Bingham Center, Featured, From Our Collections, RL Scholars

Profiles in Research: Paula Ramos on Kate Millett and Clarissa Sligh

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Contributed by Paula Ramos, Postdoctoral Fellow in Art History at the Federal University of São Paulo.

In August 2024, I visited the Bingham Center at the Rubenstein Library, as a recipient of a 2024-2025 Mary Lily Research Travel Grant, where I had the privilege of researching the papers of Kate Millett and Clarissa Sligh, American artists, activists, and writers. My interest in their documents emerged while I was developing a research project for my Postdoctoral studies in Art History at the Federal University of São Paulo. The project explores how some artists challenged confinements rooted in colonial and patriarchal structures that normalize power mechanisms, such as mass incarceration of Black people, the pathologization of the female gender, and the symbolic, cultural, and epistemological constraints imposed intersectionally by issues of race, sexuality, class, and gender.

For fourteen years, Kate Millett was preoccupied with the story of Sylvia Likens, a sixteen-year-old white girl found dead in a basement in Indianapolis after suffering abuse and torture at the hands of her caregiver and the caregiver’s children in 1965. Millett was moved to closely follow the trial of those involved in Likens’s murder, resulting in years of research and the compilation of newspaper and magazine clippings. In addition to the installation The Trial of Sylvia Likens (1978), created from enlarged newspaper clippings on wooden panels and clothed mannequins to recreate the courtroom scene, Millett wrote The Basement: Meditations on a Human Sacrifice (1979). The book expands the notion of violence tied to the female gender by tracing Millett’s identification with the young Sylvia Likens:

“You have been with me ever since, an incubus, a nightmare, my own nightmare, the nightmare of adolescence, of growing up a female child, of becoming a woman in a world set against us, a world we have lost and where we are everywhere reminded of our defeat.”

The Loony Bin Trip by Kate Millett, Simon and Schuster, 1991.

As I continued to investigate her personal archives, I began to explore similarities between this story and the confinement Millett experienced during her three involuntary hospitalizations in psychiatric institutions — a fact she would only reveal publicly many years later, in her book The Loony Bin Trip (1990), which took over five years to be published, partly due to the controversial nature of its subject matter.

Gleason, Katherine. “To the bin and back.” Clipping (n.d.) from the Kate Millett Papers, Box W4.

In an article by Katharine Gleason, “To the Bin and Back,” published on the book’s release, Millett describes how she was taken by her sister, her husband, and her ex-lover to be hospitalized against her will for the first time in 1973. Millett emphasizes the political and ideological factors surrounding her hospitalization. Her sister disapproved of her efforts to free a Trinidadian civil rights activist accused of murder, as she said: “I returned to Berkeley full of this — it was the biggest civil rights assignment I had ever had. To stop a lynching, to prevent a hanging… It was not, however, all-absorbing to my friends.”

Just as Millett sought to free herself from the stigmatized labels of female madness, which misinterpreted the radicalization of women’s struggles and lead to psychiatric hospitalizations, she also wanted to liberate the case of Likens from the narrow constraints of the police-judicial narrative. Not surprisingly, in the box of correspondence from people who had read the book, a man from Indianapolis expressed disgust, justifying his indignation by the fact that Millett refuses to report the case objectively: “Instead of reading an account of what took place by someone who had researched the subject as the book jacket indicated, I was instead hit with a barrage of disjointed, unconnected and at times perverted reactions to the entire situation.” In contrast, I read dozens of other letters from women moved by the book, congratulating Millett for her courage in sharing her personal testimony in The Basement. Among them, I was struck by a letter from a student who read the book in a course on domestic violence, who concluded: “Most of the men in class could not go as far in looking at the implications of the book. Most were empathetic, but really not able to identify with the themes (at least as we interpreted them) in the book.”

Letter from Nancy Oppenlander to Kate Millett in a letterhead paper from Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. February 23, 1981. From the Kate Millett Papers, Box BMT3.

This brief analysis of the reception of Millett’s work led me, while writing this text, to explore the various attempts by Clarissa Sligh to publish her book Wrongly Bodied (2009). The book documents the long process of gender transition from female to male of Sligh’s friend Jake, who requested to be photographed by her in 1997, while exploring the visibility of issues that were often kept secret due to societal judgment.

L: Jake reflected in mirror, April 13, 1997. R: Jake with Clarissa Sligh, November 8, 1997. Both from: Sligh, Clarissa. Wrongly Bodied: Documenting Transition from Female to Male. Philadelphia: Leeway Foundation, 2009.

Upon finding the folder of correspondence with publishers, I was shocked to discover that around twelve publishers had returned the book, praising the importance of the subject but lamenting the impossibility of its publication, with comments such as: “It’s impressive and important, but, sadly, I don’t think we are the right place for it;” “It does not fit comfortably into our current publishing program;” or “A book on this subject would not fit our list at the present time.” Sligh also produced a hand-made artists’ book version, Wrongly Bodied Two, published through Women’s Studio Workshop in 2004.

Just like Millett identified with Likens, Sligh identifies with Jake — or at least establishes connections between her own life and her subject, despite the differences between them (a Black artist photographing a white trans man). This identification is grounded in the perception of societal standards of , which determine which bodies fit into or are excluded from society. Sligh, in the introduction of the book, says: “To comprehend an identity change of this magnitude, I turned to my family background in the history of the slavery in this country.”

In the book, the artist draws a parallel with the story of Ellen Craft, “a light skin female slave who, in 1848, disguised herself as an invalid Southern gentleman, and the master of her husband is inserted into the narrative. She crossed the Mason Dixon line by successfully crossing the boundaries of black to white, slave to owner, woman to man, and wife to master.” Sligh concludes her argument in a document about the potential readership for Wrongly Bodied in response to the demands of many publishers: “The concept of ‘transgender’ impacts the currently contested debates about whether gender, race, and class are natural, constructions, or performance.” In the realm of literary and artistic acceptance, creative constraints are numerous, yet both Millett and Sligh challenge these barriers, expanding the limited spaces available to themselves and their peers.

Exhibits, Featured, Students and Interns

Sharing Congolese Voices

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Post contributed by Grace Zayobi, Exhibitions Intern

When I started my internship with exhibitions, I expected some difficult topics. History is complex and the way people represent history is even more complex. So, constructing exhibits based on these topics is no laughing matter. But my first assignment being something so close to home was unexpected.

Even though I was born here and grew up in the US, my mother immigrated here in 1990s from the Democratic Republic Congo (DRC) While my opinions can’t hold as much weight as someone who was born and raised in the DRC, I grew up in a mixture of Congolese and American culture in a multi-generational household where there were Congolese immigrants coming in and out. I’ve seen how their lives are affected by what is happening in the DRC and I want to be able to carry their voices so their stories can eventually be heard.

So, imagine my surprise when my first task was to support the exhibition Joseph Conrad’s Polish-Ukrainian “Graveyard”: Memory, Mourning, and Anti-Colonial Resistance in his 19th-Century Family Photo Album. Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) might not be a name well known in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) but to a lot of Congolese-Americans he is somewhat familiar. He wrote The Heart of Darkness but that’s not what the exhibit is about. This exhibit is about his own tragedy: he faced being stripped of his rights, losing his parents, and being forced from his home. You can feel his apathy for humanity when reading his book, and maybe this exhibit will truly contextualize why he feels that way.

This post isn’t about Joseph Conrad, it’s about the people in Joseph Conrad’s book The Heart of Darkness; although Belgium or the Congo are never named in the book, that is what the book is about. As much as Conrad suffered, it seemed he still saw Congolese as inferior people. I read his book and felt like he saw the Congolese as unworthy of humanity, but their colonizers were just as unworthy as he felt the Congolese were. I still think the book holds anti-colonial viewpoints that may have been controversial at the time but all I can see is a man who thought of my people as less than human.

The Congo is the quintessential colonial massacre story. But rather than telling actual stories of the people, the Congo is often used as a metaphor.  When King Leopold II of Belgium took over in the year 1885 it helped spark the “Scramble for Africa,” a time period where European countries brought parts of Africa under their control. His cruelty led to a humanitarian crisis which activists protested until he relinquished his control in 1908.  One of the first nations to back Leopold’s control of Congo was America, and a lot of other countries followed suit and supported Leopold’s private colony. The destabilization caused by outside governments interfering, the stripping of resources, and violent conflicts with neighboring countries can all be traced back to the Belgian occupation. It has left the Congo in ruins; we should see it has one of Africa’s first colonial tragedies.

Although the protests and interest in the Congo seemingly decreased, the humanitarian crisis continues to be relevant today. A lot of people consider Congo hard to talk about because there are no easy answers, no easy way to protest, no simple ways to make a difference.

Just reading this blog post is listening to Congolese voices. What else can you do? Methods of protests are highly debated. So just starting your education is important. Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost is a great place to start reading. Hochschild talks about the impacts of Leopold’s rule and the formation of the group that fought against his ownership of DRC.

But Congolese stories written by Congolese people must be highlighted too. While all these recommendations may not be about the crisis in Congo, they are all written by Congolese people. And they are all affected by that tragedy, and you can see elements of that in their writing. Some books include:

  • How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child by Sandra Uwiringiyimana and Abigail Pesta. With assistance from Pesta, Uwiringiyimana writes about her experience surviving the Second Congo War, and her life in America has a refugee.
  • JJ Bola is the Kinshasa-born British author of Mask Off: Masculinity Redefined. As well as writing about gender in society he is also a fiction author and a poet that touches on his time as a refugee.
  • Tram 83 is the debut novel of Fiston Mwanza Mujila. Originally, he wrote in French, but his book has been translated and several languages and spread internationally. Tram 83 is about a group that tries to profit off of their unnamed mining town in Congo. Though the novel is fiction, it carries critiques about colonialism and capitalism that are relevant to the real-life Congo. Mujila’s capabilities have earned him the role of a professor of African literature in Graz, Austria where he lives now.
  • Koli Jean Bofane’s Congo Inc. : Bismarck’s Testament is a satirical novel about a young Congolese man who turns his life into a game in hopes of making enough money to leave his small village. This novel is both funny and tragic, it ruthlessly shows how the Scramble for Africa effects African lives to this day.

Working on the Joseph Conrad exhibit was a chance for me to learn more about him in the same way this blog post is a chance for you to learn more about people like me. All I can hope that you take away from this is to give Congo a chance to be cared about.

Grace Zayobi, with a layout of the exhibit
Featured, From Our Collections, History of Medicine, Instruction, Students and Interns

Mary Toft and An Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbits

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Post contributed by Madeline Huh, Trent History of Medicine Intern.

A couple weeks ago, Rachel Ingold, curator of the History of Medicine Collections, and I were setting up for a library instruction session in the Rubenstein that included some materials relating to midwifery, labor, and childbirth. One of these books discussed what were known as “monstrous births” during the medieval and early modern period, which sparked a discussion about Mary Toft, an 18th century woman infamous for tricking doctors into thinking she had given birth to rabbits.

Mary Toft was a 25-year-old poor, illiterate servant from Surrey who became pregnant in 1726 but apparently miscarried in August 1726 after an encounter with a rabbit. Around a month later, in September, she claimed that she was still pregnant, and her family called upon the obstetrician John Howard to watch over her in her apparently pregnant state.

According to Howard, Toft soon gave birth to several animal parts, including a cat without a liver, a rabbit’s head, the legs of a cat, and nine dead baby rabbits. The story of her miraculous births reached the press and spread around England, and consequently the King of England dispatched two men to investigate the situation, one of whom was surgeon-anatomist Nathanael St. Andre. St. Andre wrote an account of Toft’s alleged supernatural births called A short narrative of an extraordinary delivery of rabbets (1727), a copy of which is held in the Trent Collection within the Rubenstein Library’s History of Medicine Collections.

The title page of Nathanael St. Andre’s A short narrative of an extraordinary delivery of rabbets.

St. Andre describes the circumstances under which Mary claimed to remain pregnant after miscarrying:

“The account she further gave of herself, was, that on the 23rd of April last, as she was weeding in a Field, she saw a Rabbet spring up near her, after which she ran, with another Woman that was at work just by her; this set her a longing for Rabbets…The same night she dreamt that she was in a Field with those two Rabbets in her Lap, and awaked with a sick Fit, which lasted till Morning; from that time, for above three Months, she had a constant and strong desire to eat Rabbets but being very poor and indigent cou’d not procure any. About seventeen Weeks after her longing, she was taken with a Flooding and violent Cholick pains, which made her miscarry of a Substance that she said was like a large lump of Flesh…she did not perceive her self to grow less but continued with the symptoms of a breeding Woman” (23-24).

St. Andre then goes on to discuss Toft’s secondary labor and her subsequent birth of rabbits as it was told to him by Dr. John Howard.

St. Andre’s narrative about Toft’s miscarriage and animal births is indicative of a broader cultural fascination with monstrous birth in early modern Europe. Broadly, a monstrous birth is defined as an animal or human birth involving a defect that renders a child so “malformed” as to be considered monstrous. Deformed tissue, incompletely separated twins, ambiguous sexual development, or irregularly shaped children, which we would now in many cases attribute to genetic or chromosomal causes, all fell under the general umbrella of “monstrousness.” In the early modern imagination, monstrous births could be religious omens, signs from God, or evidence of supernatural influences. But perhaps more interestingly (to me, at least), monstrous births were also seen as indicators of a mother’s morality, or rather, a lapse in her morality. Private gynecological “disasters” and abnormalities of birth were highly public and sensationalized affairs within communities that often reflected poorly on a mother’s social and sexual reputation.

For example, when Margaret Mere gave birth to a deformed child in 1568, her neighbors attributed it to her wanton sexual behavior and accused her of having sex out of wedlock. Agnes Bowker’s alleged birth of a cat in 1569 led to the slander of her sexual propriety and resulted in concerns about the consequences of such an abnormal birth for the community as a whole. Both cases highlight the tendency of neighbors and community members to condemn mothers who miscarried or gave birth to “monstrous” children and the sense of anxiety that pervaded communities in the aftermath of gynecological disaster.

Mother and monstrous child both became sources of fear and dread beyond the immediate community through the representation of monstrous births in pamphlets, broadsides, and other relatively cheap printed materials accessible to a broad audience. One example of this is a little pamphlet called Signes and wonders from heaven (1645), also in the Trent Collection, which reports on several supernatural events including a discovery of witches, a cat that gave birth to a monster, and a monster born in Ratcliffe Highway. Public fascination with abnormal animal and human births created a popular demand for these types of publications.

Pamphlets discussing monstrous births like this one were popular among the English public.

Sometimes, the sensationalism that came with a monstrous birth was desired and even pursued by women, which seems to be the case with Mary Toft. Toft and her family seem to have perpetuated the story that she had given birth to rabbits to exploit some of the benefits of fame and money associated with faking a monstrous birth.

As the intern for the History of Medicine Collections, I’m currently working on an exhibit which will open later in the spring–not on monstrous births, but on a tangentially related topic–and the idea of monstrous births has emerged several times throughout my research. I’ve found the representation of monstrous births interesting not only for the way that early modern sources depict the relationship between mother and monstrous child but also for the way that they publicize these sorts of obstetrical events and inspire a sense of terror. I always enjoy learning about strange moments in the history of women’s health, and the case of Mary Toft is certainly one of these.

Further Reading:

Bates, A.W. Emblematic Monsters, (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 01 Jan. 2005) doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004332997.

Hagen, Ross. “A warning to England: Monstrous births, teratology and feminine power in Elizabethan broadside ballads.” Horror Studies 4, no. 1 (2013): 21-41. doi: 10.1386/host.4.1.21_1.

The Curious Case of Mary Toft, University of Glasgow Special Collections (2009): https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/library/files/special/exhibns/month/aug2009.html

Bingham Center, Featured, From Our Collections, New Finding Aids

Tracking the Tendrils: Processing the Papers of Ann Baker

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Post contributed by Colette Harley, Graduate Student Intern, Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture.

Image of a group of women marching, holding signs and standing behind a banner that reads "A woman's right to abortion is akin to her right to be."
Photograph of the march organized by In Support of Women’s Lives in response to the National Right to Life’s 1982 National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In March of 2024, I read an article about a woman named Julie Burkhart. The article detailed Burkhart’s challenges in opening an abortion clinic in Wyoming, one of the states with the strictest abortion laws in our post-Dobbs era. Burkhart was an employee and mentee of Dr. George Tiller, and worked in his clinic in Wichita, Kansas. Dr. Tiller was shot on two separate occasions by anti-abortion protestors, and his clinic in Kansas was the site of extended protests during the 1991 Summer of Mercy. The Summer of Mercy, organized by the anti-abortion organization Operation Rescue targeted abortion clinics and patients seeking care. This article piqued my interest—for all my knowledge about reproductive rights in America, this was not something I was familiar with. It had a strange sort of prescience, given our current political climate towards reproductive rights.

Image of a newspaper clipping that contains an image of Ann Baker, standing with an arm raised.
Image of Ann Baker from the Ann Baker papers.

It was a strange sort of kismet a few months later when Laura Micham, Director of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, suggested I consider processing the papers of a woman named Ann Baker as my next project. Fresh off of smaller processing projects, the 130 linear feet were daunting. Packed by Ann’s widow and friends, the collection arrived on the Bingham ranges in a variety of boxes—some standard sizes, others repurposed from moves and office supplies. At the time, I knew Ann was from New Jersey and that she was a reproductive health and LGBT rights activist. What I didn’t know was that she focused her work on the impact of Operation Rescue and other pro-life organizations during the 1980s and 1990s.

As Laura and I surveyed the boxes, a picture started to slowly unfold. Baker’s organization, the National Center for the Pro-Choice Majority (originally the 80% Majority), served as a clearing house for information on anti-abortion protestors and tactics. Each week, Baker would compile arrest lists (sometimes provided by police departments, clinics, and local newspapers) for the different demonstrations that happened across the country. She would then cross-check with previous arrests to determine if any person had been involved in this kind of event in another city or state. As it became apparent that the same groups of people were involved in these “rescues” week after week, law enforcement began increasing fines and jail time for repeat offenders. The national movement against abortion, the scale of which was promised by leaders like Randall Terry and Joe Scheidler, turned out to be little more than a small group of devoted followers.

Baker documented the protestors, their tactics (such as chaining themselves to blocks of concrete inside the clinic), and their propaganda. She collected newspaper clippings, literature, policy books and reports, and dossiers of protestor information. She even subscribed to some of the more militant publications using money orders, fake names, and P.O. boxes. She tracked lawsuits that ranged from husbands and boyfriends suing their wives and girlfriends for seeking abortion, to Frisby v. Schultz, which made residential picketing of abortion providers’ homes illegal. Armed with this information, she wrote about these organizations in her newsletter, The Campaign Report, which was mailed to clinics, providers, and activists across the U.S. In this newsletter, she tracked the many tendrils of the pro-life movement, provided information on what clinics could expect to see when Operation Rescue came to town, explained how to work with local law enforcement, and offered analysis about politics, the U.S. government, and citizens’ attitudes toward abortion.

Image of folders standing in racks.
Baker’s papers slowly taking shape during processing.

Baker was a diligent filer. Many of the folders were titled and organized loosely by theme. The most difficult part was keeping track of all the different threads I’d found throughout this very large collection. Some of the original order of the collection needed to be fine-tuned for it to be easier for current researchers to use, but I kept all of her original folder titles. As I spent more time with her work, I gained a sense of her personality. One of my favorite aspects of the collection was the marginalia, whether it be complaints, frustrations, or New York Knicks scores scrawled in the margins. She had a penchant for argument through the written word, and some of my favorite letters she wrote had nothing to do with the pro-life movement at all. In one folder, I found a copy of a parking ticket, annotated with a note in which Baker insisted that paid parking should only extend through normal business hours.

I am deeply thankful to Baker and her work, as well as the other activists, providers, and clinic workers documented in this collection. She noticed a gap: no one was tracking the protests state by state, and she took it upon herself to fill that gap. Through this work, she provided clinics with the information they needed, whether it be organizing tactics or information on protestors. She built a deep network of contacts, many of whom are also represented in the Bingham Center’s collections. She is not a household name, but she is a reminder that to make a difference, one does not need to be.

Image of a wooden column with a photograph of Ann Baker thumbtacked to the column.
Photo of Ann Baker, a duplicate in the collection, surveying the processing of her papers. She guided me the entire process, from her spot on the pillar.

Processing archival collections is iterative, exacting work which often requires circling back through materials again and again. I went through this collection many times, moving materials into different series, trying to decide how they best made sense. In the thick of it over the summer, I had a sense that I’d never be finished. But slowly, day after day, it came together. I’ve been thinking often that it takes a village to process an archival collection, and I’m deeply thankful to everyone in Technical Services and the Bingham Center for their knowledge, expertise, and cheerleading. I believe this collection will be a valuable body of material for researchers looking to understand not only the period in which Baker did her work, but also our current era in which reproductive rights remain precarious.

Events, Exhibits, Featured, From Our Collections

Black Lives in Archives Day 2025

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Join Us For an Immersive 2-Day Exhibition

Black Lives in Archives Day

Day One: Wednesday, March 26, 2025, 3-5pm

Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room, Rubenstein Library 153

Day Two: Friday, March 26, 2025, 11am-2pm

Gothic Reading Room, Rubenstein Library 2nd Floor

Visitors will be able to browse special selections from our collections by and about Black lives. Chat with Rubenstein Library staff and explore rare first edition books, published works exploring Black life in Durham, publications by Black students at Duke, and more!

Featured, From Our Collections, University Archives

Duke Student Movements: 1960-1961

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Post contributed by Ani Karagianis, Centennial Archivist.

As a continuation of my series, I have decided to highlight Duke students and their activism around Civil Rights. Likely inspired by the Greensboro sit-ins, Duke and NC Central students joined in their own civil disobedience, participating in sit-ins at Woolworth’s and Kress in Durham and boycotting local theaters.

In the early 1960s, some Duke students took part in Civil Rights movements and organized as such on the campus. One example was the Human Relations Coordinating Committee, creating a group that was interesting in human relations and race relations. In this document, found in our Student Activism Reference Collection, box 1, co-chairman Lucia Brunn calls for the creation of a newsletter for their committee.

Lucia Brunn, from the Chanticleer yearbook, 1960.

Within this document is a note received by a Duke Divinity student, Edward Opton Jr, who picketed Durham theaters. Here’s his call to action:

Feeling the Cold War vibes, his notes about nations choosing between “Democracy and Communism” does feel more than a bit pointed, considering the idea that some people viewed Communism as a greater threat than the racism in their own backyards.

Opton also asked for some support from the Divinity school administrators, hoping for an increase in faculty participation, as found in this letter from the Divinity School records, box 29.

Opton and Brunn were just a few motivated members of the Duke community committed to advancing the cause of civil rights. Stay tuned for more!

Economists' Papers Archive, Featured, From Our Collections, New Finding Aids

Masahiko Aoki Papers Open for Research

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Post contributed by Soroush Marouzi, Research Scholar at the Center for the History of Political Economy.

In 1960, the political activist known throughout Japan by the pen name Reiji Himeoka sat in solitary confinement at Tokyo’s Sugamo Prison. By 1967, now publicly known by his birth name Masahiko Aoki, he had become an Assistant Professor of Economics at Stanford University. His life circumstances had changed drastically over those seven years, but not his desire to understand the world and change it for the better. Today, the Masahiko Aoki papers present rich resources for historians eager to delve deeper into his life and work.

Three Japanese men seated in conversation dressed in formal wear, in front of row of bookcases.
Aoki (right) in conversation with his colleagues.

Aoki was born on April 1, 1938, in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. He initially intended to become a historian, but his growing interest in Marxism led him to pursue economics at the University of Tokyo. As an undergraduate, he emerged as a leading ideologue, describing himself as an “information propaganda director” of left-wing organizations at the forefront of Japan’s student movement that aimed to discourage the ruling conservative government to sign the revised US-Japan Security Treaty—activities that culminated in his arrest in 1960. After his release, he earned his undergraduate degree in 1962 and his master’s in 1964. After reading the work of Kenneth Arrow and Leonid Hurwicz during his graduate studies, he started to distance himself from Marxism and became increasingly interested in “modern economics.” He left Japan to pursue his PhD in economics at the University of Minnesota under Hurwicz and John Chipman, graduating in 1967 then holding appointments at Stanford and Harvard University over the next two years. Returning to Japan in 1969, he continued his academic career at Kyoto University until coming back to Stanford in 1984 and retiring in 2005. He died in 2015, having dedicated his career to studying forms of economic organizations and making contributions in the theory of the firm, corporate governance, and East Asian economies.

A portrait of an older Japanese man smiling in a dress shirt and jacket sitting at a table.
This digital photo of Aoki during an interview comes from a set among the electronic records in the collection.

Aoki’s papers are the most recently processed collection in the Economists’ Papers Archive, which also houses the collections of Arrow, Hurwicz, and Chipman. A substantial portion of this collection highlights Aoki’s role in shaping the economics profession by establishing institutions, such as the Virtual Center for Advanced Studies in Institution, and by leading influential organizations, exemplified by his presidency of the International Economic Association (IEA) from 2008-2011. There are also collection materials that offer insights into Aoki’s graduate education through handwritten notebooks; the production of his scholarly works on game theory through drafts and referee reports; his contribution to the development of the field of comparative institutional analysis through Stanford University Economics Department records; and his relationships and collaborations with economists such as Arrow, Joseph Stiglitz, and János Kornai through correspondence.

Kornai states “In the first informal discussions several people, including myself expressed the wish to nominate you for the ‘President Elect’ position.”
Janos Kornai’s email to Aoki, dated Dec 18, 2004, asking for Aoki’s consent to be nominated for IEA’s presidency. He eventually won by one vote–a significant moment in his career.

In his memoir, Aoki described his life as “a transboundary game.” He lived in both the East and West, and he embraced an interdisciplinary approach to studying economics. Crossing boundaries—whether geographical or disciplinary—was a defining feature of the life he led. His transboundary game was marked by constant attempts to understand institutional arrangements in economic life, along with his desire to improve them through tireless professional service. This joint pursuit was perhaps the dominant theme of his life, from his time as the Marxist ‘Reiji Himeoka’ until he became a Stanford emeritus professor of economics.

A man in formal wear stands on the shore of a body of water. In the background is a piece of Japanese architecture.
This black and white portrait of Aoki is an example from an album reflective in tone.
Exhibits, Featured, From Our Collections, University Archives

The Greensboro Woolworth Sit-ins Through the Bill Chafe Oral History Collection

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Post contributed by Ani Karagianis, Centennial Archivist, Duke University Archives.

[A small exhibit related to this blog post can be viewed near the Perkins Library service desk for the next month.]

Recently, the Rubenstein Library put up a small exhibit about the Greensboro Woolworth Sit-ins in February 1960. Since I participated in the creation of the exhibit, naturally, I wanted to look more into the early sit-ins and other movements of the early 1960s. It is here where I can say that there is a Duke angle to some subsequent events after the sit-ins. Duke angle #1: Professor William Chafe of the history department. Bill Chafe, who wrote a great book that I was able to devour during the holidays (Civilities and Civil Rights) interviewed three of the four members of the Greensboro Four: Ezell Blair Jr. (known as Jibreel Khazan), Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond. Rather than having me write about their interviews and their experiences of the sit-in, I have provided the readers with some snapshots of them speaking about their experiences in Greensboro, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and the Woolworth sit-ins. These oral histories can be found in box two of the William Chafe Oral History collection.

Some good soundbites courtesy of these interviews:

Jibreel Khazan (labeled as “Jabriel Kajan”, 1974, speaking about his youth NAACP council and providing a little background of the idea behind the protest:

Joseph McNeill, 1978, reflecting on the movement the role of the Greensboro community:

David Richmond, 1972, providing a breakdown of the day’s plans:

Featured, From Our Collections, History of Medicine, Travel Grants

Manuscript Mysteries, and the Making of Medical Authority: A Researcher’s Journey at the Rubenstein Library

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Post contributed by Baylee Staufenbiel, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, Florida State University.

During my recent research visit to the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, I had the opportunity to work with the Duke University’s extensive holdings on medieval and early modern medicine. The highlight of my trip was Latin MS 182, a copy of the Pantegni Practica, a foundational medical text traditionally attributed to Constantine the African. The Pantegni is particularly significant as it one of the most comprehensive and well-known texts to synthesize Greco-Roman and Arabic medical knowledge. The Practica is interesting as it was never completed by Constantine. Various copies appeared, but current scholarship is unsure of the provenance of the additional chapters. The Rubenstein’s copy has some of these chapters that may have been compiled or written by his pupil Joannes Afflacius, who’s attribution is given to the accompanying treatise Liber Aureus. Figure One shows the table of contents of the Rubenstein’s Practica (33r).

Figure One: Pantegni Practica, 33r, Latin MS 182, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

As I worked with the Pantegni Practica, I really began to think about the roles of translators, manuscripts, prints, and productions. Constantine’s contribution to the spread of Arabic texts is undeniable. I have begun to think locations like Monte Cassino and Salerno as more than places of translation and transmission of texts. They are nodes for the establishment of epistemic authority. The texts, knowledges, and individuals that came from these locations constructed what would become medical and anatomical practice throughout the medieval and early modern periods.

The reliance on authoritative voices continued with my exploration of early modern sources. For example, in “On the Liver” (Sec. A Box 183, 1654-1677, England), I saw a compelling look at how seventeenth-century physicians balanced classical authority with contemporary anatomical findings. A Latin paragraph detailing liver striation was followed by an extensive English letter discussing Hippocrates, Galen, and early modern physicians’ beliefs about the structure and function of the liver. Shown in Figure Two, this text demonstrates the enduring influence of ancient medical models, even as new anatomical observations complicated long-held theories. The discussion of Rufus of Ephesus (70-110 CE) and Schenckius (likely Johannes Schenck von Grafenberg, 1530-1598) reinforced how early modern practitioners continued to situate their work alongside pre-existing medical authorities. The letter references humoral theory mentioning the relative temperature of the liver as well as the questions about its role in conception (notably Galen saw the liver, heart, and brain as the seat of the natural, animal, and vital souls respectively).  As my research is focused on perceptions of the uterus, reading a meditation on the function of a specific organ further suggests that understandings of the internal body were constantly in flux, even for a well discussed structure like the liver.

Figure Two: “On the Liver,” David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University

My time at the Rubenstein Library was an incredible privilege. The collection provided invaluable access to texts that shaped medieval and premodern understandings of medicine and the body. Engaging with these manuscripts firsthand enriched my assessment and evaluation of these texts in my current research project. I am deeply grateful to the Rubenstein staff, curators, and archivists who made this trip possible.

 

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“You Had to Be There:” Charis Books and More’s 50-Year History as the South’s Oldest Independent Feminist Bookstore

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Contributed by Dartricia Rollins, Visiting Librarian for Oral History at Emory University, Rose Library, and former Assistant Director of Charis Books and More.

With support from the Mary Lily Research Travel Grant program, I visited the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, and the Rubenstein Library, to spend time researching the Charis Books and More and Charis Circle collection. This allowed me to extend the digital campaign I started with my co-worker Saisha Gupta in 2023, “You Had to Be There,” into the Charis 50th celebration campaign in 2024, “take root among the stars.”

In early 2023, Saisha and I had the idea to highlight Charis’s history as “women’s history” for Women’s History Month in March. This required the quick and dedicated work of the archivists in the Rubenstein Library to locate and digitize dozens of Charis photos. In that process one photo stood out to us most: Octavia E. Butler, the author of many speculative fiction novels, most famously The Parable of the Sower.

A Black woman is seated at a small table, signing a book. Three Black women wait in line to have their books signed.
Octavia Butler signs copies of her book Blood Child and Other Stories for eager readers at a table in Charis Books and More, Atlanta, GA, c. 1995. From the Charis Books and More and Charis Circle records, Rubenstein Library.

One thing to know about one of Charis’s current co-owners, Sara Look, is that Sara has the longest history with Charis, is meticulous, and likes to be accurate! So, when we tried to narrow down the dates for when Butler visited Charis, this became a year-long question.

I promise I am going somewhere with this.

This is what we knew for sure: Sara had in her possession a copy of Kindred: The 25th Anniversary edition, signed to Charis and we had photographic evidence of Butler being present in the store, but no date on the photo. Even after a phone call to co-founder Linda Bryant no one could remember the year, let alone the exact date of when the photo was taken. So, we decided that it was in the early 2000s based on the signed book.

When Sara and I visited the archives at the end of August 2024, our goal was to find photos of the many people who have contributed their love and talents to Charis over the years. We wanted to reflect on the almost 50 years of programming that has made Charis one of the most important queer and feminist cultural institutions in the South, and we wanted to share these memories and images back with not only the staff but the community in the form of postcards as keepsakes at our 50th celebration in November 2024.

What we found was that and so much more! As we pored over the hundreds of program flyers we found one that dated Octavia E. Butler’s first visit in 1995 in celebration of her book Blood Child and Other Stories! Discovering the 1995 Blood Child program flyer was exciting because it answered our question about Butler’s first visit to Charis and reinforced our decision to use the quote from Parable of the Sower as our 50th anniversary theme. But it also amplified the story we wanted to tell about our 50th theme: “take root among the stars,” a quote which comes from Butler’s prescient novel Parable of the Sower.

“We chose this invocation from Butler because it dares us to change the world. It dares us to struggle through scarcity and collapse, to build community with the tools available to us, and to imagine a future that is only possible with our people alongside us” (From Charis Turns 50).

My visit to the archive reminded me that our past is very much connected to our future and that it is always a good time to riffle through old documents as we fortify ourselves for our tomorrow. This photo is now part of the Charis lore and, “you [really just] had to be there” to get it.

Dispatches from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University