CHICAGO (August 6, 2007) - Fall promises to be a colorful season at the Newberry Library! From 50 minute Shakespeare performances to Meet the Author programs to an exhibit in coordination with the Field Museum, this season's public programs are sure to interest one and all.
Maps, maps, maps will be all over the city during the Maps Festival Chicago in November, December, and January. With holdings of 300,000 maps, and a tradition of cartographic scholarship rooted in the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography, the Newberry Library is at the center of the Festival. Exhibits at the Newberry and The Field Museum and a wealth of public programs are the Library's contributions to the unprecedented collaboration. What's more, almost all of the Chicago Humanities Festival's The Climate of Concern programs at the Newberry Library will be map-related.
The Newberry will also host a number of Meet the Author programs this fall, including novelist Ann Patchett, author of the best-selling Bel Canto, who will headline the fall Meet the Author season with readings from Run, her latest novel; while David Blight, in A Slave No More, shows what the end of slavery meant for two men who freed themselves during the Civil War and built new lives in the north following the war.
Finally, get in the holiday spirit as the Newberry Consort presents Journey to Bethlehem: Seventeenth-Century German music for Advent and Christmas which features many traditional holiday favorites presented in a new way featuring historical brass, recorders, reeds, strings, organ, and voices.
General information:
Location: 60 West Walton Street, Chicago IL 60610
Public Information: Call (312) 255-3700 or visit www.newberry.org
Exhibit Hours: Monday, Friday, and Saturday, 8:15 am - 5:30 pm
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 8:15 am - 7:30 pm
Admission is free unless otherwise noted.
September 2007
Here, There and Still Everywhere: The Beatles in Contemporary Pop Culture
Wednesday, September 5
5:30 pm Reception; 6:15pm Presentation
Speaker: June Skinner Sawyers, Author
Performer: Bucky Halker
The Beatles' music is so timeless that whatever it is that you wish to find, it will probably be there. In a music-filled talk, the author of Read the Beatles: Classic and New Writings on the Beatles, Their Legacy, and Why They Still Matter takes us on a whirlwind tour through their career as a band and as solo artists, illustrated with images from the past and the present. Singer-songwriter Bucky Halker will offer his own unique interpretations of classic Beatles songs. So, come together one and all.
Admission is $9 ($6 for Associates of the Newberry Library at the Author Level or above) and includes wine, soft drinks, and light snacks. Doors open at 5:30 pm and programs begin at 6:15 pm. For information, please call (312) 255-3556.
Literature Shakespeare Project: 50 Minute Macbeth
by William Shakespeare; adapted and directed by Founding Director Mara Polster
Saturday, September 9
10:00am
"Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble." Shakespeare's wordplay, warfare, and witchcraft. . . boiled down to 50 minutes. Building on the success of their 50 Minute Hamlet, The Shakespeare Project of Chicago presents its original three-actor adaptation of Shakespeare's famous tragedy: 50 Minute Macbeth. Adapted and directed by Founding Director Mara Polster, featuring Nathan M. Hosner and Laura St. John
Discussions with the director and actors follow each performance.
Banned Book Read Out!
Saturday, September 29
1:00 pm-4:00 pm
Location: Pioneer Plaza at Michigan Avenue and the Chicago River
Celebrate your freedom to read during the 26th annual Banned Books Week with the American
Library Association, McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum, and the Newberry Library. Join such highly acclaimed authors as Chris Crutcher, Carolyn Mackler, and Robie Harris and local Chicago celebrities as they read passages from their favorite banned and "challenged" books.
For more information, please visit the ALA's Web site at www.ala.org/bbwreadout.
October 2007
Lyric Opera Lecture: La Bohème
By Giacomo Puccini
Tuesday, October 2
6:00 pm
Speaker: Lillian Celic
Enhance your enjoyment and understanding of operas performed in the 2007-2008 season at the Civic Opera House by attending free preview lectures at the Newberry Library by the Lyric Opera Lecture Corps. The Newberry Library will host lectures on six of the season's eight operas. Puccini's La Bohème centers around the bohemian artistic subculture of France in the nineteenth century.
Aztecs/Nahua/Mexicans: Living Documents Workshop
Friday, October 5
10:00 am - 2:30 pm
Presenters: Cristián Roa-de-la-Carrera and Ellen T. Baird, University of Illinois at Chicago,
co-curators of The Aztecs and the Making of Colonial Mexico, and Barry Sell, independent scholar
The Newberry Library holds the largest body of manuscripts by Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, which richly document Aztec life as told by the first post-Conquest generation of Nahua. The Library also holds excellent examples of Nahuatl and Spanish language documents that mark the major stages of human life: birth (baptismal records), marriage (registries), and death (last wills and testaments and burial registries).
Join three scholars who have made extensive use of these collections in a one-day, interactive workshop. Cristián Roa-de-la-Carrera, Ellen T. Baird, and Barry Sell will share how they read and interpret three types of documents in the Newberry's collections: literary and historical manuscripts and books, church records, and legal documents. Each will demonstrate how scholarship works in their particular disciplines and then explain the types of questions and conclusions that are plausible with the type of approaches they use.
Admission to the Living Documents workshop is free, but advance reservations are required. To make a reservation, call (312) 255-3700 or e-mail pubprog@newberry.org.
Researching Homicide in Chicago
Wednesday, October 10
6:00 pm
Speakers: Leigh Bienen, Northwestern University School of Law; Thomas J. O'Gorman, Author
Moderator: Jack Simpson, The Newberry Library
Violent crime is interwoven in the history of Chicago. Beyond such famous cases as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre or the Leopold-Loeb murder are thousands of lesser-known cases that resonate in family and neighborhood history. Join us as two researchers discuss their work on homicide in Chicago. Leigh Bienen will talk about the Chicago Historical Homicide Project, which details homicides from 1870 to 1930. Tom O'Gorman will discuss End of Watch (co-written with Alderman Ed Burke), which tells the stories of Chicago police killed in the line of duty.
Literature Meet the Author: Ann Patchett, Run
Monday, October 15
6:00pm
Speaker: Ann Patchett
"In my novels I like to bring together a group of disparate characters, throw them into an unexpected situation, and explore the consequences," writes Ann Patchett. In Run, the prizewinning, best-selling author of Bel Canto creates just such a situation. An encounter with strangers, an argument, and a car accident on a snowy night disrupt and then transform the lives of Bernard Doyle, a former mayor of Boston, and his family, which includes two adopted African American sons.
Run will be available for purchase at the Newberry Library's A.C. McClurg Bookstore. A book signing follows the talk.
November 2007
Exhibition: Mapping Manifest Destiny: Chicago and the American West
November 3, 2007 - February 16, 2008
Location: Hermon Dunlap Smith Gallery and East Gallery
Mapping Manifest Destiny draws on the Newberry's renowned map collections to examine the role of maps in envisioning the American West - documenting its terrain, fixing its boundaries, exploiting its natural resources, and developing its land. The exhibition, featuring almost 60 historic maps and views from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries, offers a fresh lens through which to understand the crucial role maps played in the building of a nation.
During this journey through time, Chicago emerges first as a dot on the map, then a bustling
metropolis, and subsequently a major center for the production of American maps. Exhibition highlights include original maps drawn by George Washington, Lewis and Clark, and John
Charles Fremont, along with maps used by railroad tycoons, gold speculators, and early tourists to the region.
This exhibition has been made possible by major underwriting from Barry and Mary Ann MacLean. Additional support is generously provided by Northern Trust.
Exhibition: Ptolemy's Geography and Renaissance Mapmakers
November 3, 2007 - February 16, 2008
Ptolemy's Geography and Renaissance Mapmakers features the Newberry's internationally renowned collection of Renaissance printed editions of Geography by Claudius Ptolemy, the famed second century Greek astronomer and father of modern geography. Learn how Renaissance mapmakers slowly transformed Ptolemy's work from an ancient text to the foundation for Renaissance atlases.
Making Mapping Manifest Destiny: The Curator's Challenge
Saturday, November 3
10:00 am
Speaker: Michael Conzen, The University of Chicago
How does a scholar go about choosing fewer than 60 maps to communicate his knowledge of a vast topic to a public audience? This was the challenge geographer Michael Conzen faced in curating an exhibit on the crucial role that maps played in extending the American nation to the Pacific Ocean. Maps paved the way for empire, for state-building, for economic exploitation, and for social advancement. How did he find a theme to follow within the confines of an exhibition? How are maps chosen for display and interpretation, and how do we "read" them with an understanding eye?
Immediately following the lecture, Michael Conzen will be available in the exhibition galleries to answer questions about Mapping Manifest Destiny.
Mapping the Global Environment
Sunday, November 4
3:00 pm - 4:30 pm
Panel: Tom Koch, Mark Monmonier, John Cloud
Three engaging scholars examine how we're using mapped data to better understand past and current changes in our global environment. Tom Koch, respected expert on medical geography, uses medical maps to track environmental contributions to historical infectious contagions. Mark Monmonier, professor of geography at Syracuse University, uses mapping to pinpoint and analyze potential environmental hazards. Geographer John Cloud, who is analyzing the history of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, studies maps to glean insights into the politicization of science during the Cold War.
Journey to Bethlehem: Seventeenth-Century German music for Advent and Christmas
Thursday, November 29 - Sunday, December 2
Thursday, November 29, 3:00 pm
Open rehearsal, St. Clement Church
Friday, November 30, 8:00 pm
Pre-concert lecture, 7:00 pm
St. Clement Church
Saturday, December 1, 8:00 pm
Pre-concert lecture, 7:00 pm
St. Clement Church
Sunday, December 2, 3:00 pm
Alice Millar Chapel, Northwestern University
The story of Christmas is so familiar that its true meaning is best revealed when it's set to ravishingly beautiful music. Come hear a program of tunes you very likely know, but in settings you've never heard before. We'll celebrate the story of the birth of Jesus with the glorious colors of historical brass, recorders, reeds, strings, organ, and voices in the lush and resonant acoustics of St. Clement Church and Alice Millar Chapel.
Chicago performances will be held at St. Clement Church, 642 West Deming Place, Chicago. This magnificent Romanesque church just off Fullerton Parkway and Halsted Street in Lincoln Park has the perfect ambiance and acoustics for this concert. Ample parking is available. The Evanston concert will be in Alice Millar Chapel, 1870 Sheridan Road at Chicago Avenue.
December 2007
A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation
Saturday, December 1
11:00 am
Speaker: David W. Blight, Yale University
Slave narratives are extremely rare, and even rarer are first-person accounts by slaves who ran away to free themselves. In two newly uncovered narratives, handed down through family and friends, Wallace Turnage (1846-1916) and John Washington (1838-1918) tell how they reached Union Army lines through a combination of intelligence, daring, and sheer luck. Prize-winning historian David Blight prefaces their narratives with a life history of each man, reconstructing their childhoods as sons of white slaveholders, their service as cooks and camp hands during the Civil War, and their climb to black working-class stability in the north, where they reunited their families. Their stories suggest rich new answers to the question of how four million people moved from slavery to freedom.
A Slave No More will be for sale in the Newberry Library's A.C. McClurg Bookstore. A book signing will follow the talk. Admission is free. No reservation is required.
Cultural, Technological, and Sociological Changes in Cookbooks from the Early Twentieth-Century to the Present
Wednesday, December 5
Reception, 5:30 pm; Presentation, 6:15 pm
Panel: Penelope Bingham, Author and Illinois Humanities Council Road Scholar; Connie Fairbanks, Author
After watching all those TV food shows, does anyone really cook? Penelope Bingham and Connie Fairbanks will explore how cookbooks have changed over the last 75 years. What have we learned? What trends in American society have been mirrored in cookbooks? Is anything really new? Is good food tastier and easier to make in 2007? What's comfort food, and does it still exist? Prepare yourself for a lively discussion and interesting insights into cookbooks and our society. Book signings will follow the presentation.
Admission is $9 ($6 for Associates of the Newberry Library at the Author Level or above) and includes wine, soft drinks, and light snacks. Doors open at 5:30 pm and programs begin at 6:15 pm. For information, please call (312) 255-3556.
January 2008
Mapping Paradise: A History of Heaven on Earth
Saturday, January 19
11:00 am
Speaker: Alessandro Scafi, The Warburg Institute, University of London
When early Christians adopted the Hebrew Bible with its story of Genesis, the Garden of Eden became for them a paradise on earth, situated in real geography and indicated on maps. In Mapping Paradise, Alessandro Scafi explores medieval intellectual conditions that made mapping paradise possible. He also accounts for the transformations in theological doctrine and cartographic practice that eroded belief in a terrestrial paradise and led to historical and regional mapping of the Garden of Eden, beginning in the Reformation and continuing today.
The Art of Mapping the Heart
Saturday, January 26
11:00 am
Speaker: Ruth Watson, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Ruth Watson is a New Zealand/Australian artist and a prizewinning scholar in historical geography. For more than fifteen years, her art has focused on how maps construct our ideas of the globe. In an illustrated talk, she will discuss how she has used salt, images of her tongue, and other unconventional media to create works of art based on the cordiform, a heart-shaped projection of the globe developed in the sixteenth century.
ABOUT THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY
The Newberry Library, a preeminent humanities research and reference institution, is home to a world-class collection of books, manuscripts, maps, music, and other printed materials related to the history and culture of Western Europe and the Americas. The collections span many centuries and feature items such as illuminated medieval manuscripts, rare early maps, rich genealogical resources, and the personal papers of Midwest authors. The Newberry offers exhibits based on its collections, musical and theatrical performances, lectures and discussions with today's leading humanists, seminars and workshops, and teacher programs. Visit www.newberry.org to learn more.