The Center & Clark’s Director, Carla Pestana, UCLA Distinguished Professor and Joyce Appleby Endowed Chair of America in the World, recently presented this year’s Annual William and Lois Mathews Samuel Pepys Lecture, “Striving for Expertise,” hosted by our colleagues at @uclacmrscegs . In her lecture, Pestana emphasized Pepys’s lifelong quest for expertise, focusing on his career…

The Center & Clark were delighted to host a 400th anniversary outdoor performance of Francesca Caccini’s La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’Isola di Alcina (The Liberation of Ruggiero from the Island of Alcina) on Sunday, March 23, 2025. The performance was held on grounds of the Clark Library’s five acre property as an homage to the location of the…

I’m honored to return to the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library as its new Head Librarian. My focus is clear. I am already working on supporting new programs, improving infrastructure, and expanding research services to help position the Clark not only as a site for premier scholarship and musical performance, but as a space for…

On Saturday, March 8, librarians from the UCLA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library partnered with conservators from the UCLA Library Preservation & Conservation Department to lead “Preserving Your Family History,” a workshop designed to teach members of the Los Angeles community to care for their paper-based family heirlooms. Participants brought their photographs, photo albums, scrapbooks,…

For over ten years the Center for 17th– & 18th-Century Studies has administered the Graduate Certificate in Early Modern Studies, an Interdisciplinary Certificate for Matriculated Graduate Students that has been approved by and adheres to the criteria set by the UCLA Graduate Council. This program opens pathways for graduate students at UCLA to explore the…

The Center for 17th– and 18th-Century Studies has moved from Royce Hall. After serving the University from both towers in Royce for many years, it was time to depart and move across the walkway to Rolfe Hall. Monday, March 17 was the first day in the new office space. Our new, freshly renovated, and newly…

The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library celebrated the 38th Annual Pi Day along with schools, bakeries, and libraries across the United States. On March 14, 1988, physicist Larry Shaw inaugurated the holiday at the San Francisco Exploratorium. He connected pie with pi (π), a unique irrational yet constant number, to stimulate interest in mathematics (and…

In 1688, Jean Olry, a Frenchman living in Martinique, savoured pineapple for the first time—a rare luxury for Europeans in the seventeenth century. Two years later, while writing his autobiographical account, he vividly recalled the pineapple’s exquisite appearance, declaring it “the most beautiful fruit in all the Indies…[and] indeed, the whole earth.” He also fondly…

On February 21-22, historians Carla Gardina Pestana (UCLA) and Gabriel de Avilez Rocha (Brown) curated a lively second conference on the Early Global Caribbean. Historians, literary scholars, and archaeologists convened at the Clark Library to discuss the theme of “Convictions.” Both early career and established scholars delivered ingenious papers on the Caribbean before the sugar…

During my time as a Fellow at the Clark Library, I focused on watermarks in early modern cookbooks, exploring how they can provide valuable insights and add new layers of meaning to our interpretation of manuscript culture. While working with the recipe books, I examined the collection of household manuscripts (MS.2016.009), which originated from a…

On Sunday, December 15, 2024, the Center & Clark were delighted to host the Balourdet Quartet for a return engagement during the 30th anniversary season of Chamber Music at the Clark. Among the guests in attendance was composer Nicky Sohn, who introduced her composition “Galaxy Back to You,” which was premiered at this event. It’s…

UCLA Newsroom contacted students and faculty for their reflections on the question, “What is magic?” Director Carla Pestana and Clark Librarians shared a wealth of holdings on the topic of magic at the Clark Library. Their contribution can be found at the end of the UCLA Newsroom article What is Magic?  under the heading “MAGICAL TOME TIME“….

The Clark Library, in collaboration with the American Trust for the British Library (ATBL), will offer the option for applicants for 2025-26 Clark Library Short-Term Research Fellowships also to be considered for ATBL Research Fellowship Program support, designated to fund research at the British Library. The ATBL Research Fellowship is an add-on short-term fellowship that…

A performance by the New York-based Calidore String Quartet kicked off the 30th season of Chamber Music at the Clark. The Nov. 17 recital was dedicated to the memory of Peter Hanns Reill (1938–2019), who founded the concert series and served for nearly two decades as its director. In addition to the Calidore’s performance, the program featured…

On October 18-19, the UCLA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library hosted the first conference in this year’s Core Program on the Early Global Caribbean, bringing together scholars to explore the cultural, political, and economic convergences that defined the early Caribbean world. The conference’s overarching theme, the interactions between Indigenous peoples, Africans, and European colonizers, showcased…

The Caribbean has always been a region of dynamic convergence, where peoples, ideas, and technologies intermingled in complicated ways. In her talk, “Caribbean Kaleidoscope: Convergence and Transformation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Professor Ida Altman of the University of Florida explored this history on Thursday, October 17 at UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library….

Speaking in person to an intimate gathering of scholars, curators, students, and artists, followed by a lively discussion, Johanna Drucker’s spotlight talk on Los Angeles-based wood engraver Paul Landacre (1893-1963) provided important insights into an under-explored area in the Clark Library’s collection. Drucker outlined three main points: Landacre’s constant struggle to earn a living with…