Welcome to EMSI!
The USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute (EMSI) explores the history, literature, art, and science of the Early Modern period (c. 1450-1850). The institute’s range is global – instead of focusing on a particular region, EMSI aims to advance knowledge of the diverse societies in and around the Atlantic and Pacific basins. Researchers nourish diverse perspectives, advance interdisciplinary perspectives, and share discoveries about the Early Modern period with the goal of informing the ways we approach problems today as well as keeping us in touch with the sources of our common humanity.
Check out the 2025- 2026 EMSI Seminar Series.
See the full calendar of EMSI events.
LA2026 begins now!
LA2026 brings together members of the public and humanities scholars for eighteen conversations about museum and cultural exhibitions at six partnering institutions in the Los Angeles region, including the Autry Museum of the American West, The Huntington, LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes / El El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument, Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and USC Libraries. Each exhibition frames conversations about the anniversary of 1776 from the perspective of California and the West. Each discussion will focus on specific items from one of the partner exhibitions, encouraging public discussions about national identities, relationships between regional and national narratives, participating in democracy, and human relationships to the land.
Meet the 2026-2027 EMSI Fellows
Ashley L. Cohen
Associate Professor of English, USC
EMSI Faculty Fellow, Fall 2026
Project Title:
England’s Heretical Radicalisms: Sectarianism, Antinomianism, and Non-Domination in the Long 18th Century
Scott Wagner
EMSI Ph.D. Dissertation Fellow, 2026–2027
Ph.D. Candidate, Van Hunnick Department of History
Dissertation Title:
Brawlers for Liberty: Borderlands Adventurers in a Revolutionary Age
Join EMSI Events and Opportunities!
Fara Dabhoiwala, Homer Crotty Lecture
“The Secret History of the First Amendment”
Monday, May 4, 2026
The Huntington
Margaret Rosenthal, USC
“Ephemera, Erasure and Remembrance in a Precarious World: Early-Modern University Students’ Illustrated Alba Amicorum”
Wednesday, May 6, 2026
USC, University Park Campus
Taper Hall 404
Dissertation Workshop
Charlotte Biggs, University of California, Riverside
“Mobility, Gender, and Indigeneity: Remapping La Florida and the Atlantic World, 1720-1784”
Arrannè Rispoli, University of California, Los Angeles
“‘We were condemn’d by colour of Law’: Capital Punishment and the Origins of Black Criminality”
Friday, May 8, 2026
Huntington Library
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Image: Detail from “Vallard Atlas,” (1547) HM 29 f.1, chart 9, North America, east coast. Portolan atlas. Courtesy of the Huntington Library.
