Category Archives: Events

Events, Exhibits, From Our Collections, History of Medicine, Rare Books, Symposia and Conferences

“Animated Anatomies: The Human Body in Anatomical Texts”

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Date: 6 April-18 July 2011
Location and Time: Perkins Library Gallery during library hours
Contact Information: Meg Brown, 919-681-2071 or meg.brown(at)duke.edu

Physicians' Anatomical Aid, ca. 1880-1890
Physicians' Anatomical Aid, ca. 1880-1890

Animated Anatomies explores the visually stunning and technically complex genre of printed texts and illustrations known as anatomical flap books.

This exhibit traces the flap book genre beginning with early examples from the sixteenth century, to the colorful “golden age” of complex flaps of the nineteenth century, and finally to the common children’s pop-up anatomy books of today. The display—which includes materials from the RBMSCL, the Duke Medical Center Library & Archives’ History of Medicine Collections, and from the private collections of the curators of the exhibit—highlights the history of science, medical instruction, and the intricate art of bookmaking.

The exhibit is curated by Professor Valeria Finucci, Department of Romance Studies, and Maurizio Rippa-Bonati, Department of History of Medicine at the University of Padua, with the assistance of Meg Brown, Duke University Libraries exhibits coordinator, and Rachel Ingold, Curator of the History of Medicine Collections. Items will be exhibited in both the gallery of Perkins Library on Duke’s main campus as well as outside the History of Medicine Reading Room at Duke’s Medical Center Library.

In addition to the exhibit, an opening reception will be held Monday, 18 April, at 10 AM at the History of Medicine Collections, followed by a symposium of renowned scholars in history, medicine, and medical history in Perkins Library. The exhibit and the symposium, both free and open to the public, aim to address a diverse public including those interested in the medical field, history, cultural studies, visual studies, and material studies.

To learn more about the symposium, exhibit, see photos of anatomical flap books, and watch videos of them in action, visit the exhibit website.

Post contributed by Rachel Ingold, Curator of the History of Medicine Collections.

Archive of Documentary Arts, Events, From Our Collections, Readings and Talks

Photographing South Africa

Date: Thursday, 31 March 2011
Time: 3:30 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Karen Glynn, 919-660-5968 or karen.glynn(at)duke.edu

Graeme Williams, Cape Town, 2005.
Graeme Williams, Cape Town, 2005.

Karen Glynn, the RBMSCL’s Visual Materials Archivist, will give an historical overview of the South African Documentary Photography collections in the Archive of Documentary Arts from 1986 until today. Paul Weinberg, photographer and Senior Curator of Visual Archives in the Manuscripts and Archives Library at the University of Cape Town, will pick up the thread and describe the process of building a documentary photography archive in South Africa today.

Twenty of Weinberg’s photos are available online at the website for Then and Now, an exhibit on South African documentary photography that he curated for the Archive of Documentary Arts in 2008.

Weinberg’s photographs are archived at the RBMSCL. You can view the finding aid for his collection here.

Archive of Documentary Arts, Events, Films

Working with Words: Historical Documents, Systems of Knowledge, and Text-as-Moving Image Art in the Films of David Gatten

Date: Thursday, 7 April 2011
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Kirston Johnson, 919-681-7963 or kirston.johnson(at)duke.edu

Still from Still from "Film for Invisible Ink, case no. 323: ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST"
Still from “Film for Invisible Ink, case no. 323: ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST”

Next Thursday, award-winning filmmaker and Guggenheim Fellow David Gatten returns to the RBMSCL to present three of his films. Gatten will introduce each film and discuss his use of historical documents, “out-dated” instructional texts and rare books as both inspiration and image in his filmmaking practice.

Over the last fifteen years, David Gatten’s films have explored the intersection of the printed word and the moving image, while investigating the shifting vocabularies of experience and representation within intimate spaces and historical documents. His films trace the contours of both private lives and public histories, combining elements of philosophy, biography and poetry with experiments in cinematic forms and narrative structures.

“Secret History of the Dividing Line” (2002) is one of the nine parts in Gatten’s ongoing investigation of the life and library of William Byrd. Torn fragments of Byrd’s official history of the 1728 dividing line expedition commingle with the privately circulated ‘secret history’ of the surveying party.

“The Matter Propounded, of its possibility or impossibility, treated in four Parts” (2011) makes use of an early 19th century system for telling one’s future. Divided into four sections—Instructions, Questions, Answers and Conclusions—the film invites viewers to draw their own conclusions about the questions we ask of the world and the answers we find for ourselves.

“Film for Invisible Ink, case no. 323: ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST” (2010) is the latest in Gatten’s austerely beautiful “Invisible Ink” series.  Incorporating writings by Sir Francis Bacon, lists from Western Union telegraphic codes, and phrases from wedding vows in The Book of Common Prayer, the film also includes images made using pine pollen and tiny flowering plants in extreme, swirling macro-close-ups. This moving and very personal film actually served as Gatten’s wedding vows at his July 2010 marriage.

Gatten is a Visiting Associate Professor and Distinguished Filmmaker in Residence in the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image at Duke University. His films premiere annually in the New York Film Festival and have been included twice in the Whitney Biennial. His work resides in the permanent collections of the British Film Institute, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as in numerous university and private collections. Since 1997, his films have won more than twenty awards at festivals around the world. In 2005, Gatten was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to continue his film series investigating the library of William Byrd.

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Do Your Research, Events, Franklin Research Center, Readings and Talks, Travel Grants

Bus Boycotts and the Politics of Race

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Date: Thursday, 17 March 2011
Time: 3-4 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Jennifer Thompson, 919-660-5922 or jennifer2.thompson(at)duke.edu

Cover of Freedom's Main Line by Dr. Derek CatsamPlease join the staff of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture for a program with Dr. Derek Catsam, recipient of a 2010-2011 Franklin Research Center travel grant. Dr. Catsam is an associate professor of history at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.

Dr. Catsam’s talk, “Tired Feet, Rested Souls and Empty Pockets: Bus Boycotts and the Politics of Race in the U.S. and South Africa,” will examine comparative aspects of these movements in the United States and South Africa.

During his research visit to the RBMSCL, Dr. Catsam will be studying our collections related to apartheid South Africa.

(More details about Derek Catsam’s book Freedom’s Main Line: the Journey of Reconciliation and the Freedom Rides and his research interests can be found on his departmental website.)

Post contributed by Jennifer Thompson, John Hope Franklin Research Center Librarian.

Bingham Center, Events, Human Rights Archive, Readings and Talks

Daughters of the American Revolution

Date: Thursday, 3 March 2011
Time: 5:30 PM
Location: Richard White Lecture Hall
Contact Information: Laura Micham, 919-660-5828 or laura.m(at)duke.edu

Dorothy Q. ThomasDorothy Q. Thomas will speak about recovering  a legacy of progressive Americanism for contemporary women’s rights activists, drawing on her on-going research for a book that chronicles the lives of some of her female ancestors, including descendants of former presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams and mother of the American Revolution Dorothy Quincy Hancock. Thomas is currently a research associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. She was previously a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and was founding director for the Human Rights Watch Women’s Division.

The lecture is cosponsored by the Archive for Human Rights, the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, the Duke Human Rights Center, Women’s Studies, the Program in the Study of Sexualities, and the Franklin Humanities Institute. Generous support was also provided by the Trent Foundation.

Events, From Our Collections, Hartman Center

Mad Library

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Are you a Mad Men fan? Do you like ’60s themed parties? Then come on out to the Mad Men & Mad Women library party on February 25th from 9PM-12AM!

Mad Men & Mad Women Party LogoThe party will highlight the best of the Duke Marketing Club and the Perkins-Bostock library, with special emphasis on the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History. It’s open to the whole Duke community and faculty and staff are encouraged to attend.

I’m Tammy Leung, a junior at Duke and decorations chair for the upcoming party, and I am delighted to have used the Competitive Ads Collection provided by the Hartman Center for a majority of the party’s decorations.

Gilbey's Gin Ad
Gilbey's Gin Advertisement. From the Competitive Ads Collection.

In the past few months, I frequented the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library searching for vintage ads to use as decorations for the party. Going through dozens of boxes of newspaper and magazine ads arranged by product category, I discovered a plethora of ads for the occasion. The ads ranged from funny, classy, unique, and sometimes strange (some of the things they made with Jell-O back in the day are downright disgusting) and gave me unexpectedly great insight into life during the ’60s. The ads I picked out for the party ultimately gives guests a similar glimpse of the ’60s, touching upon sexism, dietary habits, fashion, technology, and mindset during the time.

Without the Hartman Center, the content for our party would’ve been extremely lackluster and I would’ve never been aware of such a rich resource here on campus. I hope that other students will also take advantage of this resource after seeing all of the vintage ads at the party.

Bingham Center, Events, Readings and Talks

Mind the Pay Gap

Date: Tuesday, 1 March 2011
Time: 4:30 PM
Location: Perkins Library 217
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, 919-660-5967 or kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

Lilly LedbetterLearn more about the equal pay debate from one of the nation’s leading advocates. Lilly Ledbetter was the plaintiff in the employment discrimination case, Ledbetter v Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Her historic experience resulted in the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, President Barack Obama’s first piece of legislation, which restored workers’ rights to challenge wage discrimination.

Professor Nancy Zisk of the Charleston School of Law will offer opening and closing remarks about the current landscape of pay equity reform and moderate a question-and-answer session with Ms. Ledbetter.

This event is sponsored by the Duke University Women’s Center and co-sponsored by the Office of Institutional Equity, Baldwin Scholars, and the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture.

Post contributed by Kelly Wooten, Research Services and Collection Development Librarian for the Sallie Bingham Center of Women’s History and Culture.

Events, Franklin Research Center, News and Features, Symposia and Conferences

Atelier@Duke

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Date: Friday-Saturday, 25-26 February 2011
Time: please see schedule
Location: Gothic Reading Room, Perkins Library
Contact Information: Jennifer Thompson, 919-660-5922 or jennifer2.thompson(at)duke.edu

As part of the 15th anniversary celebration of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, Duke University Libraries and the Office of the Provost present the first Atelier@Duke: “The Idea of Archive—Producing and Performing Race.”

The event will be a “series of conversations that reproduce what might happen in a workshop—an ‘atelier’—of ideas. Our panelists’ conversations will engage the moments before ideas become text, fixed images, documented policies or remembered spectacle,” said Atelier@Duke organizer Karla F C Holloway, the James B. Duke Professor of English and a professor of law at Duke. The series of panel discussions will also consider what and how histories are saved and shared.

This occasion also marks the inaugural John Hope Franklin Research Center Book Award, which will be presented to author Paula J. Giddings for her critically-acclaimed biography, Ida: A Sword Among Lions (2008). For more information about the award, please see the Duke University Libraries’ announcement.

The Atelier@Duke panel discussions are free and open to the public. Please visit the conference’s website for registration and schedule information.

Post contributed by Jennifer Thompson, John Hope Franklin Research Center Librarian.

Archive of Documentary Arts, Events, Exhibits, From Our Collections, Human Rights Archive

Opening Reception for “al margen”

Date: 24 Feburary 2011
Time: 4:00 PM
Location: Frederic Jameson Gallery, Friedl Building
Contact Information: Karen Glynn, 919-660-5968 or karen.glynn(at)duke.edu, or Patrick Stawski, 919-660-5823 or patrick.stawski(at)duke.edu

Patagonia, Argentina, April 2010
Patagonia, Argentina, April 2010

Join photographer Petra Barth, the Archive of Documentary Arts, and the Archive for Human Rights for an opening reception celebrating “al margen.”

The reception will include a panel discussion on issues of poverty, marginalization, environmental degradation, and responses to disaster and crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean. Panelists will include Dennis Clements, Erika Weinthal, and Sandy Smith-Nonini.

Following the discussion, Barth will lead a gallery tour.

“al margen” was organized by the Archive of Documentary Arts and the Archive for Human Rights. The exhibit is sponsored by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the Program in Latino/a Studies in the Global South, the Department of Cultural Anthropology, International Comparative Studies, and the Duke Human Rights Center.