LitFest Pasadena
The first LitFest Pasadena takes place Sat., May 12, at Pasadena’s Central Park and will feature a panel titled “Letting Down Our Hair: Reader-Friendly Books from the Ivory Tower,” with Huntington scholars Daniel Walker Howe, Karen Lystra, Barry Menikoff, and Peter Stallybrass holding forth on how to make a great scholarly book a great read.
Woody Guthrie’s “Great and Crowded City”
Woody Guthrie famously roamed and rambled the country in the 1930s and ’40s, writing and singing about the downtrodden. He also found inspiration in Los Angeles. On Sat., April 14, USC hosts a conference titled “This Great and Crowded City: Woody Guthrie’s Los Angeles.”
LitFest Pasadena
[EVENT POSTPONED UNTIL MAY 12, DUE TO WEATHER] The first LitFest Pasadena takes place Sat., March 17, and will feature a panel titled “Letting Down Our Hair: Reader-Friendly Books from the Ivory Tower,” with Huntington scholars Daniel Walker Howe, Karen Lystra, and Peter Stallybrass holding forth on how to make a great scholarly book a great read.
Finding a New Place for the Frontier Thesis
A year ago, graduate students Erik Altenbernd and Alex Young were working at The Huntington as Mellon interns, helping to catalog a backlog of collections related to California history. Next week, they’re convening a symposium inspired by one of those collections—the papers of famed historian Frederick Jackson Turner.
On the Calculus of Hanging Ten
With the temperature in the 80s, you might be pondering whether to come to The Huntington this weekend or head straight to the beach instead. If you come to the Library’s West Hall, you’ll be able to catch the exhibition “Blue Sky Metropolis” before it closes on Jan. 9 while also seeing an honest-to-goodness surfboard on display.
How the West Won Me Over
Matthew Hersch, born in New York and educated in Boston and Philadelphia, came west last year to serve as a postdoctoral fellow for the Aerospace History Project and to co-curate the exhibition “Blue Sky Metropolis: The Aerospace Century in Southern California.”
Over the Moon
Burt and Carol Basney recently came to The Huntington with their daughter’s family and found out in person how their gift from 2007 took center stage in the current exhibition “Blue Sky Metropolis: The Aerospace Century in Southern California.”
Beyond the Numbers
In the Aerospace History Project, there is what you would expect to find in aerospace collections, such as blueprints and business correspondence documenting the daily work of engineers and scientists, but there are also unexpected items that subvert the stereotypical image.
Where There’s Smoke
Philip Connors spends long stretches of every spring and summer alone, on top of a lookout tower in New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness, scanning the horizon for signs of smoke. On Wed. night, Oct. 12, he’ll talk with The Huntington’s Bill Deverell about his book “Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout.”
Master Class
School’s out, which means most doctoral candidates are busy researching, writing, and revising their dissertations. Five lucky graduate students got a master class last Saturday at The Huntington in the sixth annual Western History Dissertation Workshop.
