Center-Sponsored Projects

Diversifying the Classics

The project encompasses five initiatives: L.A. Escena Performance Series, Hispanic classical theater and adaptations for L.A. audiences; Library of Translated Hispanic Classical Plays, a digital resource for theater practitioners; Classic Comedia, a bilingual digital and print anthology of monologues for actors; Classics in the Classroom, a program to introduce Hispanic classical theater to students via adaptations, the compilation of supporting materials, and connections with K–12 arts educators; and a future Performance Studies Database, listing scholars in the field prepared to guide theater professionals approaching new and underrepresented texts.

Unediting the Teaching Text

The project invites students of English literature and their instructors to embark on an “abnormal” reading of familiar texts. Drawing on the expertise of four professors of English at UCLA, it curates historical versions of major literary works for use in the undergraduate classroom via annotations, assignments, and contextual materials. Its high-quality digital images are facsimiles of rare originals held at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library and UCLA Special Collections, or, in two cases, images from resources available elsewhere on the internet. We have designed the site as a “guided tour” of the textual and physical versions that lay behind familiar works of English literature.