Recorded Programs: Jan. 13–Feb. 24, 2021

Declaration of Independence, New York: Printed by John Holt, in Water Street, 1776. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.

Home to gorgeous gardens, spectacular art, and stunning rare books and manuscripts, The Huntington also offers an impressive slate of programs on topics and themes related to its collections. Below are video recordings of six recent online events.

Cataloging in the Time of COVID (Jan. 13, 2021)

Three panelists provide a behind-the-scenes look at how a recent acquisition of American history materials—the Shapiro Collection—came to be in The Huntington’s collections, how the foundational American collections have been accessed by researchers over time, and how all these materials are being made more accessible through the art of archival processing, a crucial element of collections care and stewardship. This event is part of an ongoing webinar series presented by the Library’s Reader Services Department, the Multi-Storied Library (watch here).

Detail from an illustration in Li Yu 李漁, Xianqing ouji: 16 juan 閒情 偶寄: 16卷, 4:260. Woodblock print; ink on paper, ca. 1671. Courtesy of Fine Art Library, Harvard University.

Unmoored Gardens: Shifting Cultural Spaces in Late Imperial China (Jan. 21, 2021)

Einor Cervone, the Mozhai Foundation Curatorial Fellow in the department of Chinese art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), explores the unlikely links between Ming dynasty (1368–1644) garden culture and waterborne culture. The talk showcases how refined activities like painting, calligraphy, and music were transformed when relocated to the waterscape (watch here).

Susan Hertel for Millard Sheets Designs, Inc., The Child's Discovery of Nature, 1974. Copyright Millard Sheets Estate, 2019.

Collecting Continuums: What Now (Jan. 27, 2021))

Huntington Library curators and members of the trade, library, and collecting communities join for a panel discussion on individual and institutional collecting today. Moderated by Claudia Funke and Erin Chase—curators of the Huntington exhibition “What Now: Collecting for the Library in the 21st Century”—the conversation addresses the significance of collecting in this unprecedented period and includes perspectives from The Huntington, greater Los Angeles, and beyond (watch here).

Left: The Rise of the Latino Vote: A History (Harvard University Press, 2019), winner of the 2021 Shapiro Book Prize. Right: Benjamin Francis-Fallon. Photo: Western Carolina University.

Shapiro Book Prize Lecture: The Rise of the Latino Vote (Feb. 3, 2021)

On the occasion of winning The Huntington’s inaugural Shapiro Book Prize for The Rise of the Latino Vote: A History, professor Benjamin Francis-Fallon discusses how Latina/o leaders in the U.S. first came to see themselves as belonging to one political community, exploring their attempts to establish mutual bonds and pass legislation and analyzing how both major political parties attempted to co-opt this emerging constituency and reshape it in their own image (watch here).

Sun Wen (China, 1818–1904), “Li Daiyu and Shi Xiangyun composing poems,” illustration based on a set of paintings depicting scenes from the novel The Story of the Stone (also known as The Dream of the Red Chamber), by Cao Xueqin (1715?–ca. 1763)

The Garden as Feminine Lettered Space in "The Story of the Stone" and Beyond (Feb. 18, 2021))

Wai-yee Li, professor of Chinese literature at Harvard University, explores how different types of literary activities—such as reading, painting, poetry composition, and opera—are defined by garden design and spatial setting in The Story of the Stone (also known as The Dream of the Red Chamber) by Cao Xueqin (1715?–ca. 1763) (watch here).

Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900), Chimborazo, 1864, oil on canvas, 48 × 84 in. Gift of the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. © Fredrik Nilsen photography.

Founders’ Day Lecture - Mapping and Memory: Activating the Huntingtons’ Collecting Legacy (Feb. 24, 2021)

Dennis Carr, Virginia Steele Scott Chief Curator of American Art gives brief remarks before being joined in conversation with artist Sandy Rodriguez, 2020–21 Caltech-Huntington Art + Research Fellow. Together, they reexamine the Huntington family's legacy and interest in the Spanish-speaking world and pose possibilities for how The Huntington can expand the stories represented in its galleries and exhibitions (watch here).

Kevin Durkin is the editor of Verso and the managing editor in the Office of Communications and Marketing at The Huntington.