RESEARCH NEWS | JANUARY 2026
Panelists on stage in Rothenberg Hall at Historias Radicales: Latinx Identity and History in Southern California. Photo by Linnea Stephan. | The Huntington, San Marino, California.
Our fellowship application portal for 2026–27 closed on November 15. After some trepidation about potential declines in the number of international scholars applying given the new immigration restrictions, I’m happy to report that we’ve received about the same percentage of applications from abroad as usual: roughly 30% of our short-term applicants and 25% of our long-term applicants hail from countries outside the United States. Bringing international and U.S. scholars together to share their ideas and research is one of the most valuable aspects of The Huntington’s fellowship program, fostering a truly global scholarly community. Our Library and Art Museum hold deep collections documenting the history, literature, and art of Latin America, the United Kingdom, continental Europe, the Caribbean, and the Pacific Rim, in particular, and are an important hub for scholarly conversations in these fields.
At the November off-site Board of Governors retreat, three current and former fellows joined me and Ken McCormick for a roundtable discussion of the challenges AI poses for research in the Humanities. We had a spirited conversation about the opportunities and pitfalls of this new technology. Karen Harvey, this year’s Fletcher Jones Foundation Distinguished Fellow, shared some of the preliminary results from her ongoing project digitizing and analyzing a large corpus of 18th-century letters from British men and women. Harvey tested several transcription programs aimed at turning manuscript writing into printed text, with very mixed results! Jen Jahner, Professor of English and Dean of Undergraduate Students at Caltech and a former Fletcher Jones Foundation Distinguished Fellow, gave a brief overview of how AI has developed over the years and its basic analytic structure, while Peter Mancall, Director of the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute and former Robert C. Ritchie Distinguished Fellow, shared his concerns about AI’s harmful environmental impact and theft of intellectual property.
Susan Juster
W.M. Keck Foundation Director of Research
Upcoming Lectures and Conferences
This winter, our lecture series “Active in the Archives” continues, as does our robust calendar of academic conferences. Join us for explorations of Renaissance bodies, porcelain obsessions, and Jane Austen’s cosmetic alchemy.
Conference—Making the Body in Renaissance Italy: Art, Literature, Medicine
Fri.–Sat., Jan. 23–24Registration required; fee waived for studentsParticipants will explore how the concept of the body in early modern Italy’s scientific revolution was shaped by a dialogue between medicine, art, and literature.
Lecture—Porcelain in Motion: From Decoration to Dance
Thu., Jan. 29 | Lecture 6–7 p.m., reception to followFree with reservationMeredith Martin, Professor of Art History at New York University, explores the global phenomenon of porcelain rooms, linking them to The Huntington’s Edmund de Waal exhibition, as well as an upcoming staging of the 18th-century Ballet des Porcelaines.
Lecture—Jane Austen’s Alchemy: Cosmetic Artifice in 'Persuasion'
Wed., Feb. 4 | Lecture 6–7 p.m., reception to followFree with reservationHelen Thompson, The Huntington’s Dibner Distinguished Fellow in the History of Science & Technology, investigates depictions of natural beauty and cosmetic artifice in Austen’s beloved novel, and their links to chemical and narrative reality.
Kim Tulipana, Associate Director of Public, School, and Digital Programs, and Devoney Looser, former Huntington Fellow and author of the new book, Wild for Austen. Photo by Shannon McHugh. | The Huntington, San Marino, California.
A New Kind of Event
In addition to our calendar of lectures and conferences, Research is pioneering a new series of academic events in conjunction with our colleagues in Education and Public Engagement. In this new format, Huntington researchers bring their findings to life in unexpected settings around the galleries and gardens.
We launched the series this summer, with a walking tour by art historian Patricia Yu in the Chinese Garden and a site-specific talk and performance by educational historian Laura Nelson in the behind-the-scenes area known as the “Back 40.” This fall, literary scholar Devoney Looser helped us celebrate the 250th birthday of Jane Austen with a short conversation on her Huntington research in an introduction to a screening of the beloved 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, before a sold-out crowd of 300 audience members.
Guided Walk: Camellia Connection to Asian and Western History
Sat., Jan. 17, 2026, 9–11amPublic: $50, Members: $40Wendy Cheng, The Huntington’s Simon and June Li Fellow, describes how the camellia arrived in California during a walk through the Camellia Garden at the peak of its flowering.
Guided Walk: Chinese Garden
Sat., Feb. 28, 9–11amExplore the principles of Chinese garden design and their influence on gardens and theme parks with Patricia Yu. This event is a reprise of her sold-out summer tour, this time during the springtime bloom of the pink and white plum blossoms.
Reserve Chinese Garden Walk Tickets
Second Sundays: Filipino Food Magic | Kitchen and Garden Experience
Sun., Apr. 12th, 11am–2pmFree with general admission; no reservation requiredLearn about the legacy of Filipina food scientist and “food magician” Maria Ylagan Orosa through growing, reading, and tasting activities in the Kitchen Garden. This family-friendly event will be part of The Huntington’s Second Sundays series.
Save the date
Poetry Reading: Huntington Gardens
Tue., Apr. 14, evening (time TBD)Huntington researcher and National Book Award Winner for Poetry Craig Santos Perez brings gardens and poetry together with an outdoor reading of his nature-inspired verse about his native Guam and more.
Save the date
Alyssa Collins looks at Octavia E. Butler materials in The Huntington’s Ahmanson Reading Room. Photo by Aric Allen. | The Huntington, San Marino, California.
A Haven for the Humanities
Did you catch the recent article about the scholarly ecosystem at The Huntington? Annabel Adams, The Huntington’s Vice President of Communications and Marketing, interviewed seven current and former research fellows in order to get an in-depth view of the scholarly labor that goes on every day in our library, galleries, and gardens.
“Throughout the day, the humanities come alive—not as fields under pressure, but as a practice of attention,” writes Adams, describing scholars’ work as “an active conversation between history and the world we inhabit now.”
Ebony Iman Dallas, BLACKout: Madonna and Child, 2023, carved birchwood, Ghanaian textiles, wood stain, acrylic, golden leafing, 36” x 48. © Ebony Iman Dallas, used by permission.
A New "Huntington Library Quarterly"
The upcoming issue of the Huntington Library Quarterly marks the journal’s new and expanded focus, featuring articles on the Spanish Inquisition in sixteenth-century Italy and seventeenth-century Mexico, colonial distortions of Indigenous religions in English literature, Huguenot (mis)information networks, aquatic cultures in the early/modern African diaspora, dystopian visions of abundance and leisure in colonial America, and a reinterpretation of disability in Shakespeare’s Richard III.