Podcasts

FROM UCLA and UC FACULTY

The World of Plymouth Plantation – New Book Salon

Author CARLA GARDINA PESTANA (Professor, UCLA Department of History) joins Assistant Professor ALEX MAZZAFERRO (UCLA Department of English) in discussion about her new book, “The World of Plymouth Plantation.”

The Enemy in Italian Renaissance Epic – New Book Salon

Author ANDREA MOUDARRES (Associate Professor, UCLA Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies) discusses his recent book, The Enemy in Italian Renaissance Epic with Professor GERRY MILLIGAN (Director of College Honors Programs, CUNY College of Staten Island).

Beholding Beauty: Sa’di of Shiraz and the Aesthetics of Desire in Medieval Persian Poetry – New Book Salon

Author DOMENICO INGENITO (Assistant Professor, UCLA Near Eastern Languages and Cultures) talks about his recent book with discussants LARA HARB (Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University) and MARISA GALVEZ (Associate Professor of French and Italian and, by courtesy, of German Studies, Stanford University).

The Erotic Biography of Gendered Bodies

Professor GIULIA SISSA‘s (UCLA Departments of Political Science and Classics) lecture from the conference “Signs of Sex: Comparative Semiotics of Virginity in the Greco-Roman, Jewish and Christian Worlds.”

Critical Mission Studies and Indigenous Community Interventions

Reflections on 2020 — A series on the intersections between currents events and research at UCLA.

Dr. YVE CHAVEZ (Tongva/Gabrielino) of UC Santa Cruz and Dr. CHARLENE VILLASEÑOR BLACK of UCLA discuss the $1.03 million grant “Critical Mission Studies at California’s Crossroads,” funded by UCOP’s Multicampus Research Program and Initiatives (2019-2021). They address the importance of Indigenous legacies in the California missions and the ethics of engaging with such difficult histories. In conversation with UCLA-CMRS Director ZRINKA STAHULJAK.

1521: Making the World While Breaking the World

The CMRS symposium “1521: Making the World While Breaking the World,” organized by UCLA Professor of History and Italian STEFANIA TUTINO and UCLA Library Curator of Rare Books and History of Printing DEVIN FITZGERALD, was held in February 2021. This video of the event explores histories of coming together and falling apart before and after the year 1521, when Luther was excommunicated and Magellan was killed while circumnavigating the globe.

After Colonization and Missionization: Continuities and Resilience of the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians

Reflections on 2020 — A series on the intersections between currents events and research at UCLA.

In this podcast, Professor CAROLE E. GOLDBERG (UCLA School of Law, Distinguished Research Professor, Jonathan D. Varat Distinguished Professor of Law Emerita) explains two distinct historical types of indigenous social organization in the face of colonization and missionization: autonomous lineages and a coalition of these lineages. Strikingly, she shows how the quest for federal recognition sheds light on ways of establishing identity between past and present communities, when norms of community formation may not always correspond to federal definition of tribes.

Aliens and other European Fantasies: The Colonial Legacy of Dispossession of Indigenous Lands, History, and Material Culture in the Andes

Reflections on 2020 — A series on the intersections between currents events and research at UCLA.

In this podcast, Professor STELLA NAIR (Associate Professor, Indigenous Arts of the Americas, Department of Art History, UCLA) continues her conversation with ZRINKA STAHULJAK (Director, UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies). This podcast is part of the Center’s series “Reflections on 2020,” examining the intersections between current events and research at UCLA.

Indigenous Pimu Catalina Island: The Long History of Erasure through Colonial Storymaking

Reflections on 2020 — A series on the intersections between currents events and research at UCLA.

In this podcast, Dr. WENDY TEETER (Senior Curator of Archaeology, Fowler Museum at UCLA and UCLA Repatriation Coordinator) in conversation with ZRINKA STAHULJAK (Director, UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies), discuss the uses of the fantastic stories, even from the Bible, as a way to erase indigenous history of the lands and make a profit. This podcast is part of the Center’s series “Reflections on 2020,” examining the intersections between current events and research at UCLA.

Talking About the Inca and Today: Pandemics, Chaotic Political Transitions, and Female Spaces

Reflections on 2020 — A series on the intersections between currents events and research at UCLA.

STELLA NAIR (Associate Professor, Indigenous Arts of the Americas, Department of Art History, UCLA) in conversation with ZRINKA STAHULJAK (Director, UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies), discusses correlations between her research on the Inca and current social stressors. Part of the Center’s series “Reflections on 2020,” examining the intersections between current events and research at UCLA.

Dating Beowulf – New Book Salon

CMRS New Book Salons are aimed at fostering intellectual community by engaging faculty authors about their recently published books. ERICA WEAVER, Assistant Professor of English at UCLA, and co-editor DANIEL C. REMEIN, Associate Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Boston, comment on their book “Dating Beowulf: Studies in Intimacy” followed by discussion among the attendees.

Varallo and the Sacri Monti of Northwestern Italy – Day 1, Welcoming Remarks

Video from the CMRS conference exploring the history and extraordinary art of the Sacri Monti pilgrimage sites, organized by Professor Emeritus GEOFFREY SYMCOX (History, UCLA). This clip includes welcoming remarks by UCLA-CMRS Director ZRINKA STAHULJAK (Professor, Comparative Literature and French & Francophone Studies). This conference highlighted the contributions of young scholars and was held as two sessions, October 29 and 30,2020.

A Statement of Priorities and Symposium Introduction

Audio recording of the welcoming remarks given by CMRS Director ZRINKA STAHULJAK (UCLA, French & Francophone Studies, Comparative Literature) at the UCLA CMRS symposium Early History of Africa: New Narratives for a History of Connections and Brokers on January 30, 2020. Additional details on the CMRS events calendar.

On Slavery and the Archive in Medieval Islam

Audio recording of the lecture by Professor LAMIA BALAFREJ (UCLA, Art History) at the UCLA CMRS Symposium Early History of Africa: New Narratives for a History of Connections and Brokers on January 30, 2020. Additional details on the CMRS events calendar

Beyond Brokerage: Finding Evidence of Creole Commerce in Gujarati Sources for African History

Audio of the lecture by Professor HOLLIAN WINT (UCLA, History) at the UCLA CMRS Symposium Early History of Africa: New Narratives for a History of Connections and Brokers on January 30, 2020. Additional details on the CMRS events calendar.

Tracing the History of Bamana Kaarta into the Global Eighteenth Century

A talk with slides of the lecture by Professor JODY BENJAMIN (UCLA, History) at the UCLA CMRS Symposium Early History of Africa: New Narratives for a History of Connections and Brokers on January 30, 2020. Additional details on the CMRS events calendar.

Icelandic Rimur Oral History

A short audio recording with Professor JESSE BYOCK (Scandinavian, UCLA) which shows the power of oral transmission across time. Recorded on May 3, 2018. While he was a young man working as a shepherd in Iceland, Professor Byock learned an Icelandic epic poem that was composed from the news of the day. Called rima/rimur, these poems date back to medieval traditions. Listen to this anecdote which connects a medieval rhyme form, a battle in Finland in World War II, and a late, good friend of UCLA-CMRS, Aino Paasonen.

Duke John’s Skull: From History Lesson to Crime Exhibit

A talk with slides by Professor ERIC JAGER (English, UCLA) at the CMRS Roundtable on February 28, 2018. Additional details on the CMRS events calendar.

Dances and Songs from Boccaccio’s Decameron

Ten dances, two songs and a poem from the manuscripts of Domenico da Piacenza are translated into dance by UCLA Professor EMMA LEWIS THOMAS. The film is from a student tour in Southern Germany and Italy in 1986. Directed by Professor Thomas.

FROM VISITING SPEAKERS

Afterlives: Dante in Dialogue with East Asian Buddhism – Day 2

In The Metaphysics of Dante’s Comedy, one of the most significant contributions on Dante’s thought in modern scholarship, Christian Moevs presents an interpretation of the Florentine poet’s worldview that is consistent with Eastern spirituality. Moevs’s allusions to non-dualistic principles of Indian and Asian religion and thought in the context of an in-depth examination of Dante’s metaphysics offer the opportunity to advance a productive inquiry that may bridge conventional divides between medieval literature in Europe and cultural productions in medieval East Asia, especially on questions of eschatology and justice. The convergence between these two distant traditions prompts us – in coincidence with the seventh centennial of Dante’s death in 2021 – to organize a conference that seeks to explore differences and similarities between these visions of the afterlife, while avoiding the traps of facile parallels. Organized by Associate Professors ANDREA MOUDARRES (UCLA European Languages and Transcultural Studies) and TORQUIL DUTHIE (UCLA Asian Languages & Cultures).

Afterlives: Dante in Dialogue with East Asian Buddhism – Day 1

Law and Disorder: Fools, Outlaws, and Justice in the Middle Ages and Renaissance – Day 2

Scholars from various disciplines – literature, history, performance — offer perspectives on outlaws and contrarians vis-à-vis lawfulness and the character of Justice within human society past and present. A conference organized by CMRS-CEGS Associate SHARON DIANE KING, PhD.

Law and Disorder: Fools, Outlaws, and Justice in the Middle Ages and Renaissance – Day 1

Slavery’s Archive in the Premodern World, Part 1

CMRS Workshop organized and moderated by Lamia Balafrej, Assistant Professor, Arts of the Islamic World, UCLA Department of Art History.

Slavery’s Archive in the Premodern World, Part 2

CMRS Workshop organized and moderated by Lamia Balafrej, Assistant Professor, Arts of the Islamic World, UCLA Department of Art History.

Spatial Grammars: The Union of Art and Writing in the Painted Books of Aztec Mexico

This lecture by Professor Elizabeth Hill Boone (Art History, Tulane) focuses on the painted books of Aztec Mexico, sixteenth-century documents that some people consider to be works of Art and others consider to contain Writing. The talk thus explores that place where our Western conceptions of Art and Writing come closest together. The Aztecs and their neighbors conceptualized writing and image-making as a single cultural category, one that involved a nonverbal system of graphic communication in which images carry meaning directly within the structure of their own discourse but without a detour through speech. This lecture analyzes the graphic vocabulary of Mexican pictography, but it focuses principally on the arrangement of the images–the spatial grammar—that constructs the message.

Bodies and Maps – Book Launch

CMRS held a conference in January 2018 organized by CMRS Associate and Occidental College Professor of History MARYANNE HOROWITZ. The book launch for the collection of essays from the conference, Bodies and Maps: Early Modern Personifications of the Continents, was held in Winter 2021. This podcast of the event features Professor Horowitz and the co-editor LOUISE ARRIZOLI discussing their work along with other authors in the book.

The Tongva Community, Past and Present: Archaeology and the Reclaiming of Indigenous History

Reflections on 2020 — A series on the intersections between currents events and research at UCLA.

In this audio podcast, DESIREÉ RENEÉ MARTINEZ, MA, RPA, President and Principal Investigator, Cogstone Resource Management, and UCLA-CMRS Director ZRINKA STAHULJAK discuss the past erasure of the indigenous community of the Los Angeles area and contemporary efforts towards recognition.

Varallo and the Sacri Monti of Northwestern Italy – Day 2, Session 2

Video from the CMRS conference exploring the history and extraordinary art of the Sacri Monti pilgrimage sites, organized by Professor Emeritus GEOFFREY SYMCOX (History, UCLA). This clip includes KENNIS FORTE (Art History PhD Candidate, Queens University, Ontario) presenting her paper “Symptom and Symbol: Goiters as a Link between Art, Landscape and Local Devotion at the Italian Sacri Monti.” Also, commentary is provided by Professor CLAIRE FARAGO (Art & Art History, University of Colorado, Boulder) and Professor NICHOLAS TERPSTRA (History, University of Toronto). This conference was held as two sessions on October 29 and 30,2020.

Varallo and the Sacri Monti of Northwestern Italy – Day 2, Session 1

Video from the CMRS conference exploring the history and extraordinary art of the Sacri Monti pilgrimage sites, organized by Professor Emeritus GEOFFREY SYMCOX (History, UCLA). This clip includes Professor GRACE HARPSTER (Art History, Georgia State University) speaking on “Grates, Graffiti, and Sacred Sculpture: Reforming the Sacro Monte of Varallo under Carlo Borromeo” and Dr. REBECCA GILL (National Gallery, London) speaking on “Mystery and the Multisensory at Galeazzo Alessi’s Sacro Monte di Varallo.” Also, commentary by Professor GEORGE GORSE (Art History, Pomona College). This conference was held as two sessions on October 29 and 30,2020.

William Caxton’s Multilingualism: The Claims of French and Dutch, English and Kentish

Audio recording of the lecture given by AD PUTTER (Professor of Medieval English and Director, Centre for Medieval & Renaissance Studies, University of Bristol) on January 14, 2020, as a CMRS Distinguished Visiting Scholar Lecture at UCLA Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies. Additional details on the CMRS events calendar.

Leonardo da Vinci, Inventing the Future: Flight, Automata, Art, Anatomy, Biomorphism: Day 1

Proceedings of the first day of the conference organized by the UCLA Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies and hosted at the UCLA California Nanosystems Institute, October 18-19, 2019. Additional details on the CMRS events calendar.

Leonardo da Vinci, Inventing the Future: Flight, Automata, Art, Anatomy, Biomorphism: Day 2

Proceedings of the second day of the conference organized by the UCLA Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies and hosted at the UCLA California Nanosystems Institute, October 18-19, 2019. Additional details on the CMRS events calendar.

Marco Polo, Immigrant Historian of Mongol China

Audio recording of the lecture given by MARGARET KIM (Professor, Department of Foreign Languages,National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan) on October 25, 2018, as a CMRS Distinguished Visiting Scholar Lecture at UCLA Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies. Additional details on the CMRS events calendar.

Converting Boys: Homoerotic Encounters and Embodiment in Early Modern Spatial Imaginations

Audio recording of ABDULHAMIT ARVAS (Theater/Dance, UCSB) at the UCLA-CMRS Conference Bodies and Maps: Personification of the Continents on January 13, 2018. The conference proceedings are forthcoming in the volume “Bodies and Maps: Early Modern Personifications of the Continents,” eds. Maryanne Cline Horowitz and Louise Arizzoli (Leiden: Brill Press, Nov. 2020). Additional details on the CMRS events calendar.

The Pre-History of the Personification of Continents on Maps: Earth, Ocean, and the Sons of Noah

Audio recording of the lecture by CHET VAN DUZER (David Rumsey Research Fellow, John Carter Brown Library) presented at the UCLA-CMRS conference Bodies and Maps: Personification of the Continents on January 12, 2018. Additional details on the CMRS events calendar.

At the Crossroads of Cultural Networks: The Creation of a Medieval Treasury for San Isidoro de León

Audio recording of the lecture given by THERESE MARTIN (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid) on November 29, 2017, as a CMRS Distinguished Visiting Scholar Lecture at UCLA Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies. Additional details on the CMRS events calendar.