Seminar Leaders:
Ian Smith, University of Southern California
Heidi Brayman, University of California, Riverside
2026-2027
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
“What is Heritage? Shakespeare and the Myth of Belonging.”
The Huntington
1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA
Seaver 1 & 2 in the Munger Research Center
4:00 – 6:00 pm (PT)
Conversations in Early Modern Editing
Friday, March 5, 2027
The Huntington
1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA
Steven’s Classroom
12:00 noon – 2:00 p.m. (PT)
Faculty & Graduate Student Colloquium
Thursday, April 22, 2027
USC, University Park Campus
2:00 – 4:00 p.m. (PT)
Call for Papers: Critical Interventions Faculty & Graduate Student Colloquium
This workshop seeks to support graduate students, deepen connections across Southern California institutions, and center the scholarly writing and revision process. Sponsored by the new EMSI seminar Critical Interventions, this Spring Colloquium will pair graduate students, whose work engages literary or historical sources in English from 1500 to 1750, with Los Angeles-area scholars outside the students’ institutions.
If you are a doctoral candidate working in early modern studies, we invite you to share 20-25 pages of a chapter of your dissertation (or a comparable piece of work) with a specialist outside your home institution. We will arrange pairings, you will share up to 25 pages via email with your partner by February 1, and the two of you will make a presentation that opens up a larger group discussion on April 27.
If you are a faculty member, scholar, curator, or practitioner in the area, please consider expressing your interest to serve as one of the commenters. Contact us at idsmith@usc.edu and heidib@ucr.edu.
Participants will exchange work early in 2027, and we will meet as a group on the USC campus on Thursday, April 22, 2:00-4:00pm, with a social event following.
Eligible Applicants: PhD candidates residing in Southern California at the dissertation stage.
Proposals should include:
- cv
- statement of interest (300-500 words)
- short description (500 words or so) of the writing you plan to share
- letter of support from your dissertation chair.
Please send a single PDF file with all of the documents to emsi@dornsife.usc.edu by November 15, 2026. Accepted candidates will be notified in early December.
Applicants should request their dissertation chairs to send brief letters of support via email directly to emsi@dornsife.usc.edu by November 15, 2026.
Image Credit: Kehinde Wiley, A Portrait of a Young Gentleman, 2021. © Kehinde Wiley.
