Category Archives: News and Features

Bingham Center, Events, Exhibits, Readings and Talks, RL Photos

Pictures at an Exhibition

Click to enlarge.

On Friday, library staff members and UNC SILS students gathered for an impromptu gallery talk for our new exhibit, “Book + Art: Artists’ books from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture,” led by curators Christine Wells and Kelly Wooten and exhibits coordinator Meg Brown. For more pictures from the gallery talk, visit the Bingham Center’s Flickr photostream.

And remember: book artist and photographer Bea Nettles will be speaking tomorrow at 5:30 PM in the Rare Book Room as part of this fall’s Book + Art series of events!

Archive of Documentary Arts, Events, Films, News and Features, Readings and Talks

Filmmaker James Longley: Portraits from the Middle East

Date: Friday, 29 October 2010
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University
Contact Information: Kirston Johnson, 919-681-7963 or kirston.johnson(at)duke.edu

Join the Archive of Documentary Arts for an evening with documentary filmmaker James Longley. Known for his intimate and poetic portraits of individuals and families caught in the political turmoil of Iraq, the Gaza Strip, and Pakistan, Longley was awarded a MacArthur “Genius” Grant in 2009. His Oscar-nominated film, Iraq in Fragments, won the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival Grand Jury Prize in 2006. Arts advocate, author, and accomplished television interviewer Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel will facilitate the discussion.

This event inaugurates the Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel Visiting Filmmaker Series, established by Duke University with generous funding from the Diamonstein-Spielvogel endowment fund. The series will feature artists whose work addresses significant contemporary topics of social, political, economic, and cultural urgency. Filmmakers chosen to participate will have a recognized body of work and show promise of future contributions to documentary filmmaking. Visiting filmmakers will be invited to Duke for a two-day residency.

The Diamonstein-Spielvogel series is unique in its exclusive attention to documentary filmmakers with a global perspective. By giving Duke faculty and their students an opportunity to explore the films of socially-engaged filmmakers and discuss the work with them, this new series hopes to inspire and encourage the next generation of young documentarians.

The series is co-sponsored by the RBMSCL, the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image, and the Center for Documentary Studies.

Screen / Society will screen several of Mr. Longley’s films in the weeks leading up to his visit. Check the Screen/Society Fall 2010 schedule for additional details and contact information:

Iraq in Fragments **TONIGHT!**
Date: Wednesday, 13 October 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Griffith Film Theater, Bryan Center, Duke University

Sari’s Mother and Gaza Strip
Date: Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Griffith Film Theater, Bryan Center, Duke University

News and Features

The Devil’s Tale Turns One!

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Virginia Dare Advertising Card. From the Advertising Ephemera Collection.

Today The Devil’s Tale turns one year old, and it seems only fitting to pause for a moment and celebrate. (It’s also National Dessert Month, so we will be celebrating with a cake here in the RBMSCL.)

Where else would you hear about extracting sunbeams from cucumbers or hear the real back story of the Duke-Alabama football rivalry? Blog followers were the first to hear that Duke had acquired the papers of South Carolina author Dorothy Allison, Nobel-laureate economist Paul Samuelson, and jazz master Frank Foster. Together we marked holidays large and small with selections from our collections, from Thanksgiving to Free Comic Book Day, proving that there’s something in our collections for every occasion (and almost every research interest).

Thank you to everyone who has posted a comment or passed on a post to a friend. We invite you to become a Devil’s Tale follower so we can keep you up-to-date on upcoming events and exhibits and all the latest news. Happy birthday, Devil’s Tale! (And three cheers for our intrepid blog editor Amy McDonald!)

Post contributed by Naomi Nelson, Director of the RBMSCL.

(Intrepid editor’s note: And thanks to everyone at the RBMSCL for their daily help with the care and feeding of The Devil’s Tale!)

Bingham Center, From Our Collections, Manuscripts, New at the Rubenstein Library, News and Features

My RBMSCL: Reading Dorothy Allison

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Today, we’re starting a new feature: mini-essays from friends of the RBMSCL on the collections they’ve used and treasured. Below, Sharon Holland’s mini-essay about Dorothy Allison was inspired by the RBMSCL’s recent acquisition of Dorothy Allison’s papers. 

Photo courtesy of Sharon Holland.

I first encountered Dorothy Allison’s major work, Bastard Out of Carolina, on an overnight train (the Orient Express, no less) from Vienna to Paris. I wasn’t prepared for what would eventually happen in the book and when I got to the fateful scene in the car outside the hospital, I impulsively threw the book out of the window—it is still in a field somewhere along the train line. My reaction is a testament to the importance of the scene of violation that Allison wanted to construct for the reader—it was real, and sudden and devastating. I purchased the book upon my return to the United States and it has been one of my favorites since. Acquiring her papers is a serious accomplishment for Duke. Thank you for preserving the work and ultimately the memory of one of the most important feminist authors of the 20-21st century.

Post contributed by Sharon Holland, Associate Professor, English and African and African American Studies, Duke University.

Interested in contributing a mini-essay? E-mail me at amy.mcdonald(at)duke.edu!

Bingham Center, From Our Collections, Manuscripts, New at the Rubenstein Library, New Finding Aids, News and Features

Dorothy Allison Papers Arrive at Duke

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In the early 1990s Ginny Daley, then director of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, was convinced that Duke should acquire Dorothy Allison’s papers. “I saw her as the quintessential Southern writer,” Daley wrote recently. “Her personal papers and literary works fit well with Duke’s collections of Southern literature and women’s culture, while bringing fresh perspectives on queer culture and truth-telling to the mix.” Through campus visits and other seed-planting efforts, Ginny Daley introduced Ms. Allison to the possibility of Duke as the permanent home for her collection.

Photo by Brett Hall.

Now, after a nearly twenty year period of considering this momentous decision, Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina and other works and renowned activist in the LGBTQ community, has selected the RBMSCL to be the repository for her papers. Bingham Center and literary curatorial staff collaborated on the initial acquisition of nearly 60 boxes of Allison’s papers, including drafts of her writings, extensive correspondence and research files, personal journals documenting her life and creative process, and more. For Allison, a South Carolina native now living in California, it’s a relief to have the papers at the RBMSCL: “All I know is that now I feel that all that . . . I saved is going to be safe and of use. Since we are entering high summer here with 90 degree temperatures and high risk of fire, I can also stop worrying that a wildfire might sweep through the redwoods and erase all that history. Safe and of use is infinitely preferable.”

The papers will be a rich resource for those interested in Allison’s life and work, as well as for researchers exploring the development of LGBT and Southern literatures, lesbian communities and families, and the history of American sexuality, among many other topics. Materials will be added to the collection as Allison continues to write and publish (a new book of short stories and a novel coming soon!).

A preliminary finding aid for the collection is now available here. In the coming months staff will review, process, and revise the finding aid for the collection to make it available for research. Researchers interested in using the papers should contact the Bingham Center staff to discuss their availability.

Post contributed by Will Hansen, Assistant Curator of Collections.

Human Rights Archive, News and Features

Hostage Nation Receives WOLA-Duke Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America

Hostage Nation: Colombia’s Guerrilla Army and the Failed War on Drugs, written by Victoria Bruce, Karin Hayes and Jorge Enrique Botero, has won the third annual WOLA-Duke Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America.

The book, published last month by Alfred A. Knopf, is the story of three American contractors and Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt held hostage by the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) for over five years before their rescue in 2008. The book draws on Botero’s exclusive interviews with the American contractors, as well as extensive research on the FARC and the Colombian drug trade, to illustrate the impact of Colombia’s war and the U.S. war on drugs in Colombia.

The Washington Office on Latin America and Duke University created the prize to honor the best current, non-fiction book published in English on human rights, democracy and social justice in contemporary Latin America.The WOLA-Duke Book Award aims to draw the general public’s attention to good writing on contemporary Latin America. Francisco Goldman won the first award in 2008 for his book, The Art of Political Murder. Heraldo Muñoz’s The Dictator’s Shadow was last year’s winner.

Later this fall, the authors will visit the Duke University Libraries for an event co-sponsored by the Archive for Human Rights at the RBMSCL and the Duke Human Rights Center. We’ll have all the event details as they are announced here at The Devil’s Tale!

To read the entire press release from the Washington Office on Latin America, click here.

Archive of Documentary Arts, Events, Exhibits, From Our Collections, News and Features

“Deena Stryker: Photographs of Cuba, 1963-1964″

Date: 31 August-12 December 2010
Location and Time: Special Collections Gallery during library hours
Contact Information: Karen Glynn, 919-660-5968 or karen.glynn(at)duke.edu

Journalist and photographer Deena Stryker’s black-and-white photographs of Revolutionary Cuba open a window into an unsettled time in that country’s history, after the Bay of Pigs and before Che Guevara’s departure for the Congo, when Fidel Castro was solidifying his control over the new revolutionary government.

A woman watching a military parade, Havana, January 1964. From the Deena Stryker Photograph Collection.

This new exhibit of thirty gelatin silver prints from the Archive of Documentary Arts’ Deena Stryker Photograph Collection documents this extraordinary change, bearing witness to both the vitality of Cuba’s leadership and the optimism of the Cuban people. The exhibit is curated by Holly Ackerman, Librarian for Latin America and Iberia, and Heather Settle, visiting scholar in Cultural Anthropology.

Can’t visit the exhibit in person? Check out the virtual exhibit, which includes an additional eleven photos from the Deena Stryker Photograph Collection.

Keep up with The Devil’s Tale for news about the exhibit’s opening reception on Thursday, September 16th at 4:00 PM in the Rare Book Room. Deena Stryker, the exhibit’s curators, and several local experts on Cuba will come together to discuss the photographs and place them in their historical context.

Exhibits, Franklin Research Center, Hartman Center, News and Features, RL Wire, Travel Grants

From the RBMSCL Wire

Boy lying on couch, reading comics. From the William Gedney Photographs and Writings, 1950s-1989.
Boy lying on couch, reading comics. From the William Gedney Photographs and Writings, 1950s-1989.

Sure, you could lie on a couch and read comic books, but why not have a look at some of the articles and blog posts about the RBMSCL that have been published recently?

A profile of Susie King Taylor appears at TheAtlantic.com. (Read the post here). Taylor’s Reminiscences of My Life in Camp is part of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture’s Black Voices Collection.

Our new exhibit, “‘As Far as Possible from Forgetfulness’: The Trinity College Historical Society,” found itself on the front page of the Durham Herald-Sun. (Read the article online.)

And Hartman Center travel grant recipient Ari Samsky wrote about his two-week research visit to the RBMSCL for web magazine Splice Today. You’ll find his essay—which makes us glad that Durham’s cooled off considerably in the past few days—here.

Let us know if you find any other mentions of the RBMSCL during your wanderings across the Internet and through print.

Just for Fun, RL Photos

Photo Op with the AOTUS

During the recent Society of American Archivists (SAA) meeting in Washington, D.C., several RBMSCL staff members received a very special tour of the National Archives. Former Duke University Librarian and current Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, gave the group a personal tour of his office.The group (click photo to enlarge) is gathered here under the portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which hangs in Ferriero’s office. (The National Archives began during Roosevelt’s administration.)

Ferriero, who has been AOTUS since last November, regaled the group with stories of great documents housed in the Archives. He recently examined Walt Whitman’s federal employee file (he was briefly employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs). In the file was a five page letter of reference—written by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Post contributed by Tim Pyatt, Duke University Archivist.

From Our Collections, In the Conservation Lab, New at the Rubenstein Library, University Archives

In the Lab: Boxing the Blue Devil

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I love the sort of projects that start with a co-worker saying, “We have something special we want you to box,” because I always know it’ll be anything but a regular book. When I saw this little Blue Devil Doll, I knew a fun project lay ahead.

This doll was donated to the Duke University Archives this spring. It was purchased on campus in 1938 and is made of straw with a wax (I think) head and dressed in a smart blue felt outfit. The devil’s tail has floral wire wrapped around it to provide stiffness. The doll itself is in fair condition but, as you can see below, it has sustained some damage to the felt, most likely from insect activity.

Because of its condition, I wanted to make a sturdy box that had a cushioned interior to protect the fragile doll. The end result would be a drop-spine box, also called a cloth-covered clamshell. Before constructing the outer box, I would have to make an inner box with a cushioned interior.

The inner box is constructed of buffered corrugated board, lined with polyester quilt batting with a cotton fabric liner. The fun part was making the side bolsters to keep the doll from rolling around. These are made from rolled up polyester batting and then encased in a polyethylene pocket using our CoLibri book cover machine to make tubes. These provide enough structure to hold their shape but are still soft should the doll shift. Who knew that all my sewing experience would come in handy this way?

Blue Devil Doll in His Box

Once done with the inner tray, I constructed a clamshell box around it. The final enclosure is sturdy and keeps the doll firmly in place. The creative use of the CoLibri pockets worked really well. I’ll remember that should another devil cross my path.

For more photos of the Blue Devil Doll in his new home, visit the Conservation Lab’s “Boxing the Devil” set on Flickr!

Post contributed by Beth Doyle, Collections Conservator, as part of our ongoing “In the Conservation Lab” series.