Dear Center for Early Cultures graduate students and faculty, members and friends,
As new Director of the Center, I am particularly grateful to Deanna Shemek, our former Director, for developing on and beyond campus an inclusive collegial research community of graduate students and faculty sharing a common interest in learning about earlier periods in different cultures and across the disciplines.
I am excited to announce we are reactivating this year the Center’s lunch-talk series. The series is coordinated by Luiza Osorio Silva. It will feature talks by outside speakers (Domenico Ingenito, Cesar Favila) as well as recently hired UCI faculty (Camille Reiko Acosta, Juan Garcia Torres, Pantalea Mazzitello. In the future, we intend to extend speaker invitations to EC graduate students.
In partnership with the Humanities Center and other centers and departments, we plan to organize a symposium that will explore from an Early Cultures angle the HC’s Annual Theme and to sponsor an Early Cultures graduate conference. Please feel free to contact me or Luiza directly if you are interested in organizing (or contributing to) such events, or to talk about anything you think the Center might be interested to support or sponsor. We value your initiatives.
The Center will also launch later this year an Early Cultures interdisciplinary work-in-progress seminar on a common topic. More on this subject will be announced in the fall.
As the Center’s former Director would say, please “bookmark our website, join our mailing list, and step into early cultures conversations!” Luiza and I look forward to seeing you at our events and to learning and exchanging about early cultures with you this year.
Christophe Litwin
PS: More can be found here about my ideas to develop the Center’s research activities and common interests.