UC Black Women on the Move and UC Libraries Co-Sponsoring “Sister Speak Published Edition” Feb. 21

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Come out Thursday, Feb. 21, 6-8pm, at the African American Cultural & Resource Center and be inspired by the stories of black women authors as they share insight on their journey to becoming published.  This event is free and open to the public. This event is sponsored by UC Black Women on the Move and the University of Cincinnati Libraries.  To RSVP, or for more information, contact Ewaniki Moore-Hawkins at mooreek@ucmail.uc.edu.

Light refreshments will be served.  The panelists’ books will be available for purchase.

Sister Speak flyer

 

 

Greeks and Romans — Happy Valentine!

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Something to read and ponder on this most lovable day

The love of a man as passionately expressed by Roman poet Catullus (and to the delight of all school children studying Latin)

https://www.loebclassics.com/view/catullus-poems/1913/pb_LCL006.7.xml?result=1&rskey=Fz5uL7

“…da mi basia mille, deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum dein, cum milia multa fecerimus, conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus, aut nequis malus invidere possit, cum tantum sciat esse basiorum…” (5)

“…give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand, then a second hundred, then yet another thousand, then a hundred. Then, when we have made up many thousands, we will confuse our counting, that we may not know the reckoning, nor any malicious person blight them with evil eye, when he knows that our kisses are so many…”

The love of a woman as expressed by the greatest of the Ancient Greek lyric poets, Sappho

https://www.loebclassics.com/view/sappho-fragments/1982/pb_LCL142.79.xml?mainRsKey=v1YYtJ&result=2&rskey=i9iJXE

“…ὠς γὰρ ἔς σ᾿ἴδω βρόχε᾿, ὤς με φώναισ᾿ οὐδ᾿ ἒν ἔτ᾿εἴκει, ἀλλὰ κὰμ μὲν γλῶσσᾴ <μ> ἔαγε, λέπτονδ᾿ αὔτικα χρῷ πῦρ ὐπαδεδρόμηκεν, ὀππάτεσσι δ᾿οὐδ᾿ ἒν ὄρημμ᾿, ἐπιρρόμβεισι δ᾿ἄκουαι, κὰδ δέ μ᾿ἴδρως κακχέεται, τρόμος δὲπαῖσαν ἄγρει, χλωροτέρα δὲποίας ἔμμι…” (frag. 31.7-14).

“…for when I look at you for a moment, then it is no longer possible for me to speak; my tongue has snapped, at once a subtle fire has stolen beneath my flesh, I see nothing with my eyes, my ears hum, sweat pours from me, a trembling seizes me all over, I am greener than grass…”

The touching love of a dog in Homer’s Odyssey

https://www.loebclassics.com/view/homer-odyssey/1919/pb_LCL105.175.xml?mainRsKey=TOKAcJ&result=1&rskey=vLoZ2S

“…ἂν δὲ κύων κεφαλήν τε καὶ οὔατα κείμενος ἔσχεν, Ἄργος, Ὀδυσσῆος ταλασίφρονος…  ἔνθα κύων κεῖτ᾿ Ἄργος, ἐνίπλειος κυνοραιστέων. δὴ τότε γ᾿, ὡς ἐνόησεν Ὀδυσσέα ἐγγὺς ἐόντα οὐρῇ μέν ῥ᾿ ὅ γ᾿ἔσηνε καὶ οὔατα κάββαλεν ἄμφω, ἆσσον δ᾿οὐκέτ᾿ ἔπειτα δυνήσατο οἷο ἄνακτοςἐλθέμεν…” (17. 290-291; 302-304).

“…and a dog that lay there raised his head and pricked up his ears, Argus, steadfast Odysseus’ dog… There lay the dog Argus, full of dog ticks. But now, when he became aware that Odysseus was near, he wagged his tail and dropped both ears, but nearer to his master he had no longer strength to move…”

The love of a cow for her newborn calf when he is brutally taken away to be sacrificed in Lucretius 

https://www.loebclassics.com/view/lucretius-de_rerum_natura/1924/pb_LCL181.123.xml?rskey=phideb&result=1

“…nam saepe ante deum vitulus delubra decora turicremas propter mactatus concidit aras, sanguinis expirans calidum de pectore flumen; at mater viridis saltus orbata peragrans quaerit humi pedibus vestigia pressa bisulcis, omnia convisens oculis loca si queat usquam conspicere amissum fetum, completque querellis frondiferum nemus adsistens et crebra revisit ad stabulum desiderio perfixa iuvenci; nec tenerae salices atque herbae rore vigentes fluminaque illa queunt summis labentia ripis oblectare animum subitamque avertere curam, nec vitulorum aliae species per pabula laeta derivare queunt animum curaque levare: usque adeo quiddam proprium notumque requirit…” (2.352-366).

“…for often in front of the noble shrines of the gods a calf falls slain beside the incense-burning altars, breathing up a hot stream of blood from his chest; but the mother, bereaved, wanders through the green glens, and knows the prints marked on the ground by the cloven hooves, as she surveys all the regions if she may espy somewhere her lost offspring, and coming to a stand fills the leafy woods with her moaning, and often revisits the stall pierced with yearning for her young calf; nor can tender willow-growths, and grass growing rich in the dew, and those rivers flowing level with their banks, give delight to her mind and rebuff that care which has entered there, nor can the sight of other calves in the happy pastures divert her mind and lighten her load of care: so persistently she seeks for something of her own that she knows well…”

The love of nature longingly expressed by Vergil in Eclogue 1

https://www.loebclassics.com/view/virgil-eclogues/1916/pb_LCL063.29.xml?mainRsKey=z6gF20&result=2&rskey=9aEESD

“…fortunate senex, hic inter flumina notaet fontis sacros frigus captabis opacum. hinc tibi, quae semper, vicino ab limite saepes Hyblaeis apibus florem depasta salicti saepe levi somnum suadebit inire susurro; hinc alta sub rupe canet frondator ad auras: nec tamen interea raucae, tua cura, palumbes, nec gemere aëria cessabit turtur ab ulmo” (Ecl. 1.51-58).

“…happy old man! Here, amid familiar streams and sacred springs, you shall enjoy the cooling shade. On this side, as of old, on your neighbor’s border, the hedge whose willow blossoms are sipped by Hybla’s bees shall often with its gentle hum soothe you to slumber; on that, under the towering rock, the woodman’s song shall fill the air; while still the cooing wood pigeons, your pets, and the turtle dove shall cease not their moaning from the elm tops.”

One of the many rather twisted love stories in Ovid’s Metamorphoses — Pyramus and Thisbe, Apollo and Daphne, Orpheus and Eurydice and countless others

https://www.loebclassics.com/view/ovid-metamorphoses/1916/pb_LCL042.3.xml?rskey=XVZ0kK&result=3 

That of Cupid (Eros) himself (and Psyche) in Apuleius 

https://www.loebclassics.com/view/apuleius-metamorphoses/1989/pb_LCL044.259.xml?result=2&rskey=4iNfhs

Happy Reading!

Berg Fashion Library

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Fashion Design Students!

Please check out the Berg Fashion Library

Its amazing features include:

  • Reference works including the 10-volume Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, A–Z of Fashion, and The Dictionary of Fashion History
  • More than 100 academic eBooks
  • An invaluable museum directory
  • Over 13,000 color images from prestigious partners such as the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, Mode Museum, and the Commercial Pattern Archive
  • Unique exhibition archive, which showcases images from historic exhibitions from museums around the world, including the Museum at Fashion Institute of Technology and Somerset House

 

The Bizarre Valentine Postcards of R.F. Outcault

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By:  Kevin Grace

Postcard showing little boy crying and dogs looking onThe children are either drawn as freckle-faced street urchins or as the clean-smocked offspring of the hoity-toity.  The animals – a parrot, typically dogs – look on quizzically or crack wise.  And the occasion being Valentine’s Day, the messages are about the lovelorn and the hopeful.  These are the early 20th century postcards drawn by Richard Felton Outcault, a pioneer of the modern newspaper comic strip who gave America such literary figures as Buster Brown and The Yellow Kid.   And advertising being Richard Felton Outcaultwhat it was (and is), Buster and the Kid gave us books, shoes, coin banks, calendars, clocks, pencils, puzzles, and all manner of geegaws, selling the country on the all-American pastime of buying stuff.

But the postcards deviated from the overall merchandising a bit, although Outcault’s newspaper employers and their agents certainly generated a lot of them.  The holiday cards were something a little different, a reflection of the artist’s own attitudes to his comic Postcard showing girl kissing boy with the words, "O! Will I be your Valentine?creations.  R.F. Outcault was born in 1863, hailing from Lancaster, Ohio.  He came to Cincinnati in 1878 to attend the McMicken School of Design – which is now the Cincinnati Art Academy, though the University of Cincinnati certainly traces part of its heritage as well to the McMicken school, so in effect Outcault is a UC alumnus.  He graduated in 1881 and began his employment as a painter of bucolic scenes in the massive safes constructed by the Hall Safe and Lock Company.  Growing in local reputation, Outcault managed to land a job with the 1888 centennial industrial exposition in Cincinnati, one of the many local product fairs held in the 19th century, and which were begun as an outlet of the Ohio Mechanics Institute, founded in Child asking for a Valentine with parrot looking on1828 and now part of the University of Cincinnati’s College of Engineering and Applied Science.  At the exposition he painted scenes for Thomas Edison’s electric light displays, parlaying that into a career on the east coast with trade magazines.  Incidentally, while Edison was a telegraph operator in 1860s Cincinnati, he frequented the OMI library for his reading pleasure.

By 1894, Outcault was drawing cartoons for newspapers and magazines, particularly the New Postcard with the words "This is February 14" showing a girl and a dogYork World, the New York Journal, Judge, and the New York Herald.  It was during this time that he created his first famous character of his “Hogan’s Alley” cartoon, the Yellow Kid.  By 1902, R.F. introduced his famous Buster Brown and his faithful terrier, Tige.  And, his personal style of using panels and dialogue balloons became a standard in cartooning.

A boy in uniform giving a girl a Valentine's cardBut those strange Valentine cards?  They are unlike the sweet and lovey-dovey kids’ valentines of the late 20th century.  Instead, there is an edge to Outcault’s art, a bit of an insult here and there, and more rejection than true love.  In a way, they are an outgrowth of the so-called “Vinegar Valentines” of Victorian America.  Vinegar valentines Postcard with a girl and boy and the words "I adore you"were sarcastic and insulting, greetings designed to reject the offers of true love.  Competing with true romantic valentines, these little missives of misanthropy usually were sent anonymously to those one disliked, be they flirtatious bachelors or suffragists.   Outcault’s cards resemble them in a natural progression, one supposes, from invective to just strange little takes on the whole idea of Valentine’s Day.

Postcard with the words, "I'm thinking, thinking all the time. Of my heart's best love, my valentine." Showing young man and dogFor R.F. Outcault, his valentine postcards were done in his typical style and represent another aspect of what was a long and productive cartooning career.  Retiring from the hubbub of daily newspaper work, he spent the last decade of his life quietly painting and died in 1928.

 

A Jacobite Jukebox: Historical Narratives Preserved in Song

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By: McKenna Corey, ARB Intern

It was hard for me to really conceptualize the true narrative power of song until I was reorganizing the Virginius C. Hall Jacobite Collection this week. As I was arranging a stack of books, I saw one that caught my eye. The spine read: The Scottish Jacobites and Their Songs and Music. Written in 1899 by Thomas Newbigging, the book recounts in detail not only the history of the Jacobite movements, but also their rich musical history.

Cover of Scottish Jacobites by Thomas NewbiggingThough I’ve never really had any musical talent (except some early experiences with the recorder), I thought it might be interesting to pursue some further research on the topic. Sure enough, there were further resources on the musical stylings of the Jacobites, and I decided to dig in! Though in this post I’ll only be referencing Newbigging’s book,  I’ll include a reading list of some other books I found here at the ARB that focus on the Jacobites’ music and song.

As I read further into Newbigging’s analysis of the songs, I realized how truly important music was to the Jacobites as they pursued their quest to return King James II and VII to the throne, and restore the power of the monarchy to the House of Stuart. The Jacobites were steadfast in their goals; they believed that James’ removal from power was an illegal move, and that he was their rightful ruler. Though the Jacobites were ultimately unsuccessful in their attempts to restore the House of Stuart, their music lives on and preserves their history.

This music served a variety of purposes. Some songs were poetic battle cries that motivated the Jacobites to pursue their goals, some were sad ruminations upon those that were lost, and some took a darkly humorous outlook on a seemingly hopeless situation. Regardless of their intended purposes, these Jacobite songs are poignant reflections on this period in history, including not only the Jacobites’ story, but their spirit. These songs are performed even today. I wanted to pick out a few of my favorites from Newbigging’s book, and include some audio so you can listen to them too! I didn’t think I’d be spending my week listening to bagpipes, but I can’t say I’m upset about it; rather, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Continue reading →

New Acquisitions-DAAP Library Special Collections

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A new shipment of concrete poetry books has arrived in the Robert A. Deshon and Karl J. Schlachter Library for Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP). Titles by John M. Bennett, Jim Leftwich, Robin Crozier, César Figueiredo, Serge Segay and others.

Make an appointment with Interim DAAP Library Head Elizabeth Meyer or librarian Andrea Chemero to view them.

Photo of concrete poetry book cover Wave by John M. Bennett

Wave, by John M. Bennett

"Ripening of Meat," a poem from Co-Labor-ative Writing

“Ripening of Meat,” a poem from Co-Labor-ative Writing

Co-Labor-ative Writing by Editor Luigi-Bob Drake, cover photo

Various titles from new acquisitions.

New acquisitions.

 

Workshop on Text mining HathiTrust Resources with python

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Eleanor Dickson Koehl, digital scholarship librarian with the HathiTrust will visit UC Libraries to give a presentation on the HathiTrust Research Center and conduct a workshop on text mining using HathiTrust Resources and python.  The talk will be Tuesday Feb 26th from 3- 4 pm and the workshop will be Wednesday Morning from 9am -12pm with a luncheon afterwards from 12 pm-1 pm.  Please join for one or both events which will be held in the Vis Lab 240H Braunstein Hall – inside the Geology-Math and Physics Library.  These events are free and open to all.  We request that attendees of the text mining workshop complete registration through the faculty one stop system.

For more information please refer to the DCS2 Word flyer_hathi_2019.

New Books in Oesper (history of chemistry collection)

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A few new acquisitions have been added to the Oesper book collection.  Click here to access the November-December 2018 list.

For more information about Oesper and the apparatus museum, click here.

If you have any questions about this collection, contact Ted Baldwin, Director of Science and Engineering Libraries, at Ted.Baldwin@uc.edu.

 

 

Elliston Poetry Room Announces Its Spring Poetry Schedule

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Elliston Poetry Room SignDo you like poetry? Interested in hearing poets talk about and read their work?

The Ellison Poetry Room, located in 646 Walter C. Langsam Library, announced its spring poetry schedule. All readings are free and open to the public. Book signings follow each reading.

NTOZAKE SHANGE: CELEBRATING AN ARTISTIC LEGACY THROUGH CONVERSATION AND PERFORMANCE

Featuring Dr. Shirlene Holmes, Aku Kadogo, RAHBI, the Cincinnati Black Theatre Company, College-Conservatory of Music (Acting), and The School for Creative and Performing Arts
February 15, 2019; 4:00 PM
Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library
Sponsored by the Weinberger Center for Drama and Playwriting

ISHION HUTCHINSON

Poetry Reading
February 22, 2019; 4:00 PM
Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library

MARY RUEFLE

2018-19 Elliston Poet-in-Residence
Lecture
March 6, 2019; 4:00 PM
Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library

Poetry Reading
March 8, 2019; 4:00 PM
Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library

XHENET ALIU & TIMOTHY O’KEEFE

Fiction and Poetry Reading
April 11, 2019; Time TBD
Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library

THE ROBERT AND ADELE SCHIFF FICTION FESTIVAL

Featuring Sloane Crosley, Uzodinma Iweala, Katie Kitamura, and Brendan Mathews
April 17, 2019; 7:00 PM: Fiction Reading
April 18, 2019; 11:00 AM: Panel Discussion
April 18, 2019; 7:00 PM: Fiction Reading
April 19, 2019; 10:00 AM: Panel Discussion
All events take place in the Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library

Named for the Cincinnati poet George Elliston, the Elliston Poetry Room houses a 20th-century poetry collection of over 10,000 books, magazines, records and recordings. Students and faculty interested in modern poetry can also take advantage of reading space and listening facilities, as well as poetry-writing workshops and poetry readings.

More information on each of these events may be found at: https://www.artsci.uc.edu/departments/english/creative-writing/visiting-writers-series.html