2012-2013 Archival Research Awards — Win $500 April 22, 2013
Posted by ucisca in Uncategorized.Tags: 2012-2013 Archival Research Awards
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Are you still searching for a topic for your thesis or a major paper? Do you want to conduct serious, original research in unique, historical archives? If so, there are many fascinating primary sources in the UCI Libraries Special Collections and Archives that deserve your attention in your next research project. You can even win $500 when you write a paper based on these archival collections.
Two $500 research awards are available, one for a UCI undergraduate and one for a UCI graduate student. To apply, submit a completed research paper based on extensive archival research in the UCI Libraries Special Collections and Archives’ collections before Friday, June 14, 2013. Winning papers will be published online in eScholarship.
Special Collections and Archives collects archives from many significant individuals and organizations. Some examples:
- Critical theory (including the papers of Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man, and Richard Rorty)
- Orange County, California (such as on the history of planning and development, women in the public sphere, the LGBT community, and environmental issues)
- Southeast Asian Americans (particularly the refugee and immigrant experience)
- Dance and performing arts (including the papers of Robert Cohen, Donald MacKayle, and Eugene Loring)
- UC Irvine history
- The work of UCI’s Nobel Laureates (Frederick Reines and F. Sherwood Rowland)
For more information about the award and the criteria, please see http://special.lib.uci.edu/services/award.html. UC Irvine undergraduate and graduate students of any level are encouraged to apply. We especially encourage undergraduates who are involved in the first-year integrated program or who are writing an honors thesis to participate.
This is a great time to investigate potential paper topics in Special Collections and Archives, and we are eager to help you plan your archival research projects. Email us at spcoll@uci.edu, visit our website, or visit our Reading Room in the Langson Library, Room 525.
Happy Birthday Ansel Adams February 20, 2013
Posted by ucisca in Early UCI Campus, Photographs, Uncategorized.Tags: Ansel Adams, Langson Library, Photographs, UC Irvine, University of California, University of California Irvine
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Ansel Adams at Langson Library. Photograph by Richard Schlesinger, 1966.
On this day in 1902, the great Ansel Adams was born in San Francisco, California. In 1966, less than one year after UCI admitted its first students, Adams came to photograph the distinctive buildings on the Irvine campus. This was part of a project commissioned by UC President Clark Kerr to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the University of California in 1968. The photographs were published in the commemorative book, Fiat Lux, and are currently in the California Museum of Photography, Sweeny/Rubin Ansel Adams Fiat Lux Collection at UC Riverside.
Ansel Adams getting his beard trimmed. Photograph by Liliane De Cock, ca. 1966.
Here Adams is shown having his beard trimmed by Nancy Newhall, who wrote the accompanying text for his photographs in Fiat Lux as well as numerous other books.
Photos from AS-061, Box 128. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree October 25, 2012
Posted by ucisca in Uncategorized.Tags: Kenneth Millar, Margaret Millar, Ray Bradbury, Ross Macdonald, The Halloween Tree
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As Halloween approaches, and to honor the legendary science fiction and fantasy author Ray Bradbury (who died on June 5, 2012 at age 91), we share with you Bradbury’s 1972 novel The Halloween Tree. Bradbury’s novel is often credited with popularizing the idea of Halloween as a pagan holiday, and explaining that trick-or-treating had ancient roots in pre-Christianity. The novel began as an unproduced screenplay, which Bradbury collaborated on with cartoonist Chuck Jones. In 1992, Bradbury wrote and narrated a made-for-television feature film version of the novel, for which he won an Emmy. Also, the Halloween Tree has long been a part of the annual park-wide Halloween decorations at Disneyland.
Special Collections and Archives has in our collections a first printing of the 1972 novel, a presentation copy which Bradbury signed and gave to his friends Margaret and Kenneth Millar. We also have the papers of both Margaret Millar and Kenneth Millar in our collections. Kenneth Millar (1915-1983) used the pseudonym Ross Macdonald, as the very popular American-Canadian writer of crime fiction, and Margaret Millar (1915-1994) was an acclaimed mystery writer.
John Cage at UCI in the 1980s September 5, 2012
Posted by ucisca in Uncategorized.Tags: John Cage, John Cage at UCI, John Cage Centennial
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John Cage, American avant-garde music composer, writer and artist, was born one hundred years ago today, September 5, 1912, in Los Angeles. Celebrations of the centennial of his birth have been occurring throughout the world in 2012. Cage, who died in New York City on August 12, 1992, was at UCI at least once. The photographs below document a performance/lecture in Humanities 100 at UCI, most likely in the 1980s. Although the photographs include no additional information about the dates of the performance, we thought we would share them with you on this important day. Happy 100th birthday, John Cage!
AS-061. University Communication Photographs. Special Collections and Archives, the U.C. Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California. Box 135.
Original Program for Woodstock, August 15, 1969 August 15, 2012
Posted by ucisca in Uncategorized.Tags: Woodstock Music Festival
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On this day in 1969, the Woodstock Music Festival opened in upstate New York, on 600 acres of land in the town of Bethel, some 50 miles from Woodstock. Billed as “three days of peace and music,” musicians who performed included Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, the Who, Sly and the Family Stone, the Santana Blues Band and many many others. Special Collections and Archives has a copy of the original Woodstock program in our collections (see below).
The last page of the Woodstock Music Festival program.
July 18th is Hunter Thompson’s birthday July 18, 2012
Posted by ucisca in Uncategorized.Tags: Birthdays, Hunter S. Thompson
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“Gonzo journalist” Hunter S. Thompson would have been 83 years old today. He was born on July 18, 1929 in Louisville, Kentucky. The UCI Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives collections contain first editions of Thompson’s first three books: Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (1967); Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971, signed); and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 (1973). Summer hours in Special Collections and Archives are Monday-Friday, 1-5pm.
[Photograph by S. MacLeod]
UCI Bridges May 30, 2012
Posted by ucisca in Campus Scenes, Photographs, Student Life, Uncategorized.Tags: Bridges
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Below are photographs of a number of bridges on the UCI campus. Do you recognize them? Are there other campus bridges that are not included here?
AS-061. University Communication Photographs. Special Collections and Archives, the U.C. Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
Professor Frederick Reines, Nobel Laureate and Wham-O Super Ball Aficionado May 11, 2011
Posted by ucisca in Faculty, Uncategorized.Tags: Frederick Reines, Nobel Prize, Wham-O Super Ball
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UCI Professor Frederick Reines (1918-1998) was a particle physicist and educator internationally recognized for his verification of the existence of the neutrino and investigation of its properties. In 1995 he won the Nobel Prize for Physics. Professor Reines also had a sense of humor, which is apparent in this letter to the Wham-O Manufacturing Company, in which he complains about the flawed super ball he received from Wham-O.
MS-F007. Frederick Reines Papers, ca. 1931-1999. Special Collections and Archives, the U.C. Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Coco Fusco in 1992 March 11, 2011
Posted by ucisca in Uncategorized.Tags: Christopher Columbus, Coco Fusco, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Performance Art
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In 1992, on the 500th anniversary of the “discovery” of America by Christopher Columbus, artists Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Coco Fusco performed the piece “The Year of the White Bear: Take One” in several locations in the United States and Europe, including a performance in the UCI Fine Arts Gallery from February 24 – March 4, 1992. The piece recreates the experience of two native inhabitants who are captured and taken to the land of their conquerors to be exhibited as curiosities. Gómez-Peña and Fusco impersonate native Amerindians from the fictitious land of Guatinaui. They spent at least three days in a cage, were feed through bars, and were taken to the bathroom on leashes. They also performed dances and told stories from their “native” culture. The same piece was also performed in Columbus Plaza in Madrid in 1992. Below are photographs of the performance and the artists’ statement about the piece.
AS-061. University Communication Photographs. Special Collections and Archives, the U.C. Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California. [Photographs]
PS-070. Department of Studio Art Publications. Special Collections and Archives, the U.C. Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California. [Announcement]
Michael Chabon signs first novel in 1988 January 25, 2011
Posted by ucisca in Uncategorized.Tags: Donald Heiney, Michael Chabon, Oakley Hall, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, UCI Writing Program
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Michael Chabon, UCI MFA in Creative Writing (1987), received one of the largest advances ever for a first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (Morrow, 1988), based on his UCI Master’s Thesis. Donald Heiney, 
co-director of the MFA writing program with Oakley Hall for nearly 20 years, was Chabon’s teacher and instrumental in promoting the first novel to the publisher. Michael Chabon won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Random House, 2000). At left, Chabon signs copies of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh at the UCI book store on May 11, 1988. He was 24 years old.
AS-061. University Communications Photographs. Special Collections and Archives, the U.C. Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
