Category Archives: News and Features

Archive of Documentary Arts, Events, From Our Collections, News and Features, RL Scholars, University Archives

old film | new music

Click to enlarge.

Tonight and on December 6th, the Duke New Music Ensemble will be performing new compositions written as soundtracks for films from the Rubenstein Library’s collections. We asked the dnme composers to tell us a little bit about the films they chose and how they inspired their compositions. For more details about the performances, visit the group’s Facebook page or click the poster at right to enlarge it.

David Kirkland Garner

The video I chose to use is from H. Lee Water’s “Spindale ’37” film (from the H. Lee Waters Film Collection). I chose the portions of the video having to do with the factory for Yelton’s Flour, opening with footage of the flour refining process from inside the building then turning to the procession of workers leaving the factory at the end of the day. The music I wrote is not meant to be closely synced with the video. Rather, it creates a singular mood for the film images. The music is created in two parts: a repeating groove in the keyboard, bass and 3 banjos and a slowly unfolding melody in the other instruments. At the beginning and end of the piece the ensemble uses percussion instruments to imitate the sounds of summer in rural North Carolina.

Jamie Keesecker

Margolin’s 1965 Hawaii film footage (from the Morris and Dorothy Margolin Film Collection) presents a challenge in that almost every moment captured in the footage comes from a performance that was originally accompanied by music, and the musicians themselves can be seen throughout most of the film. Seeing the musicians strumming guitars and ukeleles in unison is one of the aspects that attracted me to this film. But rather than attempting to recreate the music that would have originally accompanied the images in the video, I have written music that is merely meant to represent my own reactions to seeing the film. At the same time, I have chosen to write for a consort of mostly plucked string instruments similar to those depicted in the video. Musical gestures are at times intended to be synchronized with the musicians on film, and other times not, just as the musical material itself contains hints of Hawaiian tropes while remaining, on the whole, quite different from what would actually have been played by the musicians on film.

D. Edward Davis

My archival footage is of a student protest that occurred at Duke University in 1969 (from the Radio TV Services Records). Despite the “homemade” image quality (or perhaps because of it), the images capture the drama of the protesters in action, with the cameraman acting as a participant and not a spectator. I’m drawn to this film because of its connection with the University’s history, and I tried to mirror the intensity but also the sinister beauty of these images with my music. As students are presently (Nov 2011) involved in “Occupying Duke” in the same physical location as the 1969 protests, I love how the film has both a distant timeless quality and a captivating immediacy. Thanks to the staff of the Archives for preserving this footage and also for making it accessible to researchers and artists.

Vladimir Smirnov

The video I chose was footage of traveling down a river (the Chao Phraya, I presume?) in Bangkok from a collection of travel footage by former Duke Professor Margolin (from the Morris and Dorothy Margolin Film Collection). I myself have never traveled to Thailand, and the video drew me in with its images of a very exotic world and with its slow hypnotic pace. I tried to create a musical atmosphere that the video suggested to me with very gentle and exotic sounds—muted piano, bowed vibes, slow swells on the guitar and bass, flute that is sung into at the same time as it’s played, banjo, and very sparse strings. I didn’t really think too much that I was working with archive film when writing, I just focused on the images and atmosphere.

Kenneth David Stewart

The footage I selected is of the Sarah P. Duke Gardens from 1937 (from the Radio TV Services Records). What moves me about this footage is how striking the color of the flowers appears as captured by the Kodachrome film. It is interesting how this footage from 1937 is just two years after Kodak made this kind of film commercially available—in fact, the famous color scenes in the Wizard of Oz were shot with this same film. This captured color, to me, almost has its own texture independent of the hue itself.

The written music for the instruments is based on the live ensemble playing the role of three choirs simultaneously ‘singing’ different music, but at the same time each contributing to a larger, composite texture. In addition to this, there is an electronic track with supporting harmony and the sounds of a typical journey in the rain from my home to the Biddle Music Building recorded onto microcassette.

The process used to construct the visual narrative is based on whether the camera shot is close to the flowers themselves or farther, panning across the gardens. At the same time a ‘chord progression’ of color directs the footage from yellow to orange to red to pink to white to ivory and back to yellow again to repeat the cycle. None of these textures are more important than another and in this way, the whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.

My mother, a former professional horticulturalist, instilled in me a love of plants and flowers at a young age. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of my mother and I outside planting flowers and vegetables in our family garden. This piece is dedicated to her.

Post contributed by the members of the Duke New Music Ensemble.

From Our Collections, Hartman Center, In the Conservation Lab, News and Features

In the Lab: Scrapbooking for Victory, Part Two

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In 1918, the week of November 11-18 was not only a celebration of the end of World War I, but was coincidentally also a week of massive fundraising by the United War Work Campaign to support troops and boost morale until their work was done.  The scrapbook of posters and pamphlets from the campaign was described previously in the post “Scrapbooking for Victory.”

The scrapbook has been undergoing treatment in the conservation lab for the last couple of months.  As a paper conservator, I’ve been collaborating with book conservator Meg Brown to treat the album’s myriad problems, from the damaged binding to the fragile items glued to the pages.  The scrapbook has been a challenge because of its large size and the awkward folding items it contains.  The conservation problems have required hands-on treatment, lots of brainstorming sessions, and ongoing dialogue with curators to understand how the scrapbook will be used.  It’s a popular item with librarians, professors and researchers, and it’s no surprise; it’s a wonderful book!

Before Treatment: Tears to a Poster in the United War Work Campaign Scrapbook

Meg cleaned, consolidated and relined the spine to make the text block stronger, and she used the spine lining to securely attach the text block to the cover.  I’ve been mending tears and flattening creases in the posters and leaflets, many of which have broken at the folds from handling and from insect attack.  A few of the damaged booklets will be lifted from the pages and housed in pockets for easier, safer access.  The largest poster in the book unfolds to 82 x 41 inches (208 x 104 cm), so I’ve had to commandeer extra table space.  It’s especially useful at times like this to have a table on wheels that adjusts in height!

Grace and a Very Large Poster

When the treatment is finished, a storage box will be made, and the scrapbook will be sent back upstairs to the Rubenstein Library for all to enjoy.

For more photos of the scrapbook, and its restorative sojourn in the Conservation Lab, visit the “United War Work Campaign Scrapbook” set on the Rubenstein Library’s Flickr photostream.

Post contributed by Grace White, Conservator for Special Collections, as part of our ongoing “In the Conservation Lab” series.

From Our Collections, Manuscripts, New at the Rubenstein Library, New Finding Aids, News and Features, Technical Stuff

One for the Refrigerator Door

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Painting by Doris Duke, 1924

Doris Duke—the only daughter of Duke University benefactor James Buchanan Duke and noted philanthropist and patron of the arts—painted this lovely scene in 1924 at the age of eleven. It is part of the Doris Duke Papers, donated to the Rubenstein Library in 2009 by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and now open for public research.

Further details about the extraordinary collection may be found in the official press release, or by reviewing the collection’s finding aid.

Bingham Center, Do Your Research, Franklin Research Center, Hartman Center, News and Features, Travel Grants

Travel Grant Season is Open!

Wish you were here? We do too! The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library is now accepting applications for our 2012-2013 travel grants.

The Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, and the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History will award up to $1,000 per recipient to fund travel and other expenses related to visiting the Rubenstein Library.

The grants are open to undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, independent scholars, artists, and activists living outside a 100-mile radius from Durham, NC with research projects that would benefit from access to the centers’ collections.

More details—and the grant application—may be found on our grants website. Applications must be postmarked or e-mailed no later than 5:00 PM EST on January 31, 2012. Recipients will be announced in March 2012.

Standard Gas Stations Billboard Proof.
Standard Gas Stations Billboard Proof. From the Outdoor Advertising Association of America Archives.

Some of last year’s recipients include:

At the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture:

  • Marika Cifor, a master’s student in History and Library and Information Science at Simmons College, who used the Bingham Center’s lesbian pulp fiction collection for master’s thesis research on the historical relationships of lesbians and prostitutes in the United States, 1869-1969.
  • Jennifer Nelson, Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at University of Redland, visited the Bingham Center to conduct research for a book on community health reform movements from the mid-1960s to the present using the Feminist Women’s Health Center Records.
  • Emily Thuma, a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Race and Gender at University of California, Berkeley is visiting this week for post-doctoral research to revise her dissertation, “Not a Wedge, But a Bridge”: Prisons, Feminist Activism, and the Politics of Gendered Violence, 1968-1987. (Check out this blog post for details about Emily Thuma’s upcoming talk.)

At the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture:

  • Ira Dworkin, Assistant Professor, Department of English and Comparative Literature, The American University in Cairo, for research on African Americans in the Congo, particularly George Washington Williams.
  • Nina Ehrlich, master’s student, Department of History, Colorado State University, for a study of relationships between black and white women during the Civil Rights Movement.
  • Tyler D. Parry, Ph.D. candidate and master’s student, Department of History, University of South Carolina, for dissertation and article exploring slave kinship in the Antebellum South.

At the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History:

  • Leif Frederickson, an independent researcher from Missoula, MT for research on “From Public Pedagogy to Business Branding: The Development of Green Advertising, 1950-1995.”
  • Janet Golden Professor at the Department of History, Rutgers University to research “The History of American Babies.”
  • Laura Phillip, a Ph.D. candidate at the Corcoran Department of History, University of Virginia for research on “Marketing of the Fair Trade Message.”

Post contributed by Kate Collins, Bingham Center intern.

Human Rights Archive, News and Features

The Justice Cascade Receives WOLA-Duke Book Award

Kathryn Sikkink’s ground-breaking book, The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions are Changing World Politics (W.W. Norton), won the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)-Duke University Human Rights Book Award for 2011.

Cover of "The Justice Cascade"Around the world, former government and security force officials accused of human rights crimes are facing prosecutions in unprecedented numbers. In Chile, for example, the number of court cases has sharply increased and now involve the highest ranks of the security forces. Prosecutions have also expanded beyond deaths and disappearances to torture and forced exile.

For Sikkink, Chile is part of what she calls “the justice cascade,” a very new development in world politics. “Only 30 years ago, it was virtually unheard of, almost unimaginable, for a national or international tribunal to hold state officials criminally accountable for human rights violations,” Sikkink notes.

The Justice Cascade opens with a look at Sikkink’s own experience living in Uruguay during its brutal military dictatorship in the 1970s, when few could imagine officers ever being held accountable. She explores the political effects of this change in accountability, emphasizing the need to ensure that prosecutions have their intended impact of long-term justice and respect for human rights.

This year’s panel of judges called The Justice Cascade “compelling” and “eye-opening,” recognizing it for its important contribution to the field of human rights, Latin American studies and accountability.

The chair of the WOLA/Duke Book Award judges committee, Leonor Blum, a professor of History and Political Science at Notre Dame of Maryland University, said Sikkink’s work “shows not only the progress made in bringing human rights violators to justice, but also how such progress can impact subsequent governments and even neighboring countries.”

Fellow judge Holly Ackerman praised Sikkink for her excellent application of comparative political theory and detailed case studies, while keeping the book inviting and understandable. Fellow judge Roger Atwood calls it “an important book that will help the reading public understand an issue that we see every day in the news.”

Sikkink is a Regents Professor and the McKnight Presidential Chair in Political Science at the University of Minnesota.  She has a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University.  Her publications include Mixed Signals: U.S. Human Rights Policy and Latin America; Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (co-authored with Margaret Keck and awarded the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas for Improving World Order, and the ISA Chadwick Alger Award for Best Book in the area of International Organizations); and The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change (co-edited with Thomas Risse and Stephen Ropp).

Started in 2008, the WOLA-Duke Human Rights Book Award is a joint venture of Duke University and WOLA, a leading advocacy organization based in Washington, DC. The award honors the best current, non-fiction book published in English on human rights, democracy, and social justice in contemporary Latin America. The books are evaluated by a panel of expert judges drawn from academia, journalism, and public policy circles.

This year’s judges included:

  • Holly Ackerman, Librarian for Latin America and Iberia, Duke University
  • Roger Atwood, Journalist, Author, and Former Communications Director, WOLA
  • Leonor Blum, WOLA Board Member and Associate Professor, History and Political Science, Notre Dame of Maryland University
  • Robin Kirk, Program Director, Duke Human Rights Center, Duke University
  • Juan Mendez, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment

Previous WOLA-Duke Human Rights Book Award recipients:

  • 2010: Victoria Bruce and Karin Hayes, with Jorge Enrique Botero, for Hostage Nation: Colombia’s Guerrilla Army and America’s Failed War on Drugs (press release)
  • 2009:Ambassador Heraldo Muñoz for The Dictator’s Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet (event blog post)
  • 2008: Francisco Goldman for The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop?

On November 2 at 5:00pm, Sikkink will read from The Justice Cascade in the Rubenstein Library’s Rare Book Room. For more information, visit this blog post about the event.

Do Your Research, From Our Collections, Hartman Center, Manuscripts, News and Features, Rare Books, RL Scholars

Happy North Carolina Archives Week!

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It’s North Carolina Archives Week, a weeklong celebration of North Carolina’s cultural heritage repositories and the wonderful researchers that use them—that’s you!

Stop in, meet your friendly neighborhood special collections librarians, and request some archival collections and rare books—we think you’ll find that the Rubenstein Library has something for everyone! Or check out the North Carolina Archives Week’s website to find more ways to celebrate with cultural history repositories throughout the state.

Need some inspiration? We’ve gathered together a few previously-published blog posts written by our researchers:

We’ll see you in the reading room!

A very fill Rubenstein Library reading room!

From Our Collections, Just for Fun, Manuscripts, News and Features, Renovation

What’s in a Name?

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It’s official! Yesterday, Duke University’s Board of Trustees approved our name change. The Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library is now the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. We’re so excited!

Appleton Oaksmith, ca. 1865. From the Oaksmith Family Photograph Album.
Appleton Oaksmith, ca. 1865. From the Oaksmith Family Photograph Album.

Over the course of the day, we’ll be rolling out changes to our website, finding aids, library catalog records, and, of course, The Devil’s Tale. Look at our new banner! (Incidentally, The Devil’s Tale has a new URL— http://blogs.library.duke.edu/rubenstein/—so you may need to update your feed readers.)

Since we’re reflecting on names, we thought it might be fun to share some of the cool names we’ve come across in our collections. Believe us, this is nowhere near an exhaustive list:

So now we want to ask you: which name is your favorite? Or, if your favorite name isn’t represented here, share it with us in a comment. Or, even better, come visit and help us find some more cool names!

From Our Collections, Instruction, My Rubenstein Library

My RBMSCL: Screen Printed Mural in Perkins

When most people think of screen printing they usually visualize Warhol’s “Marilyn” or an indie rock gig poster or a pastel colored beachscape print, but not many folks know that screen prints can also be found printed directly on walls. This summer I had the opportunity to make a mural on a wall in Perkins library (in a hallway leading to the Gothic Reading Room) using a vertical screen printing technique that I’ve been researching. The project is the culmination of a Collaboration Development Grant from the Duke Council for the Arts. The grant also involved bringing Dutch artist Stefan Hoffmann to Duke to share his highly-developed vertical screen printing methods with me; students; staff; and Duke Art, Art History and Visual Studies professor Merrill Shatzman.

Bill Fick's Screen Printed Mural
Close-Up of Bill Fick's Mural

Beyond applying newly developed vertical screen printing techniques, the mural also gave me the opportunity to take advantage, and bring attention, to the RBMSCL’s Edwin and Terry Murray Comic Book Collection. In the past four years I’ve been using the Murray Collection as a teaching tool and resource for my Art of the Comic Book and Zines class. The mural design used appropriated images taken from an assortment of comics found in the collection. These included Marge’s Little Lulu and Tubby, Classics Illustrated – The Black Tulip, The Mark of Zorro and Walt Disney’s Donald Duck. I also used images taken from books found in the Lilly Library comics and graphic novels section (A Steve Ditko monograph and Love and Rockets, New Stories No. 1 by the Hernandez brothers). The images ranged from faces/heads to a standing figure to a tulip flower. I really wasn’t thinking about content but more about interesting shapes and forms—although I did use some text that related to the location of the piece.

The concept for the mural was to make a colorful and active design that used pop culture and street art/graffiti strategies (practiced by contemporary artists like Shepard Fairey, Faile, and Bäst and pioneered by artists like Polke, Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein, and Warhol). This included layering, repetition, and patterning, which can be easily implemented using the vertical screen printing method—one image per screen applied to the wall over and over again. This method also yields unexpected relationships between content and shapes that I find very exciting. The viewer can make their own narrative or allow it to be purely decorative. For this reason, the mural is untitled.

For more information about this project and other vertical screen printing information go to www.verticalscreenprinting.com.

Post contributed by Bill Fick, Visiting Assistant Professor of the Practice of Visual Arts. Thanks to Will Hansen, Assistant Curator of Collections, for coordinating this post.