Beyond the Reading Room

Join us tomorrow for our November Special Collections After Hours open house! November is Native American Heritage Month, and in recognition we will be displaying a collection of documents related to the histories, identities, and resistance to colonization of the indigenous peoples of North America.

I recently came across this sixteenth-century introductory manual designed to teach Christian biblical scholars how to read and understand works in Hebrew and other Oriental languages without punctuation and stress marks. But what makes our copy remarkable is that the names of well-known Protestant scholars, and other infidels, have been carefully crossed out, that is, expurgated, following the Inquisition's recommendations to censor authors considered heretical according to the teachings of the Church of Rome.

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.

We are pleased to announce our fall line-up of open houses in our Special Collections After Hours series! On the second Tuesday of each month during the academic year, we display themed selections from our collections. All are welcome to stop by any time between 4-6pm to explore our collections, enjoy light refreshments and chat with staff.

The Special Collections Research Center is pleased to announce a new exhibit, Circulating the Avant-Garde: Aesthetic Counter-Publics in the Little Magazines, 1890-1920. This exhibit was curated by Kayla Grant, PhD candidate in English literature.

When searching for manuscripts of Hrabanus Maurus' medieval encyclopedia De rerum naturis (On the Natures of Things) in the database Digital Scriptorium, I came across a leaf fragment held at Columbia University Libraries (Plimpton MS 128 ) which, in terms of its handwriting and style of illumination, was clearly connected to a leaf fragment held at the University of Michigan Library (Mich. Ms. f. 14).

In early April, we welcomed conservator and researcher Cheryl Porter to campus for a lecture and 3-day workshop. In this post, Marieka Kaye (U-M Library Head of Conservation & Book Repair) offers us an overview of the workshop which explored the colors used by artists working in the Islamic and European traditions of the medieval era.

The Special Collection Research Center recently acquired an early Japanese astronomy book titled 天経或問 (Japanese: Tenkei wakumon; Chinese: Tianjing huowen:"Questions and Answers on Astronomy"). Printed in 1730 in Tōkyō, it was a republication of a Chinese astronomy work supplemented with Japanese reading marks. Chinese Studies Librarian Liangyu Fu introduces us to this new acquisition.

The Special Collections Research Center is thrilled to announce the opening of our latest exhibit, “A Revolution Worth Having: Emma Goldman at 150,” on view from June 3rd to August 1st. This exhibit pays tribute to one of the most distinctive figures represented in our collection, and is dedicated to the memory of the friends and comrades who have nourished and sustained the relationship between Emma and the Labadie Collection over the years.

The Special Collections Research Center is pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibit, Divide & Clothe: Illustrating Fashion in Nineteenth-Century Europe. The exhibit was curated by Isabelle Gillet and Courtney Wilder, two PhD candidates in History of Art. Please join us at 4:30pm on Tuesday, June 11 for a lecture and reception in the Hatcher Gallery.