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Spring 2013 Exhibits at the BUL
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The Festive City Now through July 14, 2013 Buonanno Works on Paper & Tsiaris Photography Galleries, RISD Museum of Art Come see The Festive City, on view at the RISD Museum of Art, featuring materials from the Brown University Library’s Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, the RISD Museum, and the collection of Vincent J. Buonanno (Brown ’66). The exhibition features prints and books that record how cities were transformed by the urban festivals of early modern Europe. The Festive City originated in an undergraduate seminar taught at Brown in Spring 2012. It was co-curated by RISD curator Emily Peters and Brown University professor Evelyn Lincoln. Students working with Professor Andries van Dam collaborated with the RISD Museum graphics and computing staff and used Microsoft Surface technology to make pages of the festival books available to viewers. Persian Paintings from the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection Now through May 10, 2013 John Hay Library, Bopp Seminar Room (3rd Floor) Accompanying the course “What is Islamic Art” with instructor Shiva Balaghi, selections from the Library’s Special Collections, including 10 illuminated gouache miniatures depicting military scenes and leaves from illuminated manuscripts, are on display. Stop by to examine these unique, historical works. 2013: Verdi Year Wagner Year Now through late-May 2013 Orwig Music Library The year 2013 is the 200th anniversary of two of the most central nineteenth-century opera composers: Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner. Although they never met and their lives took very different courses, each came to be emblematic of the national music of their home countries: Wagner and Germany, Verdi and Italy. Modern reinterpretations of their operas have stretched the limits of human imagination, and remain critically controversial. In this exhibit, Orwig celebrates its collections relating to both of these composers, highlighting the acquisition of a new Tristan und Isolde facsimile manuscript in December 2012. Centennial Images: The Balkan Wars, 1912–1913 February 18 – May 10, 2013 John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, Foyer Prints and watercolors of military scenes from the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 will be on view in the Foyer of the Rock. Make sure to take a firsthand peek at these special materials from the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection. You can also explore the collections online. Stamps of the European Microstates: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, & Vatican City February 25 – May 18, 2013 John Hay Library, Military Collection Gallery (3rd Floor) Stop by the galleries on the third floor of the John Hay Library to view a display of European stamps from the Webster Knight and Champlin Stamp Collections. While you’re there, make sure to explore the permanent exhibit of 5,000 miniature military soldiers. The soldiers are set in 96 cases marching from left to right, starting with ancient Egyptians and leading up to Queen Elizabeth II. A Picture of Avant-Garde Russia: The Rite of Spring and the Ballets Russes in 1913, Selections from the Bryson Dance Collection Monday, March 4 – May 31, 2013 John Hay Library, Gammell Gallery This year marks the 100th anniversary of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, a work commissioned for the Ballets Russes in Paris. With the music, choreography, sets and costumes all designed by Russian artists on a Russian theme, and the production under the direction of the renowned Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev, the Rite of Spring gave Paris a taste of modernism in a distinctively Russian key. This Spring exhibition celebrates the artistic innovations of the Rite with a selection of works illuminating the original Paris production of 1913, drawn from the Brown University Library’s Bryson Dance Collection. This exhibit is one of a series of events taking place in Rhode Island this spring to mark the FirstWorks presentation of the Joffrey Ballet’s recreation of the original ballet; the Joffrey’s performance will take place on March 19th at the Providence Performing Arts Center. Also included in the series of events is a public discussion at the Providence Athenaeum on March 1st of the political and cultural context from which the Rite of Spring grew.Contact: Jennifer Braga | 401-863-6913
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Remember to Stay Positive
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Yesterday, someone decorated the Rockefeller Library with dozens of sticky notes. Each of these notes had a positive affirmation. The first one I saw simply said, “You are beautiful.”
Notes were found on the rotating doors of the entrance, the railings leading up to the second floor, the lobby food stand, the bathrooms, and the stacks.
Today, most of the sticky notes are gone. A few may linger in the hidden nooks and crannies of the library, but even if you don’t get a chance to spot one in person, remember to stay positive about your abilities as a human.
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Screening of Lincoln (2012) and Q&A with Michael Vorenberg
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Providence, RI [Brown University] – The Brown University Library, the Office of Public Affairs and University Relations, and the Center for the Study of Slavery & Justice will host a complimentary public screening of DreamWorks’ LINCOLN on March 1, 2013, in belated celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday and the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. The screening, which will be followed by a Q&A with Michael Vorenberg, Associate Professor of History at Brown, and author of Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment, will begin at 5:30pm in The Martinos Auditorium at the Granoff Center, 154 Angell St. This event is open to the public. Seating is limited and tickets are required. Seats will be held for ticketed attendees until 5:20pm on March 1, at which point remaining seats will be released to patrons at the door on a first-come, first-serve basis. Reserve your tickets today.Steven Spielberg directs two-time Academy Award® winner Daniel Day-Lewis in “Lincoln,” a revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President’s tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook and Tommy Lee Jones, “Lincoln” is produced by Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, with a screenplay by Tony Kushner, based in part on the book “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” by Doris Kearns Goodwin. As Spielberg explains, “I wanted to tell a story about Lincoln that would avoid the mistakes of both cynicism and hero worship and be true to the vastness of who he was and the intimacy of his life and the softer angles of his nature.” For Goodwin Lincoln’s humanity was key, “It was really important to me that Lincoln’s sense of humor come across in the movie and that was built into the script and Daniel’s performance.” Kushner, who described writing the screenplay as “an act of interpretation,” worked to appropriately portray the emergency powers which Lincoln claimed during the war noting that “Unquestionably, Lincoln stretched the balance of powers in unprecedented ways–but out of necessity as he saw it to prosecute the war effectively and hold the Union together. Occasionally, I think he went beyond where he was sure the courts would follow. These are further questions of means and ends that are very much at the heart of the film we’ve made.” LINCOLN has received 12 Academy Award® nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Daniel Day Lewis), Best Supporting Actress (Sally Field) and Best Supporting Actor (Tommy Lee Jones).
Michael Vorenberg, who will host the Q&A following the screening, is an Associate Professor of History at Brown, with specific interests in the intersections of American history: Civil War and Reconstruction, Legal and Constitutional History, and Slavery, Emancipation, and Race. His first book, Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment was published by Cambridge University Press in 2001. He is also the author of The Emancipation Proclamation: A Brief History with Documents, forthcoming, and is at work on a book about the impact of the Civil War on American citizenship. He received his A.B. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. From 2004 to 2007, he was a member of Brown University’s Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. He currently is a member of the Advisory Committee of the United States Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial and is on the Board of Editors of Law and History Review.
For those interested in researching Lincoln, Brown University’s John Hay Library is home to the largest Lincoln collection in an academic library. The Charles Woodberry McLellan Collection of Lincolniana is comprised of 30,000+ items by and about Abraham Lincoln, and about the historical and political context of his life and career, chiefly the U.S. Civil War and its causes and aftermath. The collection was acquired for Brown by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Class of 1897, and others, in memory of John Hay, Class of 1858, one of Lincoln’s White House secretaries (featured in LINCOLN). The collection, which has since increased to more than five times its original size, includes almost 1,000 letters, notes, and documents in Lincoln’s hand; thousands of volumes of contemporary and later publications relating to the Civil War and the slavery controversy; titles of books that Lincoln read; material relating to Lincoln’s family and associates; song sheets, broadsides, ballots, prints, and posters; newspapers from 1860-1865; most of the known photographs of Lincoln; oil portraits by artists of Lincoln’s day; original drawings; statues; over 550 medals, mourning and campaign badges; coins; and postage stamps. High quality digital surrogates of collections materials are also available online, along with contextual information including essays, timelines, biographies, and historical vignettes.
The Brown University Library is home to more than 6.8 million print items, plus a multitude of electronic resources and expanding digital archives serving the teaching, research, and learning needs of Brown students and faculty, as well as scholars from around the country and the world. http://library.brown.edu/
Contact: Jennifer Braga | 401-863-6913
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