Local Resources

The Center for the Premodern World at USC creates space and offers resources for the study of cultures and civilizations, beginning with the earliest historical eras up to the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern world. The Center aims to have a truly global reach in terms of areas of research and as such has the potential to involve over forty faculty on campus in its activities. Already it co-sponsors an interdisciplinary research seminar on the Premodern Mediterranean.”

In a building that recreates a Roman villa in a spectacular setting on a bluff above the Pacific, the recently renovated and re-opened Getty Villa in Malibu is dedicated in its entirety to ancient art.

The Getty Center in Brentwood houses a major art collection and is also home to the Getty Research Institute (the “GRI”), a major library specializing in scholarship in art history, material culture and related disciplines. For classicists, their special collections holdings and photography archives are especially valuable. USC faculty and graduate students regularly work in the GRI library and attend special exhibits, events and lectures at the GRI and the Getty Villa.

Located in the Miracle Mile in West LA, the museum houses major collections in Ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian art, photography, European painting and Asian art, as well as one of the most significant collections of Islamic Art in the world. They also have a substantial collection of Greco-Roman objects. In addition, LACMA regularly hosts exciting temporary exhibitions.

The Huntington galleries and library are set in the middle a stunning botanical garden, the former estate of a 19th century railroad tycoon, in San Marino just south of Pasadena. The library specializes in American and British history, early printed books and women’s history. USC enjoys a special, collaborative relationship with the Huntington through the interdisciplinary Early Modern Studies Institute (EMSI).

After a devastating fire in the late 1980s, the city’s central library re-opened as one of the most beautiful buildings in the city.

Great collection of European, American and South Asian art, conveniently located in Pasadena next to the Rolls Royce dealership

The downtown site houses one of the most important collections of post-1940 American and European art; the nearby branch at Geffen Contemporary MOCA hosts large, temporary exhibitions in a converted police car garage while the sister site of the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood is a regular venue for rotating exhibits, usually with an architecture/design slant.

This amazing place has been analyzed by Lawrence Weschler as a postmodern parody of the idea of the museum (Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder), and indeed features in the introduction to the Norton Anthology of Postmodernism.

Led by Music & Artistic Director, Gustavo Dudamel, the orchestra performs at the stunning Walt Disney Concert Hall in DTLA.

Performances of classical, world music, jazz and rock under the stars (take a picnic!) at one of the largest natural amphitheaters in the world.

Online pages on restaurants, neighborhoods, where to hear jazz in museums, where to go rollerblading, the usual.

Try KPCC for swing, KLON for jazz (sponsors of the Long Beach Blues Festival), KCRW for new music, KPFK for politics