Ahmanson Undergraduate Research Scholarships
Undergraduate scholarships are offered every year to support student research at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. These are intended for UCLA upper-division students who enroll in a designated course (usually open to undergraduate students from any department). Seminar topics and application guidelines are announced each year.
Sessions are held at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, located off campus in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles. For directions and additional information, please see here.
The seminars are limited in class size, and support is provided for student transportation to and from the Clark Library. Undergraduate students who successfully complete the seminar are awarded a $1,000 scholarship.
2026–27 Ahmanson Undergraduate Scholarship Seminars
Collecting at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
Distinguished Professor Carla Pestana, Department of History
Winter 2027, HST C191D
Tuesdays, 1:00–3:50 p.m.
Seminar description:
Many members of the university community do not know that when UCLA was young, a wealthy Los Angeles resident gave the small branch campus his library and its collections. The Clark Library remains part of UCLA even though it is located in West Adams (near downtown LA). William Andrews Clark Jr., heir to a wealthy mining family, competed with other elite American men in collecting rare books and manuscripts, often from England where aristocratic families were in financial crisis and were forced to sell their collections. Clark collected widely: early English literature, Fine Press books, and the papers of poet, playwright, and gay icon Oscar Wilde among other things. Today, Clark’s collection is regularly augmented through gifts and purchases. One of the major donors to the Clark today is Paul Chrzanowski, who buys and donates books from the Tudor era of English history.
This class will use the Clark collection to study the process of collecting and its results in one case. Student’s research projects will explore collecting historically and currently, the contents of collections, and the mechanisms for collecting that a purchaser like Mr. Chrzanowski uses today.
The class is limited in size. Undergraduate students who successfully complete the seminar are awarded a $1,000 scholarship. Lyft passes will be provided for students to get to and from the Clark Library.
How to Apply:
Prospective students should submit the following documents to Professor Pestana:
- Letter explaining their reasons for wanting to enroll in the course
- Printed PDF of their DAR
- Resume containing contact information
The documents should be submitted to Professor Pestana at cgpestana@history.ucla.edu by 5:00 p.m., Thursday, November 19, 2026.
Images:
For questions about the seminars, please contact the Center at c1718cs@humnet.ucla.edu or 310-206-8552.
Past Ahmanson Undergraduate Scholarship Seminars
Spring 2026: The Wilde Archive, Distinguished Professor Joseph Bristow, Department of English
Winter 2026: At Home in 18th-Century London, Dr. Zirwat Chowdhurt, Department of Art History
Spring 2025: The Greatest Novel in the English Language? Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa, Assistant Professor Cass Turner, Department of English
Spring 2024: The Wilde Archive, Distinguished Professor Joseph Bristow, Department of English
Fall 2023: Poverty in Early-Modern England: Experience, Identity, and Image, Associate Professor Tawny Paul, Department of History
Spring 2023: The Political and Philosophical Foundations of Modernity, 1650–1789, Distinguished Research Professor Margaret Jacob, Department of History
Fall 2022: Paul Landacre and the Erasure of Indigeneity in the California Landscape, Distinguished Research Professor Johanna Drucker, Department of Information Studies
Spring 2020: The Wilde Archive, Distinguished Professor Joseph Bristow, Department of English
Winter 2019: London Life 1666–1800, Professor Saree Makdisi, Department of English
Spring 2018: Radicalism and Dissent: Protestantism and English Literature, 1640 to 1799, Professor Robert Maniquis, Department of English
Winter 2018: Savage Indignation: Satire, Anger, and Misanthropy in the Eighteenth Century, Professor Helen Deutsch, Department of English
Winter 2016: Books, Readers, and the Sciences in Eighteenth-Century England, Professor Mary Terrall, Department of History
Fall 2014: Pirates of the Caribbean?, Distinguished Professor Carla Gardina Pestana, Department of History
Winter 2014: Legacies of The Castle of Otranto, 1764–2014, Dr. Alice Boone, History of the Material Text Fellow
Winter 2013: The Wilde Archive, Distinguished Professor Joseph Bristow, Department of English
Winter 2012: Shakespeare on Pane in his Age, Distinguished Research Professor Jonathan Post, Department of English
Spring 2011: Books, Readers, and the Sciences in Eighteenth-Century England, Professor Mary Terrall, Department of History
Spring 2010: The Wilde Archive: Researching Fin-De-Siècle Culture and Writing, Distinguished Professor Joseph Bristow, Department of English
Spring 2009: Protestant Dissent and English Literature, 1640 to 1799, Professor Robert Maniquis, Department of English
Winter 2008: The King of Parnassus: Alexander Pope and the Construction of Cultural Authority, Professor Helen Deutsch, Department of English
Spring 2007: Islands of Power, Professor Kirstie McClure, Department of Political Science
Winter 2007: ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive’: The British Atlantic in a Revolutionary Age, Professor Michael Meranze, Department of History
Spring 2005: The Wilde Archive: Researching Fin-De-Siècle Culture and Writing, Distinguished Professor Joseph Bristow, Department of English
Winter 2004: Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama: Actors, Perfomance, and Text, 1676–1737, Distinguished Research Professor Felicity Nussbaum, Department of English
Spring 2003: Fighting Words: Political Literatures and Print Culture in Early Modern Britain, Professor Kirstie McClure, Department of Political Science
Spring 2002: The History and the Literature of Protestant Dissent, Professor Robert Maniquis, Department of English
Winter 2001: The Wilde Archive, Distinguished Professor Joseph Bristow, Department of English
Winter 2000: Back to Nature: Primitivism and its Discontents in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Distinguished Research Professor Maximillian E. Novak, Department of English
Winter 1999: The Enlightenment and its Revolutionary Legacies, Professor Joyce Appleby, Department of History
Spring 1998: The Bible and Eighteenth-Century Culture, Professor Robert Maniquis, Department of English
Spring 1997: Speaking and Writing of Oneself: The History of the Ideas of Person and Self in Early Modern Europe, Professor Hans Medick, Clark Professor 1996–97