Watch, Read, Listen

In his inaugural Huntington lecture, Phillip Bloom, The Huntington’s new director of the Center for East Asian Garden Studies and curator of the Chinese Garden, examines the history of Shizhuanshan, a hilltop Buddhist sanctuary in southwestern China constructed in the late 11th century. Bloom argues that, at Shizhuanshan, architecture, image, and text work together to transform the natural environment itself into a site for the eternal performance of Buddhist ritual.

Jointly presented by The Huntington and Carnegie Observatories, this conference marks the centennial of the completion of the 100-inch Hooker telescope on Mount Wilson, which saw “first light” in November 1917 and heralded the dawn of modern astronomy. Historians, scientists, and others explore the influence of big telescopes, the significance of discoveries at Mount Wilson, the gendered nature of astronomy, and other related issues in the history of Southern California as an arena for space exploration.

The exhibition Visual Voyages tells the story of how indigenous peoples, Spanish Americans, and Europeans all contributed to understanding Latin America’s complex natural world.

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.