Brown University Library News

Curated by Ana Catarina Teixeira and Patricia Figueroa in collaboration with Prof. Nelson Vieira April 15 – June 5, 2008 John Hay Library 20 Prospect Street, Providence, Rhode Island 02912 Sponsored by the Department of Portuguese & Brazilian Studies and the Center for Latin American Studies. To both Brazilian and international critics, Machado de Assis is a name that stands alone in 19th century Latin American fiction. Born on the 21st of June 1839 in Rio de Janeiro to a father of African ancestry and a Portuguese mother, Machado de Assis, as an autodidact, rose above humble beginnings and a meager education to achieve the highest status of his country’s literary establishment. During his prolific career, Machado explored nearly every genre–poetry, theater, journalism, literary criticism, and translation–but it was as a novelist and a short story writer that Machado forged a narrative voice that would forever impact the literary topography of his nation. At a time when European models dominated, Machado rejected pure imitation and explored new ways to represent Brazilian society. In 1908, at the age of 69, Machado de Assis died in his native city, leaving behind a legacy of short stories and novels, which mordantly criticized Brazil’s insensitive upper middle class and elites with the use of subtle irony and well-crafted ambiguity. The masterful manner in which Machado created his memorable characters not only allows his readers, then and now, to better comprehend the realities of Brazilian society, but above all, the complexities of the human condition. This unprecedented contribution not only placed Brazilian literature on the literary map, but also paved the way for the “new novel” in 20th century Portuguese and Spanish America. This year, Brown Univertsity Library joins the literary community to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Machado’s death with a display of early criticism of Machado’s works, donated by Professor William Leonard Grossman. The materials selected highlight not only the vast array of responses by his contemporaries, but also reveal insights into the timeless and universal nature of his prose in an attempt to help the audience gain a glimpse of Machado, the man and the writer, as a source of inspiration for an exponentially growing corpus of literary criticism. The Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies is proud to co-sponsor this exhibit on Machado de Assis since his writing is an integral part of the undergraduate and graduate curriculum. Image source: cover from “Machado de Assis” by Augusto Corrêa Pinto. Rio de Janeiro: Irmãos Pongetti, 1958. John Hay Library.

April 17, 2008
Location: Rockefeller Library, Second Floor Computer Cluster
Time: 5:00 – 6:30 p.m.

Please join us for a networked performance by John Cayley, Visiting Professor of Literary Arts. Mr. Cayley’s performance will be accompanied by a reception. Come hear the Rockefeller Library “sing” as part of the kick-off for “Transforming the Student’s Experience as Scholar,” a symposium cosponsored by the Brown University Library and the Council on Library and Information Resources.
For more information on Mr. Cayley’s piece visit: http://programmatology.shadoof.net/?imposition
For more information visit: http://blogs.brown.edu/project/libnews/archives/2008/04/transforming_th.html

The Brown University Library and the Council on Library and Information Resources will host leading scholars from around the country for a symposium on scholarly methods in the Humanities. The event will kick off with an installation of an electronic work, “imposition,” by John Cayley, Visiting Professor of Literary Arts, and a reception on Thursday evening, April 17, in the Rockefeller Library. The symposium, sponsored by CLIR (the Council on Library and Information Resources) will be held on Friday, April 18, at the Watson Institute for International Studies and will feature presentations by Randy Bass, Georgetown University, Bernard Frischer, University of Virginia, and Christopher Dede, Harvard University. The program will close with a panel discussion on the impact of multi-literacies on transforming the student’s experience as scholar, with Brown faculty members and students including Dietrich Neumann, Professor of Art and Architecture, Susan Smulyan, Associate Professor of American Civilizations, James Der Derian, Professor of International Studies, and Professor Cayley.

“The first shots of the information revolution may have been fired over a decade ago, but we are still grappling with what the tremendous advances in technology mean to scholarly life,” said Harriette Hemmasi, Joukowsky Family University Librarian. “This symposium builds on Brown’s culture of interdisciplinary, active learning, enabling an environment where students partner with faculty to probe questions at the center and edges of academic inquiry. Brown faculty members were among the first to explore cutting edge technologies and to incorporate humanities computing into their teaching and research. This meeting of minds will help take stock of how far we’ve come and where we need to go to better prepare our students for a rapidly changing world and to unlock their potential as life-long scholars.”

For a complete itinerary of events see below:
Symposium Kick-Off, April 17, 2008, Location: Rockefeller Library, Second Floor Computer Cluster
“imposition”: a networked performance, Time: 5:00 – 6:30 p.m.
Abstract: A networked performance by John Cayley, Visiting Professor of Literary Arts. Mr. Cayley’s performance will be accompanied by a reception. For more information about Mr. Cayley’s piece, see: http://programmatology.shadoof.net/?imposition.

Symposium, April 18, 2008
TRANSFORMING THE STUDENT’S EXPERIENCE AS SCHOLAR
CLIR Symposium on Scholarly Methods in the Humanities
Location: Joukowsky Room, Watson Institute for International Studies
Introductions: Harriette Hemmasi, Joukowsky Family University Librarian
Comments: Chuck Henry, President, Council on Library and Information Resources
9:00-9:30 a.m.
“The Invention of Amateurs and the Uncertainty of Expertise”
Speaker: Randy Bass, Assistant Provost for Teaching and Learning Initiatives and Associate Professor, English, Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS), Georgetown University
Time:9:30-10:30 a.m.
Abstract: How might multi-literacies change the way we develop digital scholars and scholarship? We would do worse than look to the convergence of two seemingly unrelated sources of insight: the changing role of invention in the era of the “amateur upload” and the rising importance of ideas like “uncertainty” in the research on expertise and expert learning. This session will explore some ways that the future of digital media asks us to reconsider a whole range of ideas that have become marginalized in higher education: creativity, visual communication, narrative, even emotion. Reckoning with the future of digital scholarship–and the intellectual development of students to prepare for it– may mean confronting some of our long-held assumptions about learning and knowledge.
Break
Time:10:30-10:45 a.m.
“Making Heritage Virtual: Rome Reborn 1.0 and Other 3D Modeling Projects at the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities”
Speaker: Bernard Frischer, Director, Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, University of Virginia
Time: 11:00 a.m. -12:00 p.m.
Abstract: This talk will discuss methodologies and technologies used to digitize 3D cultural property such as pottery, statues, buildings and even entire cities. Current projects at IATH will be used as examples, including Virtual Williamsburg, the Digital Forma Urbis Project, and Rome Reborn 1.0. The focus of the talk will be on the latter–an international initiative to create 3D computer models illustrating the urban development of Rome from the first settlement in the late Bronze Age to the depopulation of the city in the sixth century A.D. Rome Reborn 1.0, the first results of the overall project, shows the city as it might have appeared in 320 A.D. In the conclusion, new directions and challenges in this field will be discussed, including populating models of buildings and cities with people and their activities; using models as tools for discovery (and not simply as illustrations of previous knowledge); and the online collection and dissemination of real-time 3D models on the Internet.
Lunch
Time: 12:00-1:30 p.m.
“Learning about Research and Vice Versa”
Speaker: Christopher Dede, Timothy E. Wirth Professor of Learning Technologies, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University
Time: 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Abstract: Web 2.0 interactive media — such as wikis, social tagging tools, and virtual environments – capture rich records of students’ behaviors that are valuable for both learning and assessment. In studying their own and peers’ patterns of performance, students can potentially gain insights both about their own cognitive and social processes and about the practices and epistemology of academic scholarship. This session describes several types of tools that illustrate this potential.
Roundtable discussion
Speakers: Panel of Brown faculty and students including Professors John Cayley, James Der Derian, Dietrich Neumann, Susan Smulyan
Time: 2:30-4:00 p.m.
Closing comments
Time: 4:00-4:30 p.m.