Exhibits

The Red Pencil: Censorship in Russia and the Soviet Union

Posted on May 9, 2013 by June Pachuta Farris, Bibliographer for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies at Humanities & Social Sciences

Each civilization, each government and society has had to come to terms with the tension between the individual and the state, of what can be done, said, written, researched, read, performed, painted, photographed or texted, and what is deemed harmful to the state and its citizens and by whom this is to be decided. In this mini exhibit we catch a glimpse into the past and present of nearly 300 years of censorship in Russia.

As the nations of the west slowly and haltingly began to limit the restrictions of censorship, Tsarist Russia was just beginning to impose and broaden its reach. And in the 20^th century, the Soviet Union expanded censorship to new and horrific depths. Marianna Tax Choldin (Ph.D, University of Chicago, 1979), a noted authority on the censorship of both periods, has coined a phrase, now taken up by many in Russia who write about censorship—OMNICENSORSHIP (ВСЕЦЕНЗУРА)—the Soviet version of censorship, unacknowledged officially, but all-pervasive, and woven through the entire fabric of Soviet society. All citizens–scholars, scientists, artists, composers, librarians, teachers, journalists–knew not only what they MUST NOT do, but also what they MUST do in order to get ahead or in the worst of times, just to survive. If unexpressed thoughts could have been censored, they would have been, and indeed, in the darkest days of the Stalinist purges, it seems as if they sometimes were. Self-censorship was, by necessity, an integral part of the system.

A December 1989 issue of the journal Ogonek asking the question—FAREWELL CENSORSHIP?

First in the era of the “The Thaw” (early 1960s) and then again in the era of Glasnost (late 1980s), there were signs, at least in some areas, of more permissiveness, a greater freedom of artistic expression. In the introduction to The Red Pencil: Artists, Scholars, and Censors in the USSR, Maurice Friedberg and Marianna Tax Choldin wrote: “What is at issue in this age of glasnost is whether the oppressive status quo will remain in place, whether all cultural and intellectual life in the USSR will be continued to be controlled by a faceless censor endowed with unlimited powers or whether some degree, however modest, of procedural legality is to be introduced.” [pp. xvi-xvii]

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought new hope that a civil society, based upon just such a system of procedural legality, would develop. Twenty-two years later the issue is unresolved and the battle rages on: unlimited censorship vs. freedom of the press and freedom of political and artistic expression.

The exhibit is located in the Second Floor Reading Room of the Joseph Regenstein Library and will run from May through August 2013. Note that the exhibit is displayed in two floor cases and one wall case, each slightly removed from the others.

The Seminary Co-op Documentary Project: Capturing the Bookstore’s Distinctive Character and History

Posted on April 4, 2013 by The University of Chicago Library

Exhibition: The Seminary Co-op Documentary Project: Capturing the Bookstore’s Distinctive Character and History
Dates: April 22 – July 13, 2013

Co-op General Manager Jack Cella squeezes in next to old mechanical bellows, long since defunct but of perpetual interest to customers. Photograph: Megan E. Doherty.

Celebrating over 50 years at the center of the University of Chicago’s and Hyde Park’s intellectual and cultural life, the renowned Seminary Co-op Bookstore has moved up from its legendary basement location and into a newly transformed space designed by Chicago Architects Stanley Tigerman and Margaret McCurry. Curators Jasmine Kwong and Megan E. Doherty present their documentation of the Co-op’s history through a selection of photography, interviews, artifacts and memorabilia.

At the Special Collections Research Center Exhibition Gallery
1100 East 57th Street, Chicago
Hours: Monday–Friday, 9:00 a.m.–4:45 p.m.; Saturdays: 9:00 a.m.–12:45 p.m. when classes are in session

Visit the project website for associated stories, photographs and audio interviews.

Use of Images

These images from the exhibition are available for members of the media, and are reserved for editorial use in connection with the University of Chicago Library exhibitions, programs, or related news. Email Rachel Rosenberg (phone: 773-834-1519) or Joseph Scott (phone: 773-702-6655) to request high-resolution images.

The iconic green and red spines of the Loeb Classical Library greeted customers upon entering the store. Photograph: Megan E. Doherty.

The wooden staircase that led you in and out of the sub-basement, which was added to the bookstore in the mid 70’s. Photograph: Jasmine Kwong.

Recipes for Domesticity: Cookery, Household Management, and the Notion of Expertise

Posted on April 4, 2013 by The University of Chicago Library

Illustration from Cassell’s Household Guide, Being a Complete Encyclopaedia of Domestic and Social Economy… London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, [187-] Vol. 2. Rare Book Collection, Special Collections Research Center, The University of Chicago Library.

Exhibition: Recipes for Domesticity: Cookery, Household Management, and the Notion of Expertise
Date: April 22 – July 13, 2013

How does one roast a fawn or properly set a dinner table for twelve? For centuries, people have been documenting and decoding the vast array of knowledge associated with domestic life, assembling cooking and household guides to assist with the tasks of daily living. Not merely collections of recipes and how-to instructions, these guides also document cultural patterns and give insight into the development of modern-day kitchen and cooking practices. This exhibition, drawn primarily from the Rare Books Collection, provides a sampling of European and American cookbooks and domestic manuals from court chefs of the 15th century to cooking icons of the 20th century.

Curator: Julia Gardner, Head, Reader Services, Special Collections Research Center

At the Special Collections Research Center Exhibition Gallery
1100 East 57th Street, Chicago, IL
Hours: Monday–Friday, 9:00 a.m.–4:45 p.m.; Saturdays: 9:00 a.m.–12:45 p.m. when classes are in session

Use of Images

Engraved title page from François Pierre de La Varenne’s Le pastissier françois… Amsterdam : Chez Louys & Daniel Elzevier, 1655. Special Collections Research Center, The University of Chicago Library.

Man drinking coffee, coffee pot, coffee plant

Engraving from Philippe Sylvestre’sTraitez nouveaux & curieux du café, du thé et du chocolate… The Hague: Adrian Moetjens, 1685. John Crerar Collection of Rare Books in the History of Science and Medicine, Special Collections Research Center, The University of Chicago Library.

Colored engraving from Alexandre Martin’s Manuel de l’amateur de café… Paris: Audot, 1828. John Crerar Collection of Rare Books in the History of Science and Medicine. The University of Chicago Library.

American Bellydance: From Columbian Exhibition to American Tribal Style

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Benjamin Aldred, Public Services Assistant, Recordings Collection at the University of Chicago Library

Photograph of Algerian dancer from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago

In 1893, visitors to the World’s Columbian Exposition were introduced to a form of dance not seen before in the U.S. On the Street in Cairo section of the midway, dancers performed the first bellydance seen in the U.S., a dance which has exploded in popularity since then. A new mini-exhibit on Regenstein’s 3rd floor examines some aspects of the birth of American Bellydance and the modern variations. It is on display from April 1 through September 1, 2013. Exhibit viewers are encouraged to check out an MP3 player with musical accompaniment to the exhibit from the nearby Recordings Collection desk.

Bellydance at the Columbian Exposition: For the Street in Cairo display, Sol Bloom hired a number of performers including dancers. Among the dancers was a woman who came to be known as “Little Egypt.” This dancer was highly popular and inspired many imitators. By the beginning of the 20th century, many women were performing under the name “Little Egypt” and it was associated with bellydancing up through the mid-20th century as the dance became more commonly known.

Cabaret Style: While bellydancing is thought of as traditional to the Middle East, what Americans associate with bellydance is part of a style distinct to the Americas, which draws from traditional forms but uses different costuming and many different moves. Cabaret style dancers perform in many different contexts in the US, including restaurants, at theatrical performances and in films.

American Tribal Style: This fast-growing American style of bellydance is a hybrid of several different dance forms and costuming styles. Developed in San Francisco by Fat Chance Bellydance troupe, American Tribal Style or ATS now has multiple offshoots. ATS bellydance is a structured improvisational group form at its heart, with a specific repertoire of moves combined in performance using various communication methods and an alternating system of leading.

Dancers from Different Drummer Bellydance troupe perform at a street festival in Bloomington, IN. (Photo by Adam Zolkover.)

Under Covers: The Art and Science of Book Conservation

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Jennifer Hart at Crerar Science

At work in the Conservation Lab

Conservators at the University of Chicago Library keep collections safe and intact for future scholars by combining traditional craft with a knowledge of current research on processes of deterioration. Under Covers: The Art and Science of Book Conservation reveals the techniques conservators use to preserve and repair materials in the state-of-the-art Conservation Laboratory in the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library. The exhibit explores issues affecting modern and older library materials and shows conservators employing the newest scientific research in their work.

This exhibit coincides with the American Library Association’s Preservation Week (April 21-27, 2013). It will run March 26 – October 11, 2013.

An associated web exhibit is available at http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/webexhibits/scienceofconservation/

More information about Crerar exhibits is available here: http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/crerar/exhibits/

Location: The John Crerar Library, Atrium, 5730 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago
Public Hours: Monday – Saturday: 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Cost: Free

Women’s zines make life an open book

Posted on February 4, 2013 by The University of Chicago Library

‘D.I.Y. Autobiography’ exhibition highlights new collections of Chicago zines

The zine Taenia Pisiformis, or, Our Tapeworm, or, The Most Grossest Three Months of my Life has earned a special place in the heart of Sarah G. Wenzel and in the winter exhibition she curated, My Life Is an Open Book: D.I.Y. Autobiography.

Cover of "Taenia Pisiformis, or, Our Tapeworm"

Kristen Romaniszak, “Taenia Pisiformis, or, Our Tapeworm, or, The Most Grossest Three Months of my Life” 2005. Special Collections Research Center, The University of Chicago Library.

“It’s the form that makes Our Tapeworm my favorite,” says Wenzel, the University of Chicago Library’s Bibliographer for Literatures of Europe and the Americas and one of the founders of the Library’s new zine collections. Created by zinester Kristen Romaniszak, Our Tapeworm has long, narrow pages that mimic the shape of the eponymous parasite at the story’s center. The item’s comics format, focus on personal experience, and apparent production process—hand-drawn and hand-lettered pages photocopied and stapled together—make it typical of a number of the zines on display in the Special Collections Research Center Exhibition Gallery from January 14 to April 13, 2013.

Zines, as the exhibition explains, are self-published, hand-made, self-distributed, non-commercial works. Primarily produced in small print runs on inexpensive photocopier paper, they tend to be idiosyncratic in topic, appearance, or both.

The range of topics covered by zines is large. Some cover music, others activism, and a great many explore personal life. My Life is an Open Book focuses on perzines (personal zines) produced by women from the 1990s to the present and acquired by the Special Collections Research Center over the last two years, as a decision was made to build new Chicago-focused zine collections at the Library. Exhibition cases explore the physical form and production of zines, life writing, family ties, communicating narrative wordlessly, and “seeing ourselves as others see us.” Accompanying the zines are other items from Special Collections, such as Michel de Montaigne’s Essays, which provide historical precedent for these contemporary autobiographical works.

The birth and history of zines is tied to the availability of inexpensive photocopying. Although the term zine was inspired by science fiction fanzines of the 1940s and after, as Wenzel explains, contemporary zines were first created in the 1970s and took off in the 1980s as part of the punk counterculture. The first punk zines, Wenzel says, were “very male—focusing on punk culture, music and radical causes.” These were soon followed by a wave of women’s zines emerging from punk women’s riotgrrl culture. Women’s voices have been prominent in zine culture ever since.

Why collect zines?

Some might be surprised to find an academic research library such as the University of Chicago’s collecting zines, but to Wenzel, who began collaborating with the Special Collections Research Center to do so two years ago, they are a logical extension of collection development work that was already underway.

Corinne Mucha, “Buzz. No. 3: Stories of Superpowers, Smiling Sloths, Inferior Aliens, and Clocks that Stretch Time, Among Others” 2009. Special Collections Research Center, The University of Chicago Library.

“We started collecting poetry chapbooks,” Wenzel says. “Sometimes the line between chapbook and zine is thin. And zines are a terrific record of what’s happening below the surface of contemporary publishing. We can use them to understand what is happening with outsider art and alternative publishing. During a period when it has become harder and harder to publish commercially, they seem particularly important.”

“We’re interested in documenting Chicago publishing, and zines are a vibrant manifestation of a publishing tradition that is flourishing in Chicago,” explains Alice Schreyer, Assistant University Librarian for Humanities, Social Sciences, and Special Collections. The Special Collections Research Center is already the home of graphic arts, printing, and publishing collections such as the archives of Chicago-based printer R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company and of Harriet Monroe’s renowned Poetry magazine.

Wenzel now collects every zine with a Chicago connection that she can, through a standing order with Chicago’s well-known comic and zine store Quimby’s and by attending events such as the Chicago Zine Fest, which will hold its 4^th annual event at Columbia College on March 8 and 9. She also occasionally acquires zines from outside Chicago that she finds particularly aesthetically interesting. And Schreyer is involved as a member of the Caxton Club in organizing this year’s Caxton Club/Newberry Library Symposium on the Book, which will focus on “Outsiders: Zines, Samizdat, and Alternative Publishing” on April 6.

Neubauer Family Assistant Professor Hillary Chute and others in the University of Chicago’s Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality have already expressed interest in the Library’s growing zine collections, and Wenzel imagines that, over time, they will be useful to those studying sociology, politics, autobiography, underground publishing, and history. Chute, who had an opportunity to review the nucleus of the collection before it was cataloged, responded that “What I’ve seen of the collection does a great job of aggregating Chicago-focused work in a way that is a real representative sampling, and shows the range of different formats and themes.”

As Chute notes, several themes are prominent in the collection, including music, activism, and archiving. “Especially for zines about Chicago history, the activist-oriented work is fascinating and conveys real information, too; these are historically and socially relevant,” Chute wrote. “The activist zines that also have a historical bent—or actual pamphlets from earlier periods—are particularly compelling and will be of interest to a range of students.”

Artistic intentions

Although zines are self-produced in small runs and do not look like traditional literature or art books, the featured zinesters in the exhibit consciously choose to create stories and visual narratives that provide interesting artistic opportunities, that connect personal lives with broader themes, and that engage audiences in artistic or critical dialogues with their work.

“I look at stories as a found object—something I can manipulate and disguise in order to make something new” explains Corinne Mucha, whose exhibited zines include Buzz, I Hate Mom’s Cat: and Other Tails, and My Alaskan Summer. “While my work may still have some ‘tell-all’ qualities, I’m not really interested in the confessional nature of autobio comics. Writing stories about your life is another way of taking control of them. . . . It’s another kind of magic trick—an old tire torn apart, twisted up to look like a snake. It’s not a tire anymore, but it’s not really a snake either. It’s something else entirely, and whatever personal experiences the reader brings to the table can help make it something new.”

Marian Runk, “The Fish and the Monkey,” 2009. Special Collections Research Center, The University of Chicago Library.

Another featured zinester in the exhibition, Marian Runk, writes that she chooses her form to take advantage of “the power of the specific to indicate the universal,” as well as the zine’s ability to engage her audience.

“I am drawn to incorporate cartooning—essentially a process of simplification and reduction—into my work,” Runk explains. “As the details of a face or environment are reduced, so the opportunity of the viewer to identify with a character or locale may increase. I seek to further bridge the distance between my work and diverse audiences by focusing on the basic unit of one person relating to another, which when multiplied and placed into context, begins to get at the narrative of a place or community. . . . Whether by aversion or affinity, I hope to move my audience beyond mere visual pleasure and into the realm of emotional and critical engagement.”

Events celebrating the exhibition

To celebrate the exhibition, raise awareness of the new zine collections among researchers, and give zinesters and audiences an opportunity to engage one another directly, the Special Collections Research Center will be hosting an opening event on February 22, beginning with a reception at 5:30 p.m. and then readings by zinesters including Grace Tran, Danny Resner, and Carrie Colpitts at 6:30 p.m.. This event is free and open to the public.

On February 27, Hillary Chute will speak to the Library Society at the Special Collections Research Center, offering a brief history of different contemporary forms of autobiographical practice, from zine-making to autobiographical comics to photography and filmmaking. Professor Chute will assess the rise of formats like comics and zines to address the self, offering a history of their emergence, and suggesting how they conceptualize the self, as well as how they are taking their place in the academy. Prior to Chute’s 6:45 p.m. lecture, Sarah G. Wenzel will give a 5 p.m. tour of the exhibition. The lecture and tour are free and open to the public.

On March 7, librarians will host a Make-a-Zine workshop for UChicago students from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts in room 028. Refreshments will be served.

Associated web exhibit

A great many images from the zines on display in the gallery can be seen in an associated web exhibit.

The Caucasus: Land of Diverse Cultures

Posted on January 22, 2013 by June Pachuta Farris, Bibliographer for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies at Humanities & Social Sciences

The title chosen for this mini-exhibit reflects one exceptional aspect of the Caucasus–the diversity of its peoples (more than 40 ethnic groups), languages (50+ languages from both small indigenous language families and from the wider Indo-European, Mongolic, Semitic and Turkic language families), religions (Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism), geography (mountains, glaciers, lowlands, seashore), history and culture. The exhibit could just have easily been entitled “Small Nations and Great Powers”, “Crossroads and Conflict”, “Shattering Empires”, all titles of recent books on the Caucasus. It is a small region of great contrasts and from time immemorial, of geopolitical significance to those larger nations which surround it—Russia to the north and Turkey and Iran to the south. For centuries the North Caucasus region, forming the borderland of European Russia, has represented the literal and symbolic frontier between Europe and Asia. But it is the South Caucasus region, comprised of the now independent countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia,that is the primary focus of this exhibit. The Caucasus has captured the imagination of travelers throughout the ages, as well as being of current strategic importance to the world’s powers. As one can see from even the briefest of historical chronologies, these have been countries involved in almost continuous conflict, war, forced migrations, massacres, ethnic cleansing, invasion, conquest and re-conquest, with borders that have shifted in response to each cataclysmic event. Nevertheless, each country has been able to nourish its language, literature, folklore and art, preserving its sense of ethnic and national identity (to paraphrase a local proverb–”There are more poets than mountains”).

Georgievskii Street in the town of Artvin, on the border between Georgia and Turkey. Over the last 1,000 years it was ceded to and recovered by Georgia, Turkey and Russia numerous times; since 1921, it has been a part of Turkey. From the Library of Congress Prokudin-Gorskii Photograph Collection.

As a true crossroads, the Caucasus plays an integral role in the emerging field of borderland studies (see journals such as Eurasia Border Review, The Journal of Borderland Studies), as well as Silk Road Studies (see the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute’s Silk Road Studies Program at Johns Hopkins). Likewise, in the last decade or so, the addition of the word Eurasian to many of our long-standing academic Slavic and East European organizations and institutions documents this new emphasis on the regions of the Caucasus and Central Asia; perhaps the most notable example of this is the official change in name of The American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies to The Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES).

This exhibit has been prepared to coincide with the University’s Center for East European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (CEERES) 2012-2013 lecture series “Connecting with the Caucasus“, which has brought together scholars from a variety of fields (Linguistics, History, Politics, Anthropology and Sociology, Literature/Music/Art) to revisit the histories, analyze the contemporary situations, encouraging the creation of new knowledge with regard to this area of considerable humanistic, social scientific, and strategic significance. The speaker series will set the stage for a 2014 CEERES conference on the Caucasus–a follow-up to its 2007 conference (The Caucasus: Directions and Disciplines).

The next lecture in the program will be:

Georgi Derluguian (NYU Abu Dhabi), speaking on “Guns, Maize, and Foreign Trade: The Origins of Democratic Polis in the Eighteenth-Century Caucasus”. (February 12, 2013, 5:30pm, Franke Institute for the Humanities)

The exhibit, located in the Second Floor Reading Room of Regenstein Library, will run through April 2013.

Indian Dance of Manipur

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Scott Landvatter, Bibliographer for Music at Humanities & Social Sciences

Two of the most important Vaishnavite classical dances of the northeastern Indian state of Manipur—Rasa-Lila and Sankirtan—are featured in Indian Dance of Manipur, a one-case exhibit on display in the Third Floor Reading Room of the Joseph Regenstein Library from November 19, 2012, to March 8, 2013.

Krishna and Rhada (in front) and three Gopis (milkmaids) performing a portion of the Rasa-Lila. From Saryu Doshi, ed., Dances of Manipur: The Classical Tradition (Bombay: Marg Publications, 1989.)

Very little is known about ancient Manipur, a state located in northeastern India. The scattered and fragmentary records available indicate that the inhabitants of the valley belonged to seven different clans that eventually coalesced into what is still known as the ‘Meitei’ community. The ancient religion of the Meiteis included the performance of ritualistic dances that were clear expressions of religious ardor and dedication. The entire community was involved in these ritual celebrations and the performances were suffused with spiritual fervor.

Gradually Hindu philosophic beliefs filtered into this secluded valley, and the Meitei people accepted and assimilated the new divinities into their religious pantheon. During the 18th century, Vaishnavism, a branch of Hinduism that venerates the god Vishnu, became the accepted religion of the Manipuris. New temples were built and pavilions called ‘mandapas’ were constructed for devotional music and dancing. Although the Meiteis readily adopted the Vaishnavite faith, the earlier gods and their worship were never completely abandoned, thus creating a diverse synthesis of philosophical and cultural elements unique to Manipur. Two of the most important Vaishnavite classical dances of the region, the Rasa-lila and Sankirtan, are represented in this exhibit.

Rasa-Lila

Performances of the Rasa-Lila (also spelled Rosa-lila) take place on the night of the full moon during the different seasons throughout the year. These performances, involving almost exclusively women and young girls, always occur first at the Shri Shri-Govindaji temple at the capital city of Imphal. This temple is the most revered shrine in Manipur and serves as the focus of all major Vaishnavite religious activities in the region. Only after the Rasa-Lila is initially performed at the Shri Shri-Govindaji temple can this ceremony be carried out at local village temples.

The ‘rasa-mandapa’ or main pavilion in the temple at Imphal is where the Rasa-Lila performances are held yearlong on auspicious nights determined by the lunar calendar, each performance beginning at dusk and ending at dawn. Before the Rasa-Lila begins, the rasa-mandapa pavilion is washed and made ready and straw mats are arranged in neat rows for the audience on all four sides surrounding the performance area.

Since the performance takes place during nighttime hours, incandescent bulbs, tube lights, and paraffin lamps are mounted. The scene or stage operator, known as the ‘karigar,’ fixes a rope to a rolling, rotating dais that manipulates the standing images of Krishna and Rhada throughout the different phases of the performance. Prior the actual outset of the Rasa-Lila, a prologue consisting of the Sankirtan occurs, a ritualistic presentation offered by the men that involves much dancing, drumming, and singing.

A pair of Sankirtan drum dancers spinning and leaping. Photograph from Saryu Doshi, ed., Dances of Manipur: The Classical Tradition (Bombay: Marg Publications, 1989).

Sankirtan

As the branch of Hinduism known as Vaishnavism began to dominate religious worship in Manipur from the 18th century onwards, the Sankirtan became a major component of Manipuri ceremonial activity. Following an extremely strict performance code, the Sankirtan with its dance, songs, ragas (repeated melodic patterns), talas (repeated rhythmic patterns), and costumes are all determined by specific rules and regulations. The group of male dancers participating in Sankirtan includes at least one pair of drummers who perform remarkable spinning motions as they play their instruments. At times, a conch player is also included.

At a certain point in the performance, the chief singer vocalizes on the words, “Hari Bol,” while the other men intone “Hare Hare.” The major portion of the Sankirtan consists of the male performers singing an episode or story from the lives of “Krishna,: one of the most important incarnations of Vishnu, and his childhood friend, “Rhada.” The lyrics are highly devotional, written by various Vaishnavite poets.

Among the diverse types of Sankirtan ceremonies, the “Nata-Pala” is the most complex, involving male drum and cymbal dancers. The Nata-Pala is performed throughout the year at important festivals and at significant “rites-of-passage” in an individual’s life. It also serves as a common prologue to the performance of the Rasa-Lila.

See Saryu Doshi’s Dances of Manipur: the Classical Tradition for additional information.

Under Covers: The Art and Science of Book Conservation – new web exhibit

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Jennifer Hart at Crerar Science

A web version is now available of the current Crerar Library exhibit: Under Covers: The Art and Science of Book Conservation. The physical exhibit is showing in the atrium of Crerar Library and will run until October 11, 2013.

Description: Conservators at the University of Chicago Library keep collections safe and intact for future scholars by combining traditional craft with a knowledge of current research on processes of deterioration. Under Covers: The Art and Science of Book Conservation reveals the techniques conservators use to preserve and repair materials in the state-of-the-art Conservation Laboratory in the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library. The exhibit explores issues affecting modern and older library materials and shows conservators employing the newest scientific research in their work.

This exhibit coincides with the American Library Association’s Preservation Week (April 21-27, 2013). It will run March 26 – October 11, 2013.

More information about Crerar exhibits is available here: http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/crerar/exhibits/

Location: The John Crerar Library, Atrium, 5730 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago
Public Hours: Monday – Saturday: 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Cost: Free

Sweet Home Chicago – newly archived web exhibit

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Jennifer Hart at Crerar Science

Sweet Home Chicago: Chocolate and Confectionery Production and Technology in the Windy City, an exhibit that ran in Crerar Library in 2011, is now available online as an archived web exhibit.

About the exhibit: Wrigley’s gum, Fannie May chocolate, and Cracker Jack are just some of the confections that have been created and manufactured in Chicago, a major center of candy production in the 20th century. Drawing from items in the substantial cookery collection at the John Crerar Library, this exhibit explores the history of chocolate and confectioners in the city and the science and technology of the candy making process.

Curated by Beth Kimmerle, author of Blommer: An American Chocolate Legacy, Chocolate: the Sweet History and Candy: the Sweet History

Zine Exhibit in the News

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Special Collections Research Center

A review of the latest Special Collections exhibition, My Life is an Open Book: D.I.Y. Autobiography, appears in the most recent issue of The Chicago Maroon.

Alice Bucknell’s article, “In Reg, zine but not herd,” can be found on the Maroon‘s website here: http://chicagomaroon.com/2013/01/17/in-reg-zine-but-not-herd/

My Life is An Open Book is on view from January 14 to April 13, 2013, in the Special Collections Research Center Exhibition Gallery, which is located in the Regenstein Library, 1100 East 57th Street, Chicago, IL. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday: 9:00am – 4:45pm; Saturdays: 9:00am – 12:45pm, when classes are in session.

Student life meets medieval marginalia

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Rachel Rosenberg, Director of Communications at the University of Chicago Library

What does a 16^th-century French Book of Hours have in common with the Latke-Hamantash Debate, founded in 1946? And what do small cherubic nudes in a 1441 manuscript of Juvenal’s Satirae have in common with an a cappella performance at Wendt House?

Kelli Wood in the Special Collections Research Center Exhibition Gallery

Ph.D. candidate Kelli Wood with the exhibition she curated, “On the Edge: Medieval Margins and the Margins of Academic Life.” (Photo by Michael Kenny.)

For art history Ph.D. candidate Kelli Wood, there are parallels to be found between the drawings of humans, beasts, and angelic beings in medieval marginalia and the extracurricular life of students at University of Chicago—parallels that she elucidates as curator of the exhibition On the Edge: Medieval Margins and the Margins of Academic Life. These surprising connections are on display in the Special Collections Research Center Exhibition Gallery through September 10 and online in an associated web exhibit.

Wood’s inspiration for the exhibition came from two sources. First, while studying for her Ph.D. exams, she read the late University of Chicago art historian Michael Camille’s groundbreaking 1992 study, Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art. “Camille studied the uncommon: the strange, remarkable, and extraordinary images at the edges of the medieval world, bringing light to the confluence of the serious and the playful, the sacred and the profane,” a panel in the exhibition explains. In doing so, Wood says, he recuperated medieval marginalia as an appropriate topic of study for art historians, making sense of what he describes in his preface as the “lascivious apes, autophagic dragons, pot-bellied heads, harp-playing asses, arse-kissing priests and somersaulting jongleurs that protrude at the edges of medieval buildings, sculptures and illuminated manuscripts.”

A monkey in the right margin apes the image of a patroness appearing in the crucifixion scene at the page’s center. Book of Hours (Use of Rouen) France, ca. 1500-1510, Parchment, MS 343, ff.89v-90r, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library

When Wood later saw a call for proposals from the University’s student-run Uncommon Fund, she says, she “saw a resonance between the contemporary campus life and the margins of medieval manuscripts that Camille is discussing in his book. The University has a reputation for being super-scholarly – for being ‘a place where fun comes to die.’ Yet, if you spend any time on campus, you’ll see that the student traditions are so much fun, and things that go on outside the classroom enrich that center of scholarship.”

For an example of that resonance, first consider a French Book of Hours (Use of Rouen) that features an illuminated drawing of the medieval patroness it was created for kneeling in a crucifixion scene at the page’s center. Although the patroness is depicted as a participant in the holy scene with the Virgin Mary, this exalted placement is counterbalanced by a drawing of a monkey that is aping her from the margins—“to remind her of her baser nature,” as Wood explains.

Near this Book of Hours hangs a banner with a 2011 photograph of the celebrated UChicago Latke-Hamantash Debate. Founded in an era when Jewish contributions to the academy were often marginalized, the exhibition text indicates, the Debate was designed to celebrate those contributions even as it mocks serious academic disputes.

Creating an exhibition, becoming a scholar

After first conceiving of an exhibition that would make such connections, Wood contacted Alice Schreyer, assistant university librarian for humanities, social sciences, and special collections, and Daniel Meyer, director of the Special Collections Research Center and University archivist, to gain their support for her concept, and then applied for and won an Uncommon Fund grant that would help to support a student-focused opening event and scholarly symposium on medieval art.

Professors listen to the introduction of the 2011 Latke-Hamantash Debate. Photo by Darren Leow, ’12.

“Wood’s project exemplifies the direct engagement with the collections by students and faculty that Special Collections aims to promote,” Schreyer explains. She adds, “It also showcases the new gallery as a site for experimentation and creativity.”

Wood then consulted with art history professors Rebecca Zorach and Aden Kumler and worked with a team of students to uncover and describe medieval marginalia in the collection. She was delighted to discover more than 25 examples in the course of the research, far more than the eight to 10 she was originally expecting. “We found that the Library’s collection is rich in this area, which was really exciting because there are now new points of research,” Wood says. A few of the displayed marginalia were previously known, she explains, but many have never been described in publications before.

After identifying the medieval items she wanted to use in the exhibit, Wood solicited photographs of student life from College students and engaged others in helping her assess them. Finally, she organized the Library’s medieval manuscripts and books together with the contemporary images around common themes, including heraldry, diagrams, vines and architecture, the academy, music, and gargoyles, to name a few.

At the top of the page a small cherubic nude plays a horn in Juvenal’s Satirae, Florence, Italy, 1441, Parchment, MS 29, f. 1r, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library

The Library’s rich collections, the expertise of its staff—including exhibition specialist Joseph Scott—and the availability of the new Special Collections Exhibition Gallery provided Wood with an extraordinary opportunity for intellectual and professional growth. “What was really special for me was to take something that could have been just a reading from an exam list and use it to enrich my curatorial experience, to enrich my teaching experience, and to build a community around the manuscript with my fellow graduate students, advisors, and people attending the symposium from other universities,” Wood said. “It has helped me to see where my work fits into academia as a whole and to see other people’s contributions and have them enrich my thinking process.”

Kumler, who reviewed the preliminary selection of manuscripts with Wood, agreed: “The exhibition demonstrates what a crucial role the SCRC plays in the intellectual life of the University—not simply as a steward of pieces of the past but also as a place where creativity, intellectual discovery and collaboration happens on a daily basis.”

“I love teaching at the SCRC,” Kumler says, “and I’ve seen what a huge impact the collections and the SCRC’s librarians have on my students, but the exhibition also shows how much students can discover and create on their own in the SCRC, according to their intellectual priorities. Many rare book libraries and archives, even at universities, are not so welcoming: it’s a major testament to the vision that guides the SCRC and its incredible staff. The exhibition explores aspects of the medieval past and our very local, very eccentric contemporary culture that might easily be dismissed as marginal. It makes a strong statement that no pursuit, pursued passionately, is ever ‘marginal’ and that playfulness and pleasure animate both great universities and history, alike.”

Camille’s legacy lives on

Zorach, who proudly claims Camille as her dissertation adviser, believes that he “would have loved the rhyme that Kelli created between manuscript margins and the margins of academic life.”

Members of the Wendt House residence hall and Chicago Men’s A Cappella sing at the annual birthday party honoring Lisa Wendt, namesake of the residence hall. Photo by Vivian Wan, ’14.

Kumler, who studied with Camille as a College student, was delighted to see archival selections from his papers on display as part of the exhibition. “The incorporation of Michael’s drawings, doodles and manuscript notes make a strong case for how much our engagement with the past shapes our practice in the present.”

Meanwhile, the play goes on in Special Collections, as viewers of the exhibition are invited to record their own marginalia in a copy of Camille’s Image on the Edge, which sits atop a pedestal in the Gallery until the show closes, when it will be added to the University Archives. Much like the medieval marginalia on display, these 21^st century notations are sometimes sexual or scatological, sometimes bestial, and sometimes philosophical, as they explore the relationship of the note maker to the text at the center.

Perhaps none does so better than a note on the first page alongside Camille’s statement that he is interested in the ways medieval marginalia “seem to celebrate the flux of ‘becoming’ rather than being.” An exhibition visitor has circled “the flux of ‘becoming’” and connected the phrase to a marginal declaration: “THIS IS UCHICAGO.”

8/31/12 update: The gallery exhibition will run until September 10, 2012.

The Joy of Writing. The Power of Preserving. Revenge of a Mortal Hand. Wisława Szymborska 1923-2012

Posted on June 29, 2012 by June Pachuta Farris, Bibliographer for Slavic and East European Studies at Humanities & Social Sciences

One of two daughters, Wisława Szymborska was born in the small town of Bnin, Poland on July 2, 1923. At the age of eight, her family moved to Kraków, where she was to spend the rest of her life. She attended a private lycée (Academy of the Sisters of the Ursuline Order) until 1939, continuing her education in an underground study group during the Nazi occupation of Poland. At Kraków’s Jagellonian University, she studied sociology and Polish philology, after which she worked at a number of local publishing houses. From 1953 through the mid-1960s, she was the editor of the poetry section of the influential weekly Życie Literackie. In 1966, after the expulsion of the philosopher Leszek Kołakowski from the Communist Party for his “revisionist” views, and in an act of solidarity, Szymborska relinquished her own party membership, leading to her eventual resignation as editor; by 1978 she had severed all ties with this publication. With a few exceptions for literary awards and tokens of public appreciation, her life, shared with a small circle of friends, remained quiet and private—she rarely travelled, avoided public gatherings and hated being photographed or interviewed. Although resolutely avoiding politics as much as possible, she nevertheless participated in a variety of human rights activities.

As Stanislaw Barańczak writes, “despite her aversion to public activities and nonliterary statements, during the late 1970s, and particularly after the imposition of martial law in 1981, she lent her support on several occations to the protest actions and educational initiatives sponsored by human rights groups such as KOR (Workers’ Defense Committee); she was also one of the founding members of the Association of Polish Writers, an independent professional organization that sought to continue the venerable traditions of the Polish Writers’ Union after its forcible dissolution by the military regime in 1982″ (Dictionary of Literary Biography: Twentieth-Century Eastern European Writers, Third Series, 2001, v. 232, pp. 357-362).

Szymborska was a leading figure among the outstanding Polish poets of the post-World War II generation and among her many prestigious Polish and European literary awards was the Nobel Prize for Literature (1996); she was the fourth Polish author to be so honored.

“Hers is an inclusive gaze that extends beyond the local and anthropocentric. Western culture, humankind, and the natural world are the subjects of moral, logical, and aesthetic consideration in her poetry. Szymborska is a poet who finds the extraordinary in the ordinary, the seemingly unimportant and insignificant,” writes Joanna Trzeciak. “She approaches the subject of art with a generous dose of irony: skeptical of the privileged role of the artist and cognizant of the illusory character of art, she is nonetheless aware of the capacity of art to transport humans beyond the constraints of the physical world. As she puts it . . . art is, after all, the “revenge of the mortal hand” (Dictionary of Literary Biography: Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature, Part 4, 2007, v. 332, pp. 331-32).

Szymborska is also known to Polish readers as a distinguished translator of 16th & 17th century French poetry, as well as the essays of Montaigne, and to the delight of her friends, the creator of witty and winsome hand-made postcards.

The exhibit will run through September 2012 in the 4th Floor Reading Room of Regenstein Library.

Chicago Central: A History of Rails and Trains in the City

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Jennifer Hart at Crerar Science

The John Crerar Library Atrium
April 16-September 28, 2012

Steam Train Leaving Dearborn Station, 1955. John Kelly Collection.

Chicago’s rapid growth into a major metropolis coincided with the rise of trains as the preeminent form of transportation in America. In the late nineteenth century, Chicago developed into the Midwest’s hub of train transport and a manufacturing center for railroad equipment. The exhibit examines some elements of this history, including the city’s stations, trains and rail workers and innovations in train technology.

Girl Scouts of America Centennial, 1912-2012

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Anne Knafl at Humanities & Social Sciences

Juliette Gordon Low Pinning a Girl Scout with the “Golden Eaglet” circa WWI.

“Come right over, I’ve got something for the girls of Savannah and all America, and all the world, and we’re going to start it tonight!” –Juliette Gordon Low, March 12, 1912

This year marks the centennial anniversary of the Girl Scouts of America (GSA). In celebration, visit the exhibit on the 2^nd floor of Regenstein Library, which showcases materials about the Girl Scouts from the Library’s collections together with Girl Scout memorabilia on loan from Kathryn Grossman and Dana Wennerberg.

On March 12, 1912, Juliette Gordon Low assembled a group of eighteen girls in Savannah, Georgia to establish the first troop. Known as “Daisy” to her family, Juliette was inspired to found a youth organization for girls after she met Sir Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides. Her goal was to teach girls self-reliance and resourcefulness through outdoor activities at a time when women’s roles were severely limited.

Girl Scouts today participate in many of the same activities as the earliest troops, such as camping, hiking and earning badges. Cookie sales have funded troops since 1917. At the same time, the GSA has always responded to the needs and issues of the times. During World War I, girls learned about food production and conservation, sold war bonds, worked in hospitals, and collected peach pits for use in gas mask filters. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, girls performed community services, hosted remembrance ceremonies, and wrote thank-you letters to rescuers. In its first decade, a Girl Scout could earn over 25 different badges, including Child Nurse. The most recent badges include Global Awareness, Adventure Sports, Stress Less, and Environmental Health.

From its inception, the Girl Scouts of America was committed to inclusivity. The original troop included Christian and Jewish girls, girls from influential Savannah families and girls from a local orphanage. The Girl Scouts was one of the few organizations of its time that welcomed the membership of the physically disabled. Juliette Gordon Low, herself, battled ear infections and was functionally deaf by the time she founded the Girl Scouts. The first African-American troops were established in 1917. One of the earliest Latina troops was formed in Houston in 1922. Girl Scout troops supported Japanese-American girls in internment camps in the 1940s, and by the 1950s, GSA was working to integrate fully all of its troops. In 1956, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called Girl Scouts “a force for desegregation.”

Today, the Girl Scouts of America has 3.2 million members and 50 million alumnae. Girls at home and abroad participate in troops and groups in more than 92 countries through USA Girl Scouts Overseas. Through its membership in the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, Girl Scouts of the USA has a following of 10 million girls and adults in 145 countries.

Selections adapted from the website for Girl Scouts of America (www.girlscouts.org)

Passover Haggadot from Durchslag Collection

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Special Collections Research Center

Illustration of Seder dinner - 1867 Livorno Haggadah

Illustration of a Seder dinner from an 1867 Haggadah printed in Livorno, Italy

Archetype and Adaptation: Passover Haggadot from the Stephen P. Durschlag Collection
An exhibition at the
Special Collections Research Center Exhibition Gallery
1100 E. 57th Street, Chicago
April 2 — May 12, 2012
Mon. — Fri., 9 a.m. — 4:45 p.m.
Sat: 9 a.m. — 12:45 p.m. when University of Chicago classes are in session
Free and open to the public

The week-long, springtime Jewish holiday of Pesach, or Passover, is beloved for its symbolic meaning and joyous customs. Passover marks the freeing of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, a narrative with universal appeal as a paradigm for collective and, according to some traditions, personal liberation. The Haggadah (plural: Haggadot), or “telling,” is the collection of prayers, legends, and stories recited on the eve of Passover.

The basic text of the Haggadah derives from the biblical instruction to retell the story of the Exodus each year during Passover in conjunction with a ritual meal called the Seder, or “order” (Exodus 13:8). Over the centuries songs and illustrations have been added to engage children, to whom the story was to be told, and some passages are given added prominence when they resonate with contemporary concerns. Illustrations in medieval manuscripts depict scenes from Exodus, the life of Moses, and Jewish Patriarchs. Many of these scenes continue to appear in early printed Haggadot, but the emphasis shifts to passages drawn directly from the text. The Haggadah has shown remarkable stability and flexibility: thousands of editions in all languages testify to its central role in Jewish life and its ability to incorporate new themes and respond to changing conditions.

This exhibition is drawn entirely from the private collection of Stephen P. Durchslag, the largest known collection of Haggadot in private hands. “Archetype and Adaptation” explores the enduring influence of early printed Haggadot as well as the ability of modern versions to reflect political and social developments such as the Holocaust, Zionism, gay rights, and feminism. The Haggadah embodies the adaptive genius of Jewish practice and the consequent vitality of Jewish life. Items selected for the exhibition exemplify early Haggadah archetypes and later adaptations, framed by facsimiles of medieval manuscripts and modern Haggadot illustrated by noted artists.

Illustrations were often copied and pirated in early printed books. Images were expensive to produce, so woodcuts were reused until they wore out and copper plates made long journeys from one city to another. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, several Haggadot became models for countless later editions. Yosef Yerushalmi has identified four early printed editions that served as “archetypes”: Prague (1526), Mantua (1560), Venice (1609), and Amsterdam (1695). Each of these was shaped by the artistic culture and printing trades of the city in which it was produced—for example, Renaissance Italian borders and architectural frames appear in Venice, copperplate engraving is used instead of woodcut in Amsterdam—and introduced iconography that can be seen in Haggadot produced hundreds of years later. The exhibition traces the movement of these models across continents and time, demonstrating the enduring appeal of the Haggadah story and the infinite variety of interpretation and adaptation it inspires.

Curator: Pesach Weinstein, Ph.D. Candidate, Divinity School

Illustration of the Four Sons from a 1695 Haggadah printed in Amsterdam

The Haggadah: An Exhibition and Lecture Series

The Chicago Center for Jewish Studies, the University of Chicago Divinity School, and the Special Collections Research Center are presenting a lecture series, associated with the exhibition described above. All lectures take place in the Special Collections Research Center and are followed by a reception and opportunity to view the exhibition. All are free and open to the public.

April 1
“The Haggadah and the Jewish Imagination”

5:00 p.m. — Introductory comments in the Exhibition Gallery – Stephen P. Durchslag
5:30 p.m. — Lecture: The “Haggadah” and the Jewish Imagination – David Stern, Moritz and Josephine Berg Professor of Classical Hebrew Literature, University of Pennsylvania
6:30 p.m. — Reception and Exhibition Viewing

April 22 – 5:30 p.m.
Marc Michael Epstein (Vassar College)
“Birds’ Head Revisited: Identity, Politics and Polemics in the Birds’ Head Haggadah”

May 6 – 5:30 p.m.
Vanessa Ochs (University of Virginia)
“The Coconut on the Seder Plate: A Biography of the Contemporary Haggadah”

May 13 – 5:30 p.m.
Katrin Kogman-Appel (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
“Popularizing Books in a Manuscript Culture: The Visual Language of the Late Medieval Haggadah”

Exhibits

The Seminary Co-op Documentary Project: Capturing the Bookstore’s Distinctive Character and History

Recipes for Domesticity: Cookery, Household Management, and the Notion of Expertise

Women’s zines make life an open book

‘D.I.Y. Autobiography’ exhibition highlights new collections of Chicago zines

Under Covers: The Art and Science of Book Conservation – new web exhibit

Sweet Home Chicago – newly archived web exhibit

Zine Exhibit in the News

Chicago Central: A History of Rails and Trains in the City

Passover Haggadot from Durchslag Collection

The Haggadah: An Exhibition and Lecture Series

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