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Archive for the ‘Reading’ Category

Patrick Mulcahey Corrects Dallas Buyers Club

Posted in American History, Reading on November 13, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Patrick Mulcahey has published a passionate, insightful corrective to the movie Dallas Buyers Club on the Huffington Post. Drawing on the larger history of AIDS activism and his own experience working with Project Inform, he writes the work of gay men back into the story. (The fact that a movie about the AIDS crisis needs to have this type of corrective is pretty shocking). I think this is my favorite part: “I’m a writer myself. I get the attraction to the unlikely hero, the conversion story — St. Paul struck by lightning on the road to Damascus. But nobody goes on to claim that St. Paul invented Jesus. Dallas Buyers Club steals our story and tells it like we weren’t even there.”

By the way, Patrick is not only the winner of 6 daytime Emmys, he is also my cousin.

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SSAWW & WWWL

Posted in Reading, Stuff I like, Women's History on October 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I spent last weekend at the Society for the Study of Women Writers (SSAWW) conference, which is held every three years.  This was probably one of the best–maybe the best?–conference I have attended.  It is a literature conference, but with a focus on historical context.  Almost every panel I went to was interesting and intellectually stimulating.  And the other attendees, including very well known academics, were friendly and helpful.  Just wonderful.

Closer to home, I am a member of the  Women Writing Women Lives Seminar (WWWL), which is made up of an inspiring group of feminist biographers who meet one a month during the academic year.  Twice a year, the group also sponsors a works-in-progress lecture at the CUNY Graduate Center. This October 29, Diane Jacobs will speak about her The Lives of Abigail Adams and Her Sisters: Threefold Cord.  I’ve always wanted to know more about Adams, who often seems to get reduced to her “Remember the Ladies” comment.  (Not that the quote isn’t great.) 4-6 PM, 365 5th Avenue, Room 9204.

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Sick from Freedom

Posted in American History, Harriet Jacobs, Reading, Women's History on June 15, 2012| 1 Comment »

I have been from this blog for too long.  Hopefully, this post will be the start of more regular updates.
I was excited to read about Jim Down’s forthcoming book Sick from Freedom in the New York Times this week.  The book addresses the health crises which freed people faced after the Civil War.  As press material for the volume explains, “With emancipation, African Americans seized the chance to move, migrating as never before. But in their journey to freedom, they also encountered yellow fever, smallpox, cholera, dysentery, malnutrition, and exposure.”  This book forms an important part of our ever-evolving understanding of Reconstruction.  I may show my students this article in the fall to help them understand historiography. (Another good book which complicates our understanding of this time is Ronald E. Butchart’s Schooling the Freed People: Teaching, Learning and the Struggle for Black Freedom, 1861-1876, which I reviewed for the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society last year.)

Downs’ interest in this project was inspired in part by his work on the Harriet Jacobs Papers. I joined the HJ team after he had left, so we never crossed paths, except when I used his research reports to write annotation. I do wish the Times had mentioned that the papers had been published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2008, and that the volumes include important annotation about disease in the post-emancipation South.  (Instead, the article links to the kind-of-clunky website I helped put together in 2002, which has my name in the web address.  It looked ok for the time!) But it was still good to see Harriet Jacobs mentioned.

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Harriet Hosmer: A Cultural Biography on Lambda Literary

Posted in American History, Reading, Women's History on March 19, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Marie J. Kuda has written a nice review of Harriet Hosmer: A Cultural Biography on Lambda Literary.  I especially appreciate the fact that Kuda puts the book in the context of the larger historical project of uncovering  “the female enclaves buried under patriarchal scholarship.” And, to be immodest, of course I like this: “Culkin has added a highly readable, well annotated study to the increasing pantheon of creative lesbians supported by networks of friends and lovers.”

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Harriet Hosmer in Midwest Book Review

Posted in American Art, American History, Reading, Women's History on December 16, 2011| 1 Comment »

Harriet Hosmer: A Cultural Biography is included in the November edition of  Midwest Book Review’s Biography Shelf.  There are some other books that look fascinating as well, including “Stay By Me, Roses: The Life of American Artist Alice Archer Sewall James, 1870-1955.”  Hopefully now that winter break is almost here, I will have a chance to read a few of them.

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Save the St. Marks Bookstore

Posted in NYC, Reading, Stuff I like on September 10, 2011| 1 Comment »

A few weeks ago, Red Fox Books, in Glens Falls, NY, announced the sad news that it would be closing, the victim of a particularly bad local economy and ebooks.  Now St. Marks Bookstore, in NYC’s East Village, is threatened.  I remember going to this store when it was still actually on St. Marks Place when I was visiting NYC in college; it was always a highlight of my trips and seemed like a portal to the world of the city and the life I wanted to live here.  Some books from those trips still sit on my bookshelves.  I’ve never completely cozied up to the store’s (relatively) new space on 3rd Avenue, which is very slick and modern and a little sterile, compared to the funky warmth of the old space.  But the content of the shelves still can not be beat.  There is currently a petition drive to ask Cooper Union, the shop’s landlord, to lower its rent so the store can survive.   Peter Cooper founded Cooper Union–which still has free tuition–specifically to make education accessible; I hope the school will consider helping save a beloved local bookstore a part of that mission. I’ve signed the petition, and now I’m going to buy a book.

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A Centennial, Stacks, and a Cat’s Paw Letter Opener.

Posted in American Art, American History, NYC, Reading, Seeing on May 24, 2011| Leave a Comment »

This past weekend, the New York Public Library celebrated the centennial of the magnificent building which houses its research collection with a series of events.  The one I was the most excited about was the tour of the stacks.  As many of you know, the  42nd Street research library is a closed stacks  institution.  Users fill out a form and submit it, and 20 or so minutes later the book appears at desk in the middle of the reading room. The forms until very recently were sent downstairs, to the 7 floors of stacks below the reading room, by pneumatic tubes, but I believe, sadly, that system has at last been made obsolete.  Anyway, the whole process seems very mysterious and slightly magical to someone like me, who has has spent countless hours in the building.  Most people on the tour seemed to feel the same way, especially the woman who had tears in her eyes she was so excited about seeing the stacks.  Perhaps not surprisingly, once we got down to the stacks, I felt like I was in a Wes Anderson movie set, in a charming thicket of  old card catalog cases, shoots and conveyor belts, call slips and (of course) books.

There is also a wonderful exhibition of some of the library’s treasures.  Highlights for me were seeing Virginia Woolf’s walking stick, Jack Kerouac’s diary that served as the basis for On the Road and the first book published by Europeans in the Americas, from the 1500s.  The oddest item might have been Charles Dicken’s letter opener–the handle was the paw of his beloved cat Bob, who had passed away. The exhibition’s curator Thomas Mellis is making a series of videos about some of the artifacts.

Another highlight–models of the library’s famous lions (Patience and Fortitude), made of Legos.

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Harriet Hosmer, Book Club Girl, and the Not-So-Old Girls Network

Posted in American History, Book, Listening, Reading, Stuff I like, Women's History on March 4, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Visiting Middlebury with my grandparents and cousins, spring 1987.

In the spring of 1987, I was trying to decide between matriculating at Middlebury or Bowdoin. They were in many ways similar, of course, and I was basically framing the choice as being near the ocean or being near the mountains.  Then one day at school, Mr. Warner came up to me; his official title was the “Dean of Discipline,” and he seemed quite gruff, but he was really very sweet and concerned about his students.  This seems amazing to think about, but in 1987 a lot of the small liberal arts schools in the Northeast had been co-ed for less than two decades.  Middlebury, however, had admitted women in 1883. Mr. Warner said, “Bowdoin is still a boys school.  Middlebury has been taking women for over one hundred years.  I think you will be happier there.”  It really struck me, and while it wasn’t the only factor in my decision, it certainly played a part. (And no offense to any one who went to Bowdoin, which is a great school).

Middlebury students in 1886.

I thought of that conversation a few years ago when a friend of mine who is a very loyal Wesleyan alumn noted she wished there had been more older women alumni to turn to for career advice when she first graduated in the early 90s .  (Wesleyan turned co-ed in 1970).

Anyway, this is all a long prelude to say the Middlebury (Not-So) Old Girls Network has been firing away this week.  A college pal is the award-winning blogger Book Club Girl, and she allowed me to post some thoughts about Harriet Hosmer and the challenges of writing a biography in honor of women’s history month.  If you are in a book club, or just are interested in contemporary fiction, make her blog a regular stop on your trips around the internet.  She has giveaways, great guest posts, and lots of fantastic information about new books.  She also hosts an internet radio show, giving readers a chance to ask questions of some of their favorite authors.

Book Club Girl and me (on the right) at a performance of Howard Zinn’s Voices of a People’s History of the United States in 2008, just a month before her adorable daughter (and perhaps future Middlebury alumnae) was born.

By the way, I have written a series of reading questions for Harriet Hosmer: A Cultural Biography.

(Pictures from the Middlebury website.)

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Poets in Nassau talk

Posted in Book, Hosmer's work, Reading on March 1, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I had a wonderful time at the Poets in Nassau talk on Feb. 22.   Thank you to everyone who came out.  It was a great group, which held an open reading after my talk. I’m ashamed to say I had no idea Long Island had such a lively poetry scene.  I discussed Hosmer’s relationship with Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, who were early supporters of the artist.  (Virginia Woolf even mentions Hosmer in Flush, her biography of Elizabeth’s dog, a book I highly recommend.) I also discussed some poetry Hosmer herself wrote, including the The Doleful Ditty of the Roman Caffe Grecco.  Hosmer published this poem in New York Evening Post in 1864, while she was defending herself against accusations that her stonecutters were responsible for her work.  (They did do the actual carving, as was the case in the Roman studios of most of the American artists in Italy).  The Caffe Grecco, which still exists, was a popular gathering point for expatriates in Rome.  In this poem, Hosmer mocks male sculptors who claim women artists are stealing their thunder, depicting them as lazy gossips.  Early in the poem, one male artist proclaims, “‘Tis time my friend we cogitate/ And make some desperate stand/ or else our sister artists here/will drive us from this land.”  Eventually one man rises to defend the women, noting “Suppose you try another plan/ More worthy of art and you:/ Suppose you give them for their works/ The credit which is due/ And honest and kindly word/ If spoken now and then/ Would prove what seems a doubtful point/ You could at least be men.” That last line got a big laugh.

The photos below are by Lorraine Conlin, who also hosted the event, read a lovely poem herself, and gave me a ride to the train station afterwards.  The sculpture I am holding is a reproduction of Hosmer’s Hands of the Brownings, which can be purchased at the gift shop of the Metropolitan Museum of art.

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Irish Arts Center Book Day

Posted in Reading on February 28, 2011| Leave a Comment »

This project sounds really cool and perhaps a better way to celebrate Irish culture than drinking green beer. I’m going to go through my bookshelves to see if I have any books by Irish or Irish American authors that I am willing to part with.

Donate your books to the inaugural Irish Arts Center Book Day in New York City

On St. Patrick’s Day, Irish Arts Center will set up teams of volunteers at subway locations across all five boroughs to hand out books to New Yorkers for free. Help us promote literacy by dropping off your books by Irish and Irish American authors at any of the following locations from now until March 15:

American Irish Historical Society
991 Fifth Avenue between 80th and 81st Streets
Hours: M-F, 10am to 5pm
212-288-2263

Glucksman Ireland House New York University
1 Washington Mews on 5th Avenue
Hours: M-Thur, 9:30 am to 6 pm, plus public events in the evenings
212-998-3950

Irish Arts Center
553 West 51st Street between 10th and 11th Avenues
Hours: M-F, 10am to 6pm, plus public events in the evenings and weekends
212-757-3318 x 209

New York Irish Center
10-40 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City
Hours: M-F, 10am to 5pm
718-482-0909

Books should be in good condition. Thank you for supporting Irish Arts Center Book Day! For further information on book deposit or to volunteer, contact volunteer@irishartscenter.org or 212-757-3318 ext 202.

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