No longer riveted to the ideological framework of liberalism, "the subject of rights" now seems a more capacious if less settled vehicle of political and ethical claims than it once appeared. As a formal category, it proved hospitable to a wide array of historical articulations. Individuals, yes, but also corporations, peoples, nations, races, sexes, classes, indeed humanity itself: all these have been proffered as subjects of rights. Diverse, too, have been the sorts of rights at issue: negative liberty protections against harm or interference, positive liberty rights of political participation, and entitlement claims to various forms of public provision or support. Similarly diverse have been the modes of assertion and frames of justification imagined proper to such claims, as well as the purposes they were taken to serve. Some made their mark through agitation and legislation, some by revolution and constitutions. Some were sheltered under notions of custom or tradition, others marshaled under the banners of divinity, nature, or providence; still others claimed grounding in reason, convenience, or utility—and all these could be variously aligned in relation to the affective, passional and emotive registers of human life. Some justified revolution, others imperial conquest; some sought to end social conflict, others to channel, modulate, or manage it; some identified themselves with the "civilizing" mission of European expansion even as others subjected all such imperial projects to scathing criticism.

The series will be comprised of four conferences:
November 2-3, Diverse Subjects: Entities/Affects/Rights
arranged by Kirstie M. McClure, UCLA
February 22-23, Inside/Outside Constitutionalisms: Rights/Revolutions/Empires, arranged by Kirstie M. McClure, UCLA
March 15-16, Opposition, Dissent and Revolutionary Sympathies: Origins of the British Left, 1770–1800,
arranged by J. G. A. Pocock, Johns Hopkins University
April 5–6, Writing Rights: Literatures and Public Spheres,
arranged by Kirstie M. McClure, UCLA 

Limited seating at the Clark make advance registration necessary. Registration fees cover the cost of lunches and refreshments and, where applicable, the distribution of advance copies of papers. Registration fees, deadlines, and program details will be added to this page as they become available. Program brochures and registration forms are mailed to subscribers about a month before each event.

One of the most important intellectual events of the Renaissance was the introduction into Western Europe, in the fifteenth century, of the Hermetic Corpus, with its central doctrine of the human being as a "little God" who could effect changes in nature by means of "natural magic." Because scholars viewed this body of texts as contemporary with Moses and thus another source of God's revelation, it was studied carefully and its effect on Western ideas about the relationship of human beings to nature was far reaching. Where Aristotle had seen human art as imitating nature, Hermetic writings encouraged one to see human art as not merely emulating but rivaling nature. In both art theory and alchemy, the Hermetic adept came to be seen as capable of perfecting and even superseding nature. Isaac Causabon's proof in 1614 that the Hermetic Corpus was actually compiled around 200 AD did nothing to diminish the influence of Hermetic ideas on Western European thought. In the seventeenth century, Hermetic ideas would contribute to the view that both art and the "new science" could "master" and command lifeless, malleable nature in the disciplined spaces of the laboratory and workshop. Though Hermeticism, especially in its more obvious forms, increasingly came under attack during the eighteenth century, it still played an important, though more subtle role in shaping some of the Enlightenment's central institutions and patterns of thought. They range from the rise of the Free Masons to the revitalization of the life sciences and the tremendous flowering of esoteric movements in the last half of the century. This conference will bring together scholars from varied disciplines to investigate the contours of this important strain of Early Modern European thought and action. 

Registration deadline—October 1.
Registration fees—UC faculty and staff: $15; students with ID: no charge; others: $25. Fees include the cost of lunches and other refreshments.

Click here for program details

The intent of the conference is to explore the complex ways in which theology and religious practice in the eighteenth century in Europe influenced the development of feminism (as theory and cultural practice) during the Enlightenment. In particular, the question will be raised whether religious movements (especially the Old and New Dissent in Britain and the Evangelical revival in the Church of England) played a negative or positive role in the development of Feminist theory and practice.

Registration deadline—October 12.
Registration fees—UC faculty and staff: $10; students with ID: no charge; others: $20. Fees include the cost of lunches and other refreshments.

Click here for program details

This conference will take up matters either oblique or proximate to “the subject of rights,” conventionally understood as an abstract, autonomous, rational individual. On the one hand, we will consider historical evocations of such entities as humanity, families, crowds, sexes, races, or perhaps nations or peoples as subjects of rights. On the other hand, we’ll engage such things as uneasiness or anxiety, emotions or passions, fear or envy, as aspects of affectivity pertinent to rights-talk in various early modern discussions.

Participants' papers will appear on this website about two weeks before the conference,
and they will remain accessible on line for two weeks after the conference.
Hard copy will be sent to registrants by request. 

Registration deadline—October 19.
Registration fees—UC faculty and staff: $15; students with ID: no charge; others: $25.
Fees include the cost of lunches and other refreshments,
and advance hard copies of papers (if requested).

Click here for program details.

The much-acclaimed Orpheus Quartet is returning to the Clark, this time with a program of Beethoven, Schubert, and Debussy. Since its founding in 1987, the splendid performances of this truly international group of musicians (though German-based, the quartet consists of two Romanians, a Frenchman, and a Dutchman) have consistently delighted audiences and critics with their mastery, sensitivity, wit, verve, and insight. The words of a reviewer writing for the Strad in August 2000 well reflect the critical consensus: “One had to marvel at the Orpheus Quartet’s sense of timbre, at its unified view of the music, and its ability to create both textural variety and impetus.” And such accolades come regardless of the specific program focus, whether the group is exploring the rich German-Viennese tradition of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert; or offering the astonishing modern creations of Debussy, Shostakovich, or Bartók.

Cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han are a duo whose individual voices combine to bring a new level of artistry and excitement to recital stages worldwide. During the 2000-01 season the duo will appear in recitals throughout the major cities of North America including Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Vancouver, St. Paul, and Albuquerque. Recent highlights include a third appearance at London's Wigmore Hall, a performance of André Previn's cello sonata at a special 92nd Y concert honoring the composer, and a series of highly acclaimed recitals in Germany.

The duo has been the subject of numerous feature stories around the globe in publications such as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, Billboard and BBC Music magazines, London's Time Out Magazine, and Tokyo's Ongaku-no-Tomo. On television, they have appeared on NBC Nightly News, A & E Breakfast with the Arts, CNN's Turner Entertainment Report and European Business News. David Finckel and Wu Han's wide-ranging musical activities also include the recent launch of ArtistLed, the first musician-directed and Internet-based recording company. All five ArtistLed recordings, including the complete Beethoven sonatas, have received critical acclaim and are available via the company's Web site at www.ArtistLed.com. The next ArtistLed recording will be an all-Russian disc featuring works by Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich, and is due to be released in early 2001. For three seasons, David Finckel and Wu Han served as Co-Artistic Directors of SummerFest La Jolla an internationally acclaimed chamber music festival, where they programmed and directed concerts, symposiums, workshops and multi-disciplinary events.

David Finckel and Wu Han teach at the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshops in Israel, Japan, and in New York at Carnegie Hall, as well as privately at the Aspen Music Festival during the summer. They reside in New York with their six-year-old daughter. 

Over the last year and a half, Tom Beghin, UCLA's expert on early keyboards, has been presenting a fascinating cycle of Haydn's complete works for keyboard. This concert, Mr. Beghin's third appearance in the Clark Recitals series, concludes the Haydn cycle. The program will feature Haydn's famous sonata in E-flat major (Hob. XVI: 49), written in 1789–90 for his dear friend Marianna von Genzinger, and the F minor variations (Hob. XVII: 6), a deep lament over Genzinger's death a few years later. Juxtaposed to these quintessential works for the Viennese piano will be the three sonatas that Haydn wrote for the English piano during his second stay in London in 1794–95: two grand concert sonatas, in C major (Hob. XVI: 50) and E flat major (Hob.XVI: 52), for the London based virtuoso Therese Jansen; and the tender D major sonata (Hob. XVI: 51), for his intimate friend Rebecca Schroeter. Tom Beghin will perform this dazzling group of masterpieces—Haydn's final compositions for keyboard solo—on a Viennese Walter fortepiano and an English Broadwood piano. 

The American String Quartet has been “on the map” since 1974, when the four musicians, then students at the Juilliard School, won both the Coleman Competition and the Naumburg Award. Since then the quartet’s tours have reached nearly every important concert hall in eight European countries and across North America. Whether in its excellent performances, or in its activities on behalf of broadening public awareness of chamber music, these musicians display energy and passion. Well-known and beloved in Southern California, the American String Quartet appears regularly in venues from the Clark to the Orange County Performing Arts Center, and places in-between, always to delighted audiences. A Los Angeles Times review claimed that “the American String Quartet’s program was, simply put, a comprehensive display of ensemble mastery, of passion, precision and interpretative smarts in near perfect synchrony.” Clearly critical opinion mirrors audience enthusiasm.

— Program —

Ludwig van Beethoven, Quartet in A, op. 18, no. 5
Béla Bartók, Quartet no. 2
Antonín Dvorák, Quartet in E-flat, op. 51

Reservations deadline: January 4
Seating is limited. R.S.V.P. to 323-735-7605
Admission: Free of charge

Reservations deadline:January 18
Admission: $5

— Program —

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Quartet in B-flat Major, K. 589
Béla Bartók, Quartet no. 3
Franz Schubert, Quartet in G Major, op. 161

Historians, literary scholars, art historians and curators interested in furniture and furnishings of France, England and their colonies during the long eighteenth century will gather at this two-and-a-half-day conference to critique old approaches and develop new interpretations while exploring how material culture-in this case furnishing-shaped cultural production and mirrored social patterns. A special session of the conference will be hosted by Gillian Wilson, curator of the Department of Decorative Arts at the Getty Museum, and will be held at the Getty.

Abstracts of participants' papers will appear on this website during the month of January;
hard copy will be sent to registrants by request. 

Registration deadline— January 18
Registration fees—UC faculty and staff: $15;
students with ID: no charge; others: $25.

Fees include the cost of advance copies of abstracts (if requested)
as well as lunches and refreshments at the Clark on Friday and Saturday.
Thursday's session at the Getty is hosted by the Getty Museum.

Click here to view program details

In recent years, the Clark Library, which holds a capacious archive of materials relating to the life and work of Oscar Wilde, including a large number of printed sources-particularly volumes of poetry-from the Victorian fin de siècle, has hosted five conferences that have focused attention on these significant holdings. "The Fin-de-Siècle Poem" will bring together nine invited speakers whose current scholarship elucidates our understanding of poetry produced in England during the 1880s and 1890s. The aim of the conference is to explore poems by writers who had some direct or indirect connection with Wilde. Further, the conference provides the opportunity to evaluate Wilde's own poetic achievements-particularly in light of the definitive edition of his poems that recently appeared from Oxford University Press. In all probability, the conference will include discussion of poems by authors who have received increasing critical attention among Victorianists. In this regard, women writers such as Rosamond Marriott Watson ("Graham R. Tomson"), A. Mary F. Robinson, Michael Field, and Amy Levy come to mind. Likewise, the works of the "Uranian" poets, such as Marc-André Raffalovich, Alfred Douglas, John Gray, and Theodore Wratislaw, have been the subject of recent inquiries into the literature of male homoeroticism. In addition, the conference will offer a forum for debating the poetry of imperialist and decadent writers such as W.E. Henley, Rudyard Kipling, Ernest Dowson, and Lionel Johnson-figures who provide important points of comparison and contrast to Wilde.

Registration deadline—February 1.
Poems will be distributed in advance to registrants.

Registration fees—UC faculty and staff: $15; students with ID: no charge; others: $25.
Fees include the cost of advance copies of poems, as well as lunches and other refreshments.

Click here for program details.

The American and French Revolutions of the eighteenth century put universal rights and modern constitutionalism on the mattering map of political modernity. And yet, neither customary practices nor more recent patterns of social engagement or encounter, nor even aspects of ancient constitutionalist alternatives disappeared from that topography. In colonial arenas in particular, but also in the domestic politics of various European states, regional or non-national particularities, hierarchies, and hybridities both challenged and inflected the elaboration of the rights of citizens in practice. Attuned to such diverse contexts, this conference will explore the social partitions and remainders roiling in the wake of modern constitutionalism.

Participants' papers will appear on this website about two weeks before the conference,
and they will remain accessible on line for two weeks after the conference.
Hard copy will be sent to registrants by request. 

Registration deadline—February 15.
Registration fees—UC faculty and staff: $15; students with ID: no charge; others: $25.
Fees include the cost of lunches and other refreshments,
and advance hard copies of papers (if requested).

Click here for program details.

The UC Colloquium on Early Modern Central Europe is an annual interdisciplinary workshop for graduate students and faculty of the University of California system who work in any aspect of late medieval and early modern Central Europe. The primary area of interest is the German-speaking world, though contiguous areas such as the Low Countries, Bohemia, and northern Italy (roughly the extent of the Holy Roman Empire) are considered as well. The era covered stretches from the fourteenth century (roughly the beginning of Early New High German) into the nineteenth century.

The colloquium is organized by Thomas A. Brady, History, University of California, Berkeley; Peter H. Reill, History, UCLA; David Sabean, History, UCLA; and Elaine Tennant, German, University of California, Berkeley.

In the half century since the publication of Richard Popkin's original articles on the sceptical crisis and the rise of modern philosophy and of his book The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes, there has been a growing interest in tracing the way philosophical scepticism developed from the late fifteenth century onward. Much controversy has also developed about how to interpret the views of various major sceptical figures, such as Montaigne, Pierre Bayle and David Hume; and a great deal of new research and new evaluations have been done on the relationship between philosophical scepticism and religious belief. The present conference brings together several figures who are at the forefront of new researches in this field.

Participants' papers will appear on this website about two weeks before the conference
and will remain on line for two weeks after the conference.
Hard copy will be predistributed to registrants by request. 

During the wars against the American and French Revolutions, there emerged in Britain the phenomenon of an opposition so far convinced that these wars were wrong as, at times, to welcome revolutionary victories against British forces or those of their allies. This attitude was new in being based less on religious conviction than on “enlightened” and “liberal” principle, and within Britain it displayed less revolutionary intention than sympathy with the revolutions of others. Americans who remember the 1960s will know that this mindset is an enduring force in modern history, and this conference will investigate its origins in the Britain of George III. Some lay in the politics of Whiggism, others in the politics of Dissent; and the European war against the universal claims of the French Revolution is situated within a period of civil war within the British empire, from America in the 1770s to Ireland in 1798. It will be suggested that the characters of patriotism, loyalism, and their opposites, including treason and subversion, changed significantly during these years. 

Participants' papers will appear on this website about two weeks before the conference,
and they will remain accessible on line for two weeks after the conference.
Hard copy will be sent to registrants by request. 

Registration deadline—March 1 .
Registration fees—UC faculty and staff: $15; students with ID: no charge; others: $25.
Fees include the cost of lunches and other refreshments,
and advance hard copies of papers (if requested).

Click here for program details.

The goal of the workshop is to bring together scholars of history, literature, art history and music working on different aspects of gender and culture in eighteenth-century Italy, which has become a lively research field in the past few years. Until recently, Italy's eighteenth century has played a marginal role in general accounts of eighteenth-century Europe. Scholarship often situates Italy on the periphery of the Enlightenment; accordingly, its political and cultural developments tend to be seen, when they are described at all, as responsive to developments in such countries as England and France rather than worth studying for their own sake. Italian scholarship on the eighteenth century has taken a different view but very little of this work, to date, is accessible to English-speaking readers.

Recent work on eighteenth-century Italy by scholars working in different disciplines in Europe and North America not only suggests that Italy is an interesting place from which to view cultural developments in the eighteenth century, but also highlights the importance of gender in understanding Italian art, literature, music, and science. It situates as well our understanding of Italy in light of its prominent role in the Grand Tour. Both foreign perceptions of Italy and regular contact with foreigners shaped this world. In an era in which Italy could no longer claim to be the most "modern" of regions, as it had during the Renaissance, it nonetheless continued to be an important point of reference for European thought and culture. Accordingly, this workshop will consider how Italian culture reflected the relations between Italy and other regions of Europe.

Organizers hope the workshop will provide a focused opportunity to discuss some of the broader implications of the research many scholars are doing. They anticipate an interdisciplinary discussion that builds stronger connections among largely independent, discipline-based research projects. The plan is to produce a volume out of the discussions that should serve as an important point of departure for current and future work on the cultural life of eighteenth-century Italy.

Participants' papers will appear on this website about two weeks before the conference, as they are received, and will be accessible for about two weeks following the conference. Hard copy will be sent to registrants by request. 

Registration deadline—April 12.
[Advance registration is required for both sessions. Space at both the Getty and the Clark is limited, and registration will close when capacity is reached.]

Registration fees—

 Session at the Getty Research Institute: Free of charge, including parking.
The Research Institute will host a reception at the conclusion of Friday's discussions. Lunch will not be provided. The Getty Center offers a choice of indoor and outdoor cafes, a restaurant, and a picnic area.   

 Session at the Clark Library: UC faculty and staff: $10; students with ID: no charge;
others: $20.
Fees for Saturday's session cover the cost of lunch and refreshments at the Clark.

Click here for program details.

Arnaldo Momigliano was one of the great twentieth-century historians of the ancient world. But his many essays and lectures also called attention to the men and the methods that, over the centuries since the Renaissance, have been used to make sense of the lived life of antiquity. This aspect of Momigliano's intellectual legacy is the subject of this conference. It will focus, in particular, on Momigliano's provocative suggestion that modern disciplines such as anthropology, archaeology, art history, sociology, and history of religion developed out of the practices and questions of early modern antiquarianism. In this claim lies the kernel of a yet-to-be-written history of modern cultural history, and the papers to be presented at the conference, and later developed into a publication, will give us that history. Presentations will fall into two categories: those that reflect on Momigliano's link between antiquarianism and the disciplines that developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; and those that assess the contribution of Momigliano as a cultural historian by placing him alongside other twentieth-century masters such as Warburg, Huizinga, Scholem, and Foucault.

Registration deadline—April 26 .
Registration fees—UC faculty and staff: $15; students with ID: no charge; others: $25. Fees include the cost of lunches and other refreshments.

Click here for program details.

— Ying Quartet —

The UCLA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Celebration

The Ying Quartet, renowned for its outstanding performances and for its expertise at designing community outreach programs, has been celebrating its tenth anniversary during the 2001-02 season. The express goal of reintegrating artistic and creative expression into the fabric of everyday life still guides the quartet in its choice of programs, audiences, and venues, as it did in 1992, when its first residency, in rural Jesup, Iowa, brought national accolades. The return of the Yings—siblings Timothy, Janet, Phillip, and David—to the Clark for this celebration of the Library's seventy-fifth anniversary is thus a uniquely fitting tribute to William Andrews Clark, Jr., whose similar commitment graced the public of Los Angeles with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the collection of orchestral scores at the Los Angeles Public Library, and, of course, his magnificent library building, book collection, and music room.

— The Program —

Felix Mendelssohn, Quartet in D, op. 44, no. 1
Béla Bartók, Quartet no. 1
Ludwig van Beethoven, Quartet in C Major, op. 59, no. 3

A garden reception will follow the performance

—— This event is funded in part by the E. Nakamichi Foundation ——


Seating is limited.
Tickets, at $75 per person, must be purchased in advance.
(Please note that $60 of the ticket price is tax deductible.)
Please make your reservations by May 1, 2002.
Click here to view the reservation card.

For additional information contact the
UCLA Center for 17th- & 18th-Century Studies:
310-206-8552 or

Click here to view details about this and other music programs. 

---

Robinson Crusoe, startled by the sight of a human footprint, embodied a new homo economicus—overcoming his fear in order to instill fear, threatened by God, nature, and other human beings yet shaping, even in disaster, what seems to be the whole universe to his ends. Defoe's stories may be about a man surviving on an island or a woman surviving in the city; they may bristle with whole populations fleeing disease or accumulating fortunes; they may turn upon common human pettiness or grand imperial ideas. But whatever his topics, Defoe puts into brilliant imaginative form an extraordinary number of what we know are still our social contradictions. Whether we consider his portrayals of the commodification of the imagination, the isolated self, sexual power, the knotting together of religion and capitalism, the family, science, economics, technology, or racial ideas—these and many other topics make talking about Defoe interesting at any time and any place.

But on this occasion to discuss Defoe we shall at the same time celebrate the career of Professor Maximillian E. Novak. The new homo economicus in Defoe's works found one of its most important contemporary interpreters in Max Novak. From his first monographs on Defoe to his recent biography, Professor Novak has continually shaped and enlivened our understanding of one of the greatest of European novelists.

This conference will also coincide with the publication of Teaching Robinson Crusoe, a volume edited by Maximillian Novak and Carl Fisher. One conference session will be devoted to that novel: talks on Robinson Crusoe will be followed by a panel in which several contributors to the Novak and Fisher volume will join to consider issues involved in teaching the work. 

Registration deadline—May 24 .
Registration fees—UC faculty and staff: $15; students with ID: no charge; others: $25.
Fees include the cost of lunches and other refreshments.

Click here for program details.