The reading group kicks-off the quarter discussing the introduction from Cord Whitaker’s Black Metaphors, titled “Moving Backward: Blackness in Modernity, Early Modernity, and the Middle Ages”. The text is here. Please read the meeting ground rules prior to attendance. Register for the meeting here. Open to UCLA Faculty and Graduate Students. Questions? Contact memsa.ucla@gmail.com. Future meetings will […]
The reading to be discussed is “Creating Chichimec-Uanacaze Ethnic Identity,” Chapter 4 from Angélica Jimena Afanador-Pujol’s The Relación de Michoacán: (1539-1541) and the Politics of Representation in Colonial Mexico. The Introduction to the book is also included as optional reading, which may be very helpful in providing a context for the Relación. You can find […]
For the final winter quarter meeting of the MEMSA premodern race reading group, discussion centers on Sylvia Wynter’s “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation– An Argument.” UCLA graduate students and faculty from all departments and all participatory levels are welcome to join the discussion, whether you want to contribute […]
A conference organized by the officers of UCLA MEMSA: Chase Caldwell Smith (History), Richard Ibarra (History), and Stefanie Matabang (Comparative Literature); sponsored and hosted by the CMRS Center for Early Global Studies. Keynote Speakers: Roland Betancourt (UC Irvine) and Nicholas R. Jones (UC Davis) Research on the premodern intersection of race, gender, and sexuality has steadily increased as a result of the efforts of […]
08:00–08:15 PST Introduction & Welcome Patrick Morgan, Hannah Thomson, and Chase Caldwell Smith PANEL 1: CULTURAL CIRCULATION IN PRE-MODERN ASIA 08:15–08:30 PST “Nonnational Affinities and Shared Scape of Romances: Persianate World in Circulation” Yoonus Kozhisseri, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay 08.30–08:45 PST “Monsters, Deities, and Humanity in the Early Modern Philippines” Zhiyu Chen, University of […]
MORNING SESSION 08:00–08:15 PDT Opening Words Chase Caldwell Smith, Patrick Morgan, and Sofía Yazpik 8:15–8:20 PDT Welcome Zrinka Stahuljak, Director, CMRS Center for Early Global Studies, UCLA PANEL 1: Making South Asian and Indian Ocean Materialities Moderator: Chase Caldwell Smith 8:20–8:40 PDT Traded Silks for the Gods in Kerala: Patola, its Connections, Contributions and […]
The 5th Annual Conference of the UCLA Medieval and Early Modern Student Association seeks to highlight the innovative work of graduate students on the manifold ways people, texts, and objects “in-between” shaped the early global world, from the early medieval to the late early modern periods. Presentations will engage with the concept of the so-called “hybrid,” asking: […]
“Ilícita Amistad: Women’s Plural Relationships in Bigamy Cases of Colonial Mexico” Guest Speaker: Rebeca Martínez-Tibbles (History) This paper examines ilícita amistad—illicit or informal romantic relationships—as a central feature of women’s lives in colonial Mexico, particularly as revealed through bigamy cases prosecuted by the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Drawing on extensive archival research in Mexico City […]
In his landmark 1611 dictionary, the Tesoro de la le lengua castellana, the Castilian linguist Sebastián de Covarrubias noted that the verbs “to translate” in Spanish, traducir and trasladar, possessed both the meaning of words moving between languages and of movement of objects across space. Translation involved people, words, objects, images, and ideas in motion […]
Guest Speaker: Jiakai Zhang The presentation will focus on the Xiqin Quyi 西琴曲意(Eight Songs for Western Keyboard) composed by Matteo Ricci 利瑪竇 (1552-1610) in classical Chinese. Ricci was a Jesuit missionary who came to the Ming court and dedicated this collection of songs to the Wanli Emperor (萬曆皇帝) to be sung along with a keyboard […]