FORA.tv Speaker - William Deverell

William Deverell is Professor of History and Director of the newly-established Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West. The Institute is a intellectual partnership between the College of Letters, Arts & Sciences and the Huntington Library. The work of the Institute focuses on graduate education in the history and culture of California and the West; partnerships forged with the K-12 educational community; and a series of thematic working groups designed to explore contemporary and historical issues of importance in the region. All of Professor Deverell's graduate-level courses are taught at the Huntington Library, in order that the Library's extraordinary book and manuscript sources may be brought directly into the classroom setting. "The pedagogical beauty of this partnership," Deverell comments, "is exemplified by our graduate coursework. We can do so much with and for our students by introducing them to the rare materials of the Huntington as they begin their graduate work. It is thrilling, and it is a major feature of what we are trying to do in the Institute." Professor Deverell's research concentrates on the history of the 19th and 20th century American West, and he has written extensively on the history of Los Angeles. He is a graduate of Stanford University and did his doctoral training at Princeton.