I like working in a place with boxes labeled 'do not open.' We discussed opening it today, but with the hellmouth just up in Sunnydale, decided against it.

As I age, I get more and more anti easy access. Student wants to chat about medieval mss, send me proof of your Latin. Curious about the wonders of Cunieform, let's talk Akkadian verb paradigms and sacrifice a garlanded bull.

I hope that someday, somebody cites my translation so that I sell many copies and then I get the chance to try to take them down for not being a good translator. Literature definitely stays alive by doing things in exactly the same way forever. www.tiktok.com/@devinfitzra...

#odyssey #rarebooks #history #librarytok A look at 3 early translations of Homer

TikTok video by dev

tiktok.com

Have decided to learn Uzbek, and very relaxing between my Persian, Russian, and foundation in Turkish grammar. As I always tell people, after language 10, it's really not so tricky.

Charlie Day Conspiracy: Pepe Silvia

ALT: Charlie Day Conspiracy: Pepe Silvia

static.klipy.com

May have to teach 1/2 of a summer course with only.... two week's notice?

If you are curious about different paper wrappers as bindings, this catalogue has it all. Paste papers, Dutch gilt, marbled papers, a feast for the eyes. Truly an impressive collection. ilab.org/assets/catal...

A year ago we received a big CLIR grant for digitizing Islamic mss AND integrating them into k-12 education. Madly impressed with the work of our grad student in curriculum development Atiyeh Taghiei and the 7th grade history of paper module she is sharing now. www.library.ucla.edu/about/news/u...

So excited for this book! Not the least because I literally have no idea what I would be doing with my life without Ann's early support and mentorship. One of my favorite thinkers in all ways.

Being a book curator is truly weird in contemporary special collections. In these giant units, there are 2 or 3 ppl max who care about books. Usually thr entire thing is oriented towards archives, digital materials, etc.

RIP to the mighty Robert Gore, the UCLA Arts Librarian. Robert knew everything about every artist book at UCLA. Robert was always such joy and light and seriousness. Feel so lucky that I managed to convince him to read his poetry in a bar last May. He was the best of what it meant to be a librarian.

For the record: I will not participate in any project using AI. I will not participate in any project wherein funding considers the role of AI. Some of our team is using it in the department for data management, and I will trust them, but AI has no role in my scholarship or any scholarship I want.

Grateful to have been gobsmack out of intellectual ennui by Manila and the brilliant @periodeye.bsky.social I needed a bit of a reset, a bit of familiar/strange. Finally feeling optimistic about this early mid career moment... and maybe someday finishing my damn book.

Everyone in LA has this exact same job.

Going from Stockholm to Manila, it now strikes me that LA and Manila are closer in terms of relative development than Stockholm and LA.

So tired of outreach. I'm now only doing radical alienation. Only going to show the public canon law folios and 17th century German dissertations from here on out.

🌏📚 CALL FOR APPLICATIONS | *Prints across the Pacific, 1565–1815* Getty Connecting Art Histories Project 2026–28 (1/7)

English rare book dealers sure can drink.

It's a red flag when people describe themselves as creative.

There is truly no narrative that captures quite how - everything that could go wrong before a big international trip - that last 24 hours have been

Off to London tomorrow to judge these bad boys. Happy that we have three entries from East Asia. The Japanese submission is, funnily enough, on Conrad Gessner ilabprize.org/breslauer-ye...

Other places have rain, we have bursting chemical vats, oil slicking down the LA river, fires that turn the hills to memory, and an earth always wanting to suck you down.

Es un gran placer para nosotros presentarles el nuevo programa de la iniciativa Connecting Art Histories de Getty: “Estampas a través del Pacífico, 1565-1815,” coordinado por Stephanie Porras (Tulane) y Devin Fitzgerald (UCLA). (4/7) cmrs.ucla.edu/research/cal...

Call for Participants / Convocatoria para participantes - UCLA CMRS Center for Early Global Studies

Prints across the Pacific, 1565-1815 | Getty Connecting Art Histories Project 2026–28. Prints across the Pacific seeks to bring together early to mid-career print scholars based in Southeast Asia and....

cmrs.ucla.edu

So @devinfitz.bsky.social and I are delighted to announce a new program through @gettymuseum.bsky.social Connecting Art Histories initiative: “Prints across the Pacific, 1565-1815." (en español también)(1/7)

Call for Participants / Convocatoria para participantes - UCLA CMRS Center for Early Global Studies

Prints across the Pacific, 1565-1815 | Getty Connecting Art Histories Project 2026–28. Prints across the Pacific seeks to bring together early to mid-career print scholars based in Southeast Asia and....

cmrs.ucla.edu

So pleased to be working with Queen Dr @periodeye.bsky.social on this project. Please spread the word!

Stephanie Porras@periodeye.bsky.social · 3mo ago

So @devinfitz.bsky.social and I are delighted to announce a new program through @gettymuseum.bsky.social Connecting Art Histories initiative: “Prints across the Pacific, 1565-1815." (en español también)(1/7)

I am routinely humbled by the brilliance, passion, and zest of my friends. That's why they are my friends. They remind me to more. Nice little reflextion by one of my best, Ben Star: www.abraxasreview.org/features/fro...

From Starry Skies to Prickly Pear Fries: An Essay on Craft and Memory by Ben Starr — abraxas review

It’s true, you can go to the “Cowboy Club Bar and Grille” in Sedona, Arizona and order prickly pear cactus fries.

abraxasreview.org

It is wild to me that I am in charge of this collection: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_B... Unfortunately, because it was rolled into special collections, it lost its dedicated librarian. Now, it is only occasionally used. I feel as a queer, dyslexic, eccentric, I really should get people into it.

Ok Bluesky. I am planning on buying this for UCLA, but neither the dealer nor I have ever seen one. Probably circa 1780s, prints are from a 1730s series. You spin the knows and the picture scrolls through narratives of the old testament. Anyone seen one before? Know what they are called?

What I wish for everybody to remember when Canvas comes back online: The reason OUR data can be held for ransom is because Instructure, their owners (KKR private equity & Dragoneer venture capital), & our own employers (see ASU Atomic) monetize it. It's Canvas that hacked education & stole our IP.

Tita Chico@titachico.bsky.social · 3mo ago

who could have imagined that it wasn't a good idea to have a nearly ubiquitous educational platform run by for-profit tech? @mattseybold.bsky.social is who! (yep, Canvas is down, hacked, stick a fork in it)

Since we do not have an exhibition program, I never get to do the deep-dive stuff. I am slowly going batty in my life of superficial encounters with really cool things.

Will a date in LA ever be on time? *screams in ancestral New England*