Date: Wednesday, February 13 Time: 5:00 p.m. reception, 5:30 talk Location: Gothic Reading Room, Rubenstein Library, Duke West Campus (Map) Contact: Aaron Welborn, aaron.welborn@duke.edu, 919-660-5816
Join the Libraries for a public conversation with Rose Styron and R. Blakeslee Gilpin, editors of the recently published Selected Letters of William Styron (Random House, 2012) at 5 p.m. Wednesday, February 13, in the Rubenstein Library’s Gothic Reading Room. The event is free and open to the public.
Photo credit: Alison Shaw
Born in Virginia, William Styron (1925-2006) was a graduate of Duke University (1947), a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, and the author of numerous award-winning books. His first novel, Lie Down in Darkness, was published to critical acclaim when Styron was just twenty-six years old. His controversial The Confessions of Nat Turner won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize, while Sophie’s Choice was awarded the 1980 National Book Award. Darkness Visible, Styron’s groundbreaking recounting of his ordeal with depression, was not only a literary triumph but became a landmark in the field.
Styron’s letters contain some of his most memorable meditations on the craft of writing. They also open a window onto his friendships with Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, John and Jackie Kennedy, Arthur Miller, James Jones, Carlos Fuentes, Wallace Stegner, Robert Penn Warren, Philip Roth, C. Vann Woodward, and many of the other leading writers and intellectuals of the second half of the twentieth century. The book takes readers on a journey from FDR to George W. Bush through the trenchant observations of one of the country’s greatest writers.
Styron’s papers are held at Duke in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Copies of the book will be available for sale at the event.
We’ve been developing, testing, and documenting our website redesign for a year, and we greatly appreciate all the feedback our users have given us along the way. Your input (and patience) has helped us design a better, simpler, more intuitively organized site for Duke students, faculty, and researchers.
Here are some highlights of what’s new and improved:
A simplified and more prominent search box to help you get the info you need more quickly.
A persistent header with drop-down menus for easier navigation.
A new comprehensive list of “Places to Study” on East and West Campus, including photos of study rooms and descriptions of their features. You can even filter study spaces by location, electrical outlets, nearness to coffee, etc., and easily reserve group studies online.
Detail from “Le Traître” (The Traitor), a lithograph depicting Alfred Dreyfus that is part of a new exhibit on caricature and the Dreyfus Affair in the Rubenstein Library.
Exhibit Reception—Please Join Us! Date: Wednesday, January 30 Time: 4:00 p.m. Location: Rubenstein Library Photography Gallery, Rubenstein Library, Duke West Campus (Map) Contact: Meg Brown, meg.brown@duke.edu, 919-681-2071
Few legal cases in French history have been so decisive, and so divisive, as the twelve-year trial, re-trial and eventual acquittal of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus, a Jewish military officer, was falsely accused in 1894 of selling military secrets to the German army. The trial sparked a flurry of anti-Semitism in the popular press and inspired Émile Zola’s famous open letter of outrage, “J’Accuse!”
A new exhibition in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke examines how the Dreyfus Affair was depicted in the French popular press, with a particular focus on visual illustrations in newspapers and periodicals that covered the trial.A Mockery of Justice: Caricature and the Dreyfus Affair encourages viewers to reconsider the significance of this historical episode that continues to resonate in the present day. As Zola pointed out, the Dreyfus Affair was about more than one man’s guilt or innocence. Also at stake were the very principles upon which the French Republic rested: liberté, égalité, fraternité. More than one hundred years later, the Dreyfus Affair offers a vivid lesson on the dangers of racial prejudice, blind loyalty to the military, and unthinking nationalism.
Cover illustration from “Le Petit Journal” (1895) showing Alfred Dreyfus being stripped of his military honors and titles.
Drawing on the Rubenstein Library’s extensive collection of late-19th and early 20th-century French periodicals, the exhibit also features a rare series of colorful and attention-grabbing posters that were disseminated throughout Paris at the time. The posters, collectively known as the Musée des Horreurs, were published pseudo-anonymously and feature unflattering caricatures of prominent Jews, Dreyfus supporters, and other individuals involved in the Dreyfus Affair. Another set of posters, known as Musée des Patriotes, glorifies the so-called anti-Dreyfusards, who publicly condemned Dreyfus and sought to undermine his defense.
Exhibit Details A Mockery of Justice: Caricature and the Dreyfus Affair December 12, 2012 – March 9, 2013
Rubenstein Library Photography Gallery
David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library (Click here for map) Duke University West Campus
Public Hours: Monday-Friday, 8am–7pm; Saturday, 9am–7pm; Sunday, 10am–7pm
Hours may vary during the holidays. Please check our posted library hours for more information.
Date: Monday, October 29, 2012 Time: 5:00 p.m. Location: Rare Book Room, Rubenstein Library, Duke West Campus (Map) Contact: Aaron Welborn, aaron.welborn@duke.edu, 919-660-5816
Men and women 150 years ago grappled with information overload by making scrapbooks — the ancestors of Google and blogging. From Mark Twain to Susan B. Anthony, abolitionists to Confederates, African American janitors to farmwomen, people cut out and pasted down their reading.
Ellen Gruber Garvey, author of Writing with Scissors: American Scrapbooks from the Civil War to the Harlem Renaissance (Oxford, 2012) opens a new window into the feelings and thoughts of ordinary and extraordinary Americans. Her groundbreaking book reveals a previously unexplored layer of American popular culture. “Scrapbooks are a democratic archive,” says Garvey. “They tell us what the 99 percent of the past read and cared about.”
Garvey is Professor of English at New Jersey City University. Her talk is titled “Strategic Scrapbooks: Nineteenth-Century Activists Remake the Newspaper for African American History and Women’s Rights.” The talk will also include a display of historical scrapbooks from the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, which Garvey consulted in the writing of her book.
Free and open to the public. A reception with refreshments will follow the program.
DURHAM, N.C. — Duke University has acquired the papers of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a scholar, writer and theologian who is widely recognized as one of the most influential religious leaders of the 20th century, the school announced Monday.
Heschel was a highly visible and charismatic leader in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements. He co-founded Clergy Concerned About Vietnam and served as a Jewish liaison with the Vatican during the Second Vatican Council, also known as Vatican II.
Rabbi Heschel marching with Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights activists in Selma. All images are from the Abraham Joshua Heschel Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
The collection, which has never before been available to scholars, consists of manuscripts, correspondence, publications, documents and photographs spanning five decades and at least four languages. Included among the papers are notes and drafts for nearly all of Heschel’s published works, as well as intimate and extensive correspondence with some of the leading religious figures of his time, including Martin Buber, Thomas Merton, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and Reinhold Niebuhr.
The papers also contain extensive documentation on Heschel’s life-long commitment to social justice, including planning documents, correspondence with organizers, speeches and even hate mail.
“The presence of the Heschel archive is a significant opportunity to draw together Duke’s traditional strengths in Jewish studies, American history and human rights,” said Laurie Patton, dean of Duke’s Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. “One of Duke’s paramount values is ‘knowledge in the service of society,’ and Heschel embodied that value in every sphere of life. We are thrilled to be able to house his papers at our university, and hope to create numerous opportunities for ethical and historical reflection on this extraordinary man’s work and life.”
Photographs and other items from the Heschel archive, including a 1935 Nazi-issued work permit.
“The acquisition of the Heschel papers assures scholars that the legacy of social activism, human rights and the highest standards of Judaic scholarship will be central to the pursuit of Jewish studies at Duke and many other places,” said Eric Meyers, the Bernice & Morton Lerner professor of religion and director of the Duke Center for Jewish Studies.
“I am delighted that my father’s papers have found a good home at Duke, which has long had an important research program in the fields of Jewish studies and religious studies,” said Susannah Heschel, daughter of Abraham Heschel and the Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College. “Duke’s strong commitment to archival holdings related to Judaica and to human rights places my father’s papers together with those of his beloved student, Rabbi Marshall Meyer, and I know that Duke’s magnificent Rubenstein Library will make the material easily accessible to scholars from around the world.”
Notes and related materials from Heschel’s audience with Pope Paul VI during the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II).
“Together, these two collections represent almost a century of social justice thought and action and provide an important connection between the civil rights and human rights movements,” said Patrick Stawski, human rights archivist at the Rubenstein Library.
Born in 1907 in Poland, Heschel was descended from a long line of distinguished rabbis. Heschel believed that prayer and study could not be separated from public action. He famously marched side-by-side with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Ala., and is credited with coining the civil rights slogan, “We pray with our legs.”
Heschel’s theological works include The Sabbath (1951), Man is Not Alone (1951) and God in Search of Man (1955). His writings continue to influence contemporary discussions of religion and social justice.
For more information, or for press inquiries, please contact: Patrick Stawski, Human Rights Archivist, (919) 660-5823, patrick.stawski@duke.edu
If you’re a fan of the NPR show “The Story” with Dick Gordon, be sure to tune in to today’s episode (“Sixteen Inches of Radio”) featuring Duke’s own Randy Riddle. Riddle is an Academic Technology Consultant in the Center for Instructional Technology. But in his spare time, he collects old radio transcription discs, a recording format dating from the 1930s. Not many of these original discs survive, since many were discarded over the years and some were made of experimental types of plastics that degrade over time.
On “The Story,” Riddle talks with guest host Sean Cole about his interest in old-time syndicated radio programs from the 1930s and 1940s—from popular shows like “Suspense” (which stayed on the air for 20 years) to less well-known gems like “The American Family Robinson,” a thinly-veiled propaganda series produced in the 1930s by the National Industrial Council (a front for the powerful National Association of Manufacturers). That show follows the life and times of Luke Robinson, a small-town newspaper editor, and his wacky family. The plot lines are typically pedestrian, but they are frequently interlaced with diatribes against Franklin Roosevelt’s “socialist” New Deal policies and praise for lower taxes and less regulation for business and industry (sound familiar?).
Riddle has generously donated many of his original transcription discs to the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke, where they are part of the Randy Riddle Collection of Race Records and Radio Programs. However, if you just want a taste of Riddle’s remarkable collection, you can hear selections of “Suspense,” “The American Family Robinson,” and many more old-time radio programs on his personal blog, where he writes about radio history and posts digitized versions of the transcriptions in all their original, scratchy glory.
Transcription disc label for “The American Family Robinson,” from Riddle’s collection. The show was sponsored by the National Industrial Council as part of their mid-1930s propaganda efforts to combat FDR’s New Deal economic policies.
You can revisit and research more of America’s commercial culture through digitized collections from the Hartman Center. The ROAD 2.0 collection contains all the billboard advertisements featured on the NPR blog, and thousands more of these markers of America’s advertising history. Celebrate the birth of our nation and the birth of billboard advertising by searching for “meat” across this collection!
A billboard featuring Fischer's deli meats, circa 1983, from the ROAD 2.0 collection.
Over the next few months, library users and visitors will start to see some noticeable changes as we prepare for the upcoming renovation of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. (For more background on the renovation, read this article from the Duke University Libraries Magazine. If you want the short version, check out this handy FAQ on the Rubenstein Library website.)
Construction work will begin in earnest in 2013 and continue through summer 2015. In the meantime, the Libraries are working to relocate special collection materials, services, and personnel to the 3rd floor of Perkins Library, which will become the temporary headquarters of the Rubenstein Library throughout the renovation. The move will be implemented in phases so that library operations and services can be maintained throughout the project, and so that classes and researchers can continue to work with special collections materials without interruption.
Books and library materials on the 3rd floor of Perkins Library are being relocated to Lower Level 2 in preparation for the Rubenstein Library renovation.
Books Move Out, Rubenstein Moves In
The first of those implementation phases starts next week. On Monday, June 11, movers will begin shifting books from the 3rd floor of Perkins Library to Perkins Lower Level 2. That work is scheduled to be completed by July 1, and the 3rd floor of Perkins Library will close to the public on July 5, as construction workers begin upfitting the space for the Rubenstein Library’s staff and collections.
One important caveat: Access to the study carrels on the 3rd floor of Perkins will continue and should not be affected. If you have a study carrel on that floor, you will still be able to get to it.
Collections on the Move
Because of space limitations, some special collections materials and general circulating collections that were previously housed on-site in the library are being moved to the off-site Library Service Center. However, these materials will still be available to faculty, students, and researchers throughout the course of the renovation. Nothing will be out of your reach.
Books and materials in the general collection can be easily retrieved from the Library Service Center by requesting them through the online catalog. If you have never requested something from the LSC, here’s a quick video that shows you how. (It typically takes less than 24 hours, and you can have materials delivered to the Duke library of your choice.)
Circulating books and materials held at the Library Service Center can be requested through the online catalog and are typically delivered in less than 24 hours.
Researchers interested in using special collection materials are encouraged to contact the Rubenstein Library in advance of their visit, so that materials can be retrieved for them. (See the Rubenstein Library Renovation FAQ for more information on requesting special collection materials during the renovation.)
At this time, the Rubenstein Library’s reading room and current space is scheduled to close on December 17, 2012, and reopen after winter break on the 3rd floor of Perkins Library on January 6, 2013.
Stay Tuned for More Renovation Updates
If you want keep up with the progress of the Rubenstein Library renovation, we have plenty of ways to keep you informed.
You can check back here for regular updates, or follow the Rubenstein Library’s blog, The Devil’s Tale.
Reynolds Price's final book, "Midstream," will be published in May 2012.
Date: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 Time: 7:00 p.m. Location: Gothic Reading Room, Rubenstein Library, Duke West Campus (map) Contact: Will Hansen, (919) 660-5958 or william.hansen@duke.edu
To celebrate the publication of Reynolds Price’s final book, Midstream, as well as the fiftieth anniversary of his first book, A Long and Happy Life, the Libraries welcome a distinguished group of Price’s friends, family, and colleagues to discuss his life, work, and legacy.
Speakers include:
– Rachel Davies WC’72 AM ’89, student and friend of Reynolds Price
– Allan Gurganus, acclaimed author of Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All and White People
– Susan Moldow, Executive Vice President and Publisher of Scribner, and editor of many of Reynolds Price’s books
– William Price T’63, former Director of the North Carolina Division of Archives and History, and Reynolds Price’s brother
The event will include a display of materials from the Reynolds Price Papers in the Rubenstein Library, including early handwritten manuscripts of A Long and Happy Life, rare photographs and letters, and more.
Free and open to the public. A reception with refreshments will follow the program.
Duke students, faculty, staff, alumni, and other members of the Duke community are invited to a night of seriously graphic fun, sponsored by the the Duke Marketing Club and Duke University Libraries.
Bringing together the entire Duke community, Heroes & Villains will be an adventure of its own, drawing inspiration from the Duke University Libraries’ vast collection of comic books from all periods and genres.
When: Friday, February 24 What Time: 9 PM to Midnight Where: Perkins Library Admission: Free Dress: Cocktail Attire, or Your Best Heroic/Villainous Costume
Students: Midterms got you feeling like a mere mortal? Throw on your cape and utility belt. Things are about to get supernaturally weird in Perkins.
Need more inspiration? Check out the Edwin and Terry Murray Comic Book Collection in Duke’s Rubenstein Library, one of the largest institutional collections of comics in the world!
Many thanks to our superhero sponsors: the Office of the President, Office of the Provost, the Deans of Trinity College, the Annual Fund, SOFC, Duke University Union, and the Sociology Department.
Charles Dickens at his last public reading in London, 1870
Join us for a special celebration of Charles Dickens’s 200th birthday!
When: Wednesday, February 8, 7:00 p.m. Where: Biddle Rare Book Room, Perkins Library (Map)
Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, Charles Dickens performed in a series of dramatic public readings adapted from his own works, impersonating characters from famous scenes in Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Great Expectations, and other beloved novels. In celebration of Dickens’s 200th birthday in February, please join award-winning Duke author, Professor of the Practice of Theater Studies, and consummate Dickensian Michael Malone as he re-enacts these entertaining performances.
The event is held in conjunction with the exhibition Charles Dickens: 200 Years of Commerce and Controversy, on display outside of the Biddle Rare Book Room beginning January 30, featuring rare first editions of Dickens’s works and other materials from the holdings of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
A reception with refreshments will be held after the performance. This event is free and open to the public.
A $1 million pledge to endow the directorship of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture at Duke University has been made by journalist, activist and women’s health care pioneer Merle Hoffman, President Richard H. Brodhead announced Thursday.
“The Bingham Center is one of the leading women’s history research centers in the U.S., documenting centuries of women’s public and private lives, including education, literature, art and activism,” Brodhead said. “We at Duke are grateful for this generous gift by Merle Hoffman, which will help further the Bingham Center’s mission to preserve and promote the intellectual and cultural legacy of women from all walks of American life.”men’s History and Culture at Duke University has been made by journalist, activist and women’s health care pioneer Merle Hoffman, President Richard H. Brodhead announced Thursday.
After abortion laws were liberalized in New York state in 1970, Hoffman founded Choices Women’s Medical Center, one of the first ambulatory surgical centers for women, which has become one of the largest and most comprehensive women’s medical facilities in the U.S.
In 2000, the Bingham Center acquired both Hoffman’s papers and the records of Choices Women’s Medical Center. Since then, the center has collected the papers of numerous other providers, clinics and reproductive rights organizations that document the work of activists, health care workers, attorneys and others involved in reproductive health.
The center also has a large body of works that documents four centuries of political activity surrounding women’s reproductive rights, thanks in part to several generous gifts from Hoffman, said Deborah Jakubs, Rita DiGiallonardo University Librarian and vice provost for library affairs.
“Associating Merle Hoffman’s name with the directorship creates an enduring connection between the Bingham Center’s leadership and Hoffman’s outstanding contributions to the health, safety and empowerment of women everywhere,” Jakubs said.
Hoffman is also the publisher and editor-in-chief of On the Issues Magazine, and her autobiography, Intimate Wars: The Life and Times of the Woman Who Brought Abortion from the Back Alley to the Board Room,is settobe published in January 2012.
Hoffman said she decided to endow the center’s directorship as a way “to continue to support the visionary efforts by Duke University to honor and document the many courageous women who have fought their own ‘intimate wars’ in the long struggle for reproductive justice. I hope that the Bingham Center will become the bridge between theory and practice that will catalyze future generations to joyfully go further and deeper in the continual battles for women’s equality.”
Center director Laura Micham said Hoffman’s latest gift “will enable us to expand our activities and impact, bringing us closer to our goal of building one of the premier research centers for women’s history and culture in the world.”
The Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture was established in 1988 to acquire, preserve and provide access to published and unpublished materials that reflect the public and private lives of women, past and present. It is named in honor of author, playwright, teacher and feminist activist Sallie Bingham.
Unidentified family photo, donated by Larry Henderson, Alabama.
One hundred oral histories of life in the Jim Crow South, complete with transcripts, have been digitized and made available on the Duke University Libraries website and iTunes U, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store.
From 1993 to 1995, dozens of graduate students at Duke and other schools fanned out across the South to capture stories of segregation as part of “Behind the Veil,” an oral history project at Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies (CDS). The students sought to preserve the stories before the men and women who survived Jim Crow passed away. The interviews — some 1,260 in all — were recorded on regular cassette tapes, transcribed and archived in Duke’s special collections library.
But many of the interviews were omitted from the book and documentary.
For example, in 1957, a group of African-American businessmen in Memphis launched a boycott of the city’s largest daily paper to protest the paper’s policy of not using courtesy titles, like Mr. or Mrs., when referring to blacks. The businessmen bought every copy they could find of The Commercial Appeal and threw them into the Mississippi River.
“I don’t care how prominent you were, you were just Willie Brown,” said Imogene Watkins Wilson, a schoolteacher whose husband edited the Memphis Tri-State Defender, the city’s leading African-American newspaper. “You weren’t Rev. Willie Brown, you weren’t Dr. Willie Brown, you weren’t Professor Willie Brown. And then, if [they] referred to your wife, she was Suzie. Not Mrs. Suzie, just Suzie.”
Wilson recollected the start of the seven-week boycott in a July 1995 interview with a Duke student, but her story never made the original project’s final cut. Now her memories — along with the personal accounts of scores of other Americans who lived through the Jim Crow era — are among the hundred stories that have been digitized and made available for free for researchers, genealogists, educators and others.
Another newly digitized story is told by Ernest A. Grant of Tuskegee, Ala., who recounts how his mother was forced to flee town for burning a white insurance agent with a hot iron after he made unwelcome advances toward her. And Jesse Johnson of Norfolk, Va., a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, describes officer training in the 1940s at Fort Lee, Va. as “the most segregated, the most prejudiced camp in the United States.”
News, Events, and Exhibits from Duke University Libraries
Date: Monday, October 29, 2012
