BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.4.3//EN TZID:America/Los_Angeles X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/Los_Angeles BEGIN:VEVENT UID:457@1718.ucla.edu DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240509T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240509T130000 DTSTAMP:20240430T232601Z URL:https://1718.ucla.edu/events/witnessing-disaster/ SUMMARY:Witnessing Disaster: Fleuriau de Bellevue and the Writing of Seismi c Histories in Italy and Guatemala\, 1717–1796 DESCRIPTION:Lecture by John Sullivan\, Ph.D. Student in History\, Northwest ern University. Recipient of the 2023–24 Kenneth Karmiole Endowed Gradua te Research Fellowship\n\nBetween 1788 and 1793\, the Frenchman Louis-Benj amin Fleuriau de Bellevue (1761–1852) trekked the length of Italy and cl imbed its Alpine peaks\, a long sojourn that capped his years of training as a geologist and natural historian. Toward the end of his journeys\, he passed through Sicily and Calabria\, in the peninsula’s far south\, to o bserve the devastating aftermath of a series of earthquakes that had rocke d the region in 1783. In this talk\, John Sullivan will incorporate Bellev ue’s travel notebooks into a rich body of evidence documenting the vario us historical methods and genres used to comprehend earthquakes and their attendant phenomena in eighteenth-century Naples and Guatemala\, kingdoms then within a common Bourbon imperial sphere. Bringing together natural hi stories\, like Bellevue’s\, as well as chronology\, conjectural history\ , exemplary history\, and bureaucratic testimonies\, Sullivan will reveal what historically pregnant moments earthquakes were. On one hand\, he will demonstrate how different sociopolitical contexts shaped the types of sei smic histories written on either side of the Atlantic. On the other\, he w ill point up the central role of cities as a throughline uniting many of t hese historical narratives.\n\nJohn Sullivan is a PhD candidate and Quinn Fellow in the History Department at Northwestern University. His dissertat ion\, “Fractious Knowledge: Earthquakes and Engineering in Eighteenth-Ce ntury Naples and Guatemala\,” is a comparative history of seismic disast ers in the Bourbon Atlantic World. The project spans urban and environment al history\, the histories of science and technology\, and disaster studie s. In addition to Kenneth Karmiole and UCLA’s Center for 17th- &\; 18 th-Century Studies\, his research has been generously supported by the New York Public Library\, American Historical Association\, John Carter Brown Library\, Doris G. Quinn Foundation\, and Chabraja Center for Historical Studies. He received his BA in History from Boston College and his MSt in Early Modern European History from the University of Oxford.\n\n\n\nThe le cture will take place via Zoom. To register to attend\, please fill out th e form here.\n\n\n\nImage: Sketch of the ruins of Messina from volume 9 o f Bellevue's Journals\, Clark Library MS.2013.019\n\n \;\n\n \;\n\ n \;\n\n \;\n\n \;\n\n \; ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://1718.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02 /Sketch-of-the-ruins-of-Messina_revised.jpg CATEGORIES:Lectures END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Los_Angeles X-LIC-LOCATION:America/Los_Angeles BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20240310T030000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR