Beyond the Reading Room

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.

How did prominent east coast poets like Allen Ginsberg, Ted Berrigan, and Anne Waldman end up contributing their work to The Alternative Press, a small press based in Michigan? It all started with John Sinclair.

According to Giorgio Vasari’s biographies, The Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Architects, Painters, and Sculptors, Leonardo da Vinci died on May 2, 1519. As museums around the world are commemorating the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo with various exhibits, we would like to join the celebrations of Leonardo’s legacy by highlighting our copies of some early printed editions of his Trattato della Pittura (Treatise on Painting).

Join filmmaker Nancy Savoca at a symposium celebrating her career on Friday, May 10. The symposium will include several panels, an exhibit opening, and film screenings.

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.