2004
Professor Marianne Birnbaum (Germanic Languages and Literatures) discusses "The Long Journey of Gracia Mendes." CMRS faculty, associates, graduate students, and friends are invited to attend. Bring your lunch! The Center will provide soft drinks and coffee.
California Medieval History Seminar
May 29, 2004 The California Medieval History Seminar meets at the Huntington Library to discuss four, pre-distributed research papers (two by faculty members, two by graduate students or recent Ph.D. recipients). Presenters and paper titles will be announced by e-mail approximately 6-8 weeks before the meeting. Participants are expected to have read the papers in advance and come prepared to discuss them. To promote an active discussion, attendance is limited. The California Medieval History Seminar is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the CMRS, the Huntington Library, the California Institute of Technology, the University of Southern California, and the UC Davis Medieval Research Consortium.
Among the participants in the May 2004 seminar will be historian Robert I. Moore, Professor of Medieval History, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
“Golem: Genesis and Generalization”
June 3, 2004 This day-long symposium, co-sponsored by CMRS and the Center for Jewish Studies, will consider the Golem, the enigmatic “artificial man” of Jewish legend. The program will bring together scholars working in a variety of fields, from Jewish mysticism to music and film. Anticipated speakers include Professor Moshe Idel (Visiting Amado Professor in Sephardic Studies, UCLA, and Professor of Jewish Thought, Hebrew University, Jerusalem), world-renowned scholar of Jewish mysticism and author of the definitive work on the topic, Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid (1990); Professor Byron Sherwin (Spertus College, Chicago), author of several important studies on the Golem, including a forthcoming book focusing on the medical and legal implications of contemporary artificial intelligence as they relate to the rabbinic attitude to the humanity of the Golem; Professor Janet Bergstrom (Film and Television, UCLA), who will discuss the cinematic aspects of the Golem legend and introduce a screening of the 1920 silent film Der Golem: Wie er in die Welt kam (The Golem: How He Came into the World); and Professor Raymond Knapp (Musicology, UCLA), who will explore musical works inspired by the legend of the Golem.
