Enfilade

The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library underwent a major renovation between 2015 and 2017, carried out by the Architectural Resources Group. As noted at the ARG website, “Donated to the University of California in 1926 during its construction, the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library was one of the earliest locally designated historic landmarks for the City of Los Angeles and has also been listed on the California Register of Historic Places. ARG served as Prime Architect for a rehabilitation of the building, which included a seismic retrofit, accessibility and fire-safety upgrades, and a new entry pavilion.” The project earned a Preservation Design Award from the California Preservation Foundation in 2018. Photograph by Stephen Schafer, from the ARG website.

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As noted at ASECS:

The Forgotten Canopy: Ecology, Ephemeral Architecture, and Imperialism in the Caribbean, South American, and Transatlantic Worlds
Ahmanson-Getty Postdoctoral Fellowships, 2022–2023
Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies and William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA

Organized by Stella Nair and Paul Niell

Proposals due by 1 February 2022

The 2022–23 core conference program to be held by the Center for 17th– & 18th-Century Studies at UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library will convene scholars around the topics of “Ecology,” “Ephemeral Architecture,” and “Imperialism” in the early modern (16th–19th- century) world. The circum-Caribbean is our starting point, specifically we use this term to refer to the deep connections between the peoples and places of the Caribbean and South America, along with parts of North America. Due to national politics, language barriers, and scholarly divisions that have their roots in the European colonization of the Americas, the long and complex history of exchange among these regions and peoples have been greatly understudied. In truth, this history of entanglement across water and land stretches back millennia, resulting in a rich and diverse built environment that is deeply tied to ecological change. This dynamic did not end with the invasion of 1492, but rather continued to expand and accelerate when people, plants, and empires came from across the Atlantic. Using ephemeral architecture—in particular the complex and exquisite creation of thatch roofs as the leading thread in these tapestries of exchange—this series of conferences highlights the profound ways in which environmental practices, botanical knowledge, technological development, architectural innovation, and creative expression were deeply tied across these distinct regions and peoples, and impacted by imperial actions. This conference series brings an unusually diverse number of disciplines together in order to unpack these complex dynamics, which challenge how we understand the built environment, the early modern Atlantic world, and the intersections between the local and the global.

Topic 1: Ecologies
4–5 November 2022

Topic 2: Ephemeral Architectures
10–11 February 2023

Topic 3: Imperialism
14–15 April 2023

The theme-based resident fellowship program, established with the support of the Ahmanson Foundation and the J. Paul Getty Trust, is designed to promote the participation of junior scholars in the Center’s yearlong core program. Awards are for three consecutive quarters in residence at the Clark. Scholars must have received their doctorates in the last six years (2016–2022), and their research should pertain to the announced theme. Fellows are expected to make a substantive contribution to the Center’s workshops and seminars. The deadline for fellowship applications for the 2022–2023 year is 1 February 2022. Further details and a link to our online application can be found at the Center’s website.

The Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies provides a forum for the discussion of central issues in the field of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century studies. It organizes academic programs, bringing together scholars from the region, the nation, and the world, with the goal of encouraging research from as early as the time of Lope de Vega and William Shakespeare to the defeat of Napoléon and the death of Lord Byron. Established in 1985, the Center also administers the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, located on a historic property in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles. The Clark 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 Center also offers a range of cultural programs, including chamber music concerts, theatrical performances, and lectures.