Yong Chen, professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, discusses the historical forces that turned Chinese food, a cuisine once widely rejected by Americans, into one of the most popular ethnic foods in the U.S.

Chop Suey, USA: How Americans Discovered Chinese Food

Martha Howell, professor of history at Columbia University and the R. Stanton Avery Distinguished Fellow, discusses the meaning attached to goods—both humble and luxurious—during the Renaissance. The era is considered by many to be the first age of commercial globalism.

Miraculous Things: The Culture of Consumerism in the Renaissance

Bill Sherman, director of the Warburg Institute in London, delivers the inaugural annual lecture honoring David Zeidberg, recently retired Avery Director of the Library. In his presentation, Sherman traces the modern field of cryptography back to the Renaissance and asks what role the invention of printing played in the keeping of secrets.

Decoding the Book: Printing & the Birth of Secrecy

In the 16th century, the unified Latin Christianity of the Middle Ages broke apart. New Protestant churches and a reformed Catholic church created new theologies, new liturgies, and new ways of imagining what early Christian life and worship were like. Anthony Grafton, professor of history at Princeton University, discusses how the new histories were ideological in inspiration and controversial in style, but nonetheless represented a vital set of innovations in western ways of thinking about and representing the past. This talk is part of the Crotty Lecture Series at The Huntington.  Recorded Dec. 7, 2017..

In the 16th century, the unified Latin Christianity of the Middle Ages broke apart. New Protestant churches and a reformed Catholic church created new theologies, new liturgies, and new ways of imagining what early Christian life and worship were like. Anthony Grafton, professor of history at Princeton University, discusses how the new histories were ideological in inspiration and controversial in style, but nonetheless represented a vital set of innovations in western ways of thinking about and representing the past. This talk is part of the Crotty Lecture Series at The Huntington. Recorded Dec. 7, 2017..

Christian Origins in Early Modern Europe: The Birth of a New Kind of History

The 16th-century ethnographic study known as the Florentine Codex included a richly detailed account of natural history of the New World. In this lecture, Alain Touwaide—historian of medicine, botany, and medicinal plants—compares the Codex and contemporary European herbal traditions. He suggests that they represent the opposition between unknown and known—a dynamic force that led to many discoveries in medicine through the centuries.  Recorded Dec. 5, 2017.

The 16th-century ethnographic study known as the Florentine Codex included a richly detailed account of natural history of the New World. In this lecture, Alain Touwaide—historian of medicine, botany, and medicinal plants—compares the Codex and contemporary European herbal traditions. He suggests that they represent the opposition between unknown and known—a dynamic force that led to many discoveries in medicine through the centuries. Recorded Dec. 5, 2017.

The Florentine Codex and the Herbal Tradition: Unknown versus Known?

Markku Peltonen, professor of history at the University of Helsinki and the Fletcher Jones Foundation Distinguished Fellow, discusses why the famous philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) placed the blame for the English Civil War and Revolution of the 1640s at the door of schoolmasters. This talk is part of the Distinguished Fellow Lecture Series at The Huntington.  Recorded Nov. 15, 2017

Markku Peltonen, professor of history at the University of Helsinki and the Fletcher Jones Foundation Distinguished Fellow, discusses why the famous philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) placed the blame for the English Civil War and Revolution of the 1640s at the door of schoolmasters. This talk is part of the Distinguished Fellow Lecture Series at The Huntington. Recorded Nov. 15, 2017

Did Early-Modern Schoolmasters Foment Sedition?

If England’s King Charles II and his courtiers had had their way, most of eastern North America would have been the personal property of about a dozen men who dreamed of wielding virtually absolute power over their vast domains. Daniel K. Richter, professor of history and director of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the Robert C. Ritchie Distinguished Fellow, explores this neglected chapter in American history and why it still matters.  Recorded Nov. 8, 2017.

If England’s King Charles II and his courtiers had had their way, most of eastern North America would have been the personal property of about a dozen men who dreamed of wielding virtually absolute power over their vast domains. Daniel K. Richter, professor of history and director of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the Robert C. Ritchie Distinguished Fellow, explores this neglected chapter in American history and why it still matters. Recorded Nov. 8, 2017.

The Lords Proprietors: Land and Power in 17th-Century America

David Loewenstein, Erle Sparks Professor of English and Humanities at Penn State, discusses the daring originality of Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” This year marks the 350th anniversary of the great poem’s first publication in 1667. This talk is part of the Ridge Lecture Series at The Huntington.  Recorded Nov. 1, 2017.

David Loewenstein, Erle Sparks Professor of English and Humanities at Penn State, discusses the daring originality of Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” This year marks the 350th anniversary of the great poem’s first publication in 1667. This talk is part of the Ridge Lecture Series at The Huntington. Recorded Nov. 1, 2017.

The Originality of Milton’s “Paradise Lost”

Historian Daniela Bleichmar, co-curator of the exhibition “Visual Voyages: Images of Latin American Nature from Columbus to Darwin,” discusses the surprising and little-known story of the pivotal role that Latin America played in the pursuit of science and art during the first global era. This talk is part of the Wark Lecture Series at The Huntington.  Recorded Oct. 16, 2017.

Historian Daniela Bleichmar, co-curator of the exhibition “Visual Voyages: Images of Latin American Nature from Columbus to Darwin,” discusses the surprising and little-known story of the pivotal role that Latin America played in the pursuit of science and art during the first global era. This talk is part of the Wark Lecture Series at The Huntington. Recorded Oct. 16, 2017.

Seeing and Knowing: Visions of Latin American Nature, ca. 1492–1859

John Demos, Samuel Knight Professor Emeritus of History at Yale University and the Ritchie Distinguished Fellow at The Huntington, presents an account of Potosí, the great South American silver mine and boomtown that galvanized imperial Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries, fueled the rise of capitalism, destroyed native peoples and cultures en masse, and changed history—for good or ill? This talk is part of the Distinguished Fellow Lecture Series at The Huntington.  Recorded April 12, 2017.

John Demos, Samuel Knight Professor Emeritus of History at Yale University and the Ritchie Distinguished Fellow at The Huntington, presents an account of Potosí, the great South American silver mine and boomtown that galvanized imperial Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries, fueled the rise of capitalism, destroyed native peoples and cultures en masse, and changed history—for good or ill? This talk is part of the Distinguished Fellow Lecture Series at The Huntington. Recorded April 12, 2017.

Potosí, Silver, and the Coming of the Modern World

The early modern era describes the period in Europe and the Americas between 1450 and 1850. The Huntington collections are particularly strong in Renaissance exploration and cartography, English politics and law in the early modern era, the English aristocracy from the later Middle Ages through the 18th century, and 18th-century British and American military history. The USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute supports advanced research and scholarship on human societies of this era, sponsoring lectures, conferences, workshops, and seminars.

Early Modern History

Matthew Fisher, associate professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles, discusses the earliest collections of medieval English manuscripts, the fires that almost destroyed them, and the radical changes in archival procedures that followed. This is part of the Zambrano Lecture Series at The Huntington.

Library Fires, Medieval English Manuscripts, and the Value of Old Books

Oliver Cromwell

Carla Gardina Pestana, professor of history at UCLA, will argue for the importance of Cromwell's effort and its outcome. Oliver Cromwell got only to Jamaica despite sending a massive expeditionary force to conquer the Spanish West Indies. This is part of the Distinguished Fellow Lecture Series at The Huntington.

Oliver Cromwell’s Consolation Prize? The English Conquest of Jamaica

Clive Holmes, emeritus fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, will provide a context for the 1692 determination by the Puritan clergymen of the Cambridge Association concerning spectral evidence in witchcraft trials. This talk is part of the Crotty Lecture series at The Huntington.

A Neglected Document (Really!) of the Salem Witch Trials

Steve Hindle, W. M. Keck Foundation Director of Research at The Huntington, explains how one particular map might be used to reconstruct who did what for a living, and who lived next door to whom, in 17th-century rural society.  Recorded Nov. 9, 2016.

Steve Hindle, W. M. Keck Foundation Director of Research at The Huntington, explains how one particular map might be used to reconstruct who did what for a living, and who lived next door to whom, in 17th-century rural society. Recorded Nov. 9, 2016.

Mapping the English Village

Kathleen Wilson, professor of history at Stony Brook University and the R. Stanton Avery Distinguished Fellow, discusses the revolutionary changes in body politics and polity that occurred in England during the late 18th century, as symbolized by the activities and representations of Admiral Horatio Nelson and his mistress, Lady Emma Hamilton. This is part of the Distinguished Lecture Series at The Huntington.

Admiral Nelson’s Women: Female Masculinity and Body Politics in the French and Napoleonic Wars

Tim Harris, professor of history at Brown University and the Fletcher Jones Foundation Distinguished Fellow, examines the causes of the English Civil War and the significance of the revolutionary upheavals in 17th-century England, Scotland, and Ireland. A book signing follows. This is part of The Huntington's Distinguished Fellow Lecture series.

Britain's Century of Revolutions Reconsidered

Henry Pitman

Carla Gardina Pestana delivers this Society of Fellows lecture at The Huntington. In 1685, after he supported the invasion of the Duke of Monmouth, who aimed to take the throne from his uncle, James II, the “Chyrurgion” (surgeon) Henry Pitman was transported to labor on the Caribbean island colony of Barbados as a convicted rebel. Four years later, Pitman returned to England to publish an account of his servitude, escape, encounters with privateers, and other “strange adventures”. "A Relation of the Great Sufferings and Strange Adventures of Henry Pitman" reveals a 17th-century English Caribbean fraught with brutality.

Rebels, Runaways, Pirates, and Slaves: Strange Adventures of Henry Pitman

Andrew O’Shaughnessy, vice president of Monticello and professor of history at the University of Virginia, dispels the incompetence myth surrounding the loss of the American colonies and uncovers the real reasons that rebellious colonials were able to achieve their surprising victory. This talk was part of the Nevins Lecture series at The Huntington.

The Men Who Lost America

Susan Juster, professor of history at the University of Michigan and the Robert C. Ritchie Distinguished Fellow, discusses the changing nature of blasphemy and blasphemy prosecutions in early modern England and the North American colonies. This is part of the Distinguished Fellow Lecture series.

“God's Wounds!” Blasphemy in the Early Modern World

John Morrill of Cambridge University draws on eyewitness testimony to examine the exceptional violence and disruption brought about by the Irish Massacres of 1641–42. Morrill chaired the editorial board for the project that put 8,000 survivor statements online at the 1641 Depositions website. This was the 2013–14 Crotty Lecture at The Huntington.

The Irish Massacres of 1641 and the Cromwellian Revenge of 1649–55 (Crotty Lecture)

James Simpson discusses how Early Modern English literature and visual culture responded to evangelical absolutism. Simpson is professor of English, Harvard University, and the Fletcher Jones Foundation Distinguished Fellow at The Huntington in 2013–14.

Evangelical Absolutism: Breaking the Mind’s Images in the English Reformation

Margo Todd, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania and the Fletcher Jones Foundation Distinguished Fellow, examines the campaign of the mostly lay judiciaries of the Calvinist Scottish kirk, or church, to impose a strict and highly invasive sexual discipline on their towns in the century following the Protestant Reformation. This talk is part of the Distinguished Fellow Lecture Series at The Huntington. Recorded Dec. 7, 2016.

Margo Todd, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania and the Fletcher Jones Foundation Distinguished Fellow, examines the campaign of the mostly lay judiciaries of the Calvinist Scottish kirk, or church, to impose a strict and highly invasive sexual discipline on their towns in the century following the Protestant Reformation. This talk is part of the Distinguished Fellow Lecture Series at The Huntington. Recorded Dec. 7, 2016.

Sex in the City

Henry VIII

Susan Brigden, Langford Fellow at Lincoln College, Oxford, discusses the diplomatic consequences of when Henry VIII declared himself Supreme Head of the Church in England, and how it broke the unity of Christendom. Brigden is the author of Thomas Wyatt: The Heart’s Forest.

Reformation Diplomacy: Henry VIII and His Ambassadors

Alain Touwaide explores some iconic sites in the Mediterranean world—Pompeii, Constantinople, Baghdad, Cordoba, Granada, and Padua, among others—and examines archaeological fields and early manuscripts that illustrate the relationship between humans and nature through time and space. Since ancient times, humans have recognized the therapeutic benefits of nature and have built gardens that helped restore health, both physical and spiritual.Touwaide is scientific director of the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions and research associate at the Smithsonian Institution.

Gardens for Health: A Walk Through History

Dena Goodman, professor of history at the University of Michigan, discusses a group of young men whose passion for science guided them through the turmoil of the French Revolution and into leadership roles in the decades that followed.

Science and Sociability in the French Revolution

Niklas Frykman discusses the rise and fall of the mutinous Atlantic, and why today we might once again wish to remember those long lost struggles for maritime democracy. Frykman is assistant professor of history at Claremont Mckenna College and is a Barbara Thom Fellow at The Huntington in 2013¬–14.

Like a Ship on Fire: The Forgotten History of Mutiny in the Age of Revolution

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