Posts by Juli McLoone

Join us online this Thursday 18 November at 7 pm EST for a virtual walk through a selection of artists' books preserved in the Special Collections Research Center!

Join us online next Thursday, 14 October at 11 am EDT for the next event in the series Virtual Encounters in Book History -- "Nineteenth Century Fashion in Print: Masculine Intimacy, Feminine Historical Consciousness, and Ephemerality in Commodity Culture"

Join the Special Collections Research Center on February 9, at 4:00pm, for the second of our Winter 2021 After Hours events: "Broadside and Lotus: Black-Owned Presses in Detroit." Please register at the link provided in the blog post below.

The Special Collections Research Center holds a large collection of works by Cuban book artist Rolando Estévez, including many books that he designed during his time with Ediciones Vigía and examples of those published under his own imprint, El Fortín, established in 2014. A new book from the University of Florida Press explores Estévez' impact as artistic director of Ediciones Vigía from 1985-2014.

The Special Collections Research Center is pleased to announce a new online exhibit: A Menagerie of Animal Tales, curated by students in Dr. Lisa Makman’s English 313 course: Children’s Literature and the Invention of Modern Childhood.

Join Special Collections today for a Great Lakes Theme Semester event at 3pm in Room 660D. Dr. Elizabeth Goodenough of the Residential College will give a presentation exploring the landscapes of the Great Lakes as they shape the lives of children, writers, and illustrators. Also, from 4-6pm tomorrow, stop by Special Collections After Hours in the open study space adjacent to the 6th floor Reading Room. A wide range of published and archival material from Michigan children's literature authors and illustrators will be on display. Light refreshments will be served.

The Special Collections Research Center announces a new exhibit, Other Crusoes, Other Islands: Mapping a Complex Legacy. On the 300th anniversary of the publication of The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, this exhibit interrogates the troubled legacy of Daniel Defoe’s seminal English novel. It also explores how creators have pushed back against the colonialist, hyper-masculine, and racist ethos of the text by using the castaway narrative to explore self-sufficiency, otherness, and the role of gendered and racialized ideas in constructing the self.

Earlier this month, Special Collections was pleased to host WEMU news reporter Jorge Avellan as he researched a story for their "Hidden in Plain Sight" program, featuring Malinda Russell's A Domestic Cook Book. This unpreposessing little 39-page booklet in faded paper wrappers is one of the greatest treasures of the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive. Published in Paw Paw, Michigan in 1866, A Domestic Cook Book is the only known copy of the oldest known cookbook published by an African American.

In honor of Pi Day, we offer no less than five lemon pies from the Day Nursery Association's 1924 Cook Book, published in Richmond, Indiana. Read on and judge for yourself whether Mrs. Fred Pollitz, Mrs. Thomas Nicholson, Mrs. A.H. Wilson, Mrs. George Eggemeyer, or Mrs. George Fox would win the blue ribbon for lemon pie.

The Special Collections Research Center is pleased to announce a new exhibit: What Are Little Books Made Of? Visit the Special Collections Exhibit Gallery in our 6th floor space (660J Hatcher South) to see children's books printed on cotton, linen, and linenette from February 5 - March 22, 2019.