CHICAGO (October 1, 2008) - This winter the Newberry Library invites patrons to get in touch with their inner child. The fall exhibition, Artifacts of Childhood: 700 Years of Children's Books, continues to delight with regular gallery walks on Thursdays, the "American Identity in Children's Literature Symposium" on December 13, and kid-friendly workshops and talks.
Come out of the cold and into the Newberry this winter and join some great discussions. On December 2, author Neil Harris will be discussing and signing his new book The Chicagoan: A Lost Magazine of the Jazz Age while author and historian Ann Durkin Keating sheds new light on twenty-first century Chicago with her book Chicago Neighborhoods and Suburbs: A Historical Guide on December 4. Learn about the impact of science on art and the environment from Adrienne Kolb, Fermilab laboratory archivist, on November 5 and reflect on historical revival and transformation in the Renaissance with a talk by Hanna Gray on December 3.
Registration for our Adult Education Seminars is still open! Check out the current schedule at www.newberry.org/programs/seminars.html.
For a complete listing of Chicago Humanities Festival events at the Newberry Library, visit www.chfestival.org or call (312) 494-9509.
Unless otherwise noted, all programs are free and no reservations are required.
November 2008
Exhibition: Artifacts of Childhood: 700 Years of Children's Books
September 27, 2008 to January 17, 2009
Curators: Jenny Schwartzberg and Paul F. Gehl
This exhibition explores the Newberry's little-known collection of books and manuscripts created for and by children, from the fifteenth century to the present.
One of the curators will lead a 45-minute gallery walk of the exhibit each Thursday at 5:45 pm (November 6, 13, and 20, and December 4, 11, and 18).
CHICAGO HUMANITIES FESTIVAL: Shaping (and Being Shaped by) American Children's Literature
Saturday, November 1, 2008
12:00 noon - 1:00 pm
Speakers: Leonard Marcus and Audrey Niffenegger
Leonard Marcus, a leading historian and critic of children's literature, will discuss Minders of Make-Believe, his sweeping new history of the visionaries who created and shaped the children's book industry in the U.S. Celebrated author and illustrator Audrey Niffenegger will offer a more personal view as she considers the magical world of the Little Golden Books and their value to her own adult-oriented work.
Tickets are $5 in advance (free for educators and students) at www.chfestival.org or call (312) 494-9509
WEDNESDAY CLUB: Fermilab: The Ring of the Frontier
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Reception, 5:30 pm, Presentation, 6:15 pm
Speaker: Adrienne Kolb, Laboratory Archivist, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
From buffalo to bottom quarks, the Fermilab company has stood at the frontier of physics for 40 years and is home to trail-blazing scientific breakthroughs, including the discoveries of the top and bottom quarks. This talk will highlight Fermilab's attention to art and architecture and consideration for the lived environment through green space, prairie restoration, and even a herd of buffalo. A booksigning follows the talk.
ARTIFACTS OF CHILDHOOD EXHIBITION PROGRAM: Me and Uncle Romie: A Story Inspired by the Life and Art of Romare Bearden
For ages 5 to 8
Saturday, November 15, 2008
10:00 am - 11:30 am
Author and Workshop Leader: Claire Hartfield
Join author Claire Hartfield as she reads Me and Uncle Romie and discusses it with her audience. Then kids will work with the author to create collage books, a technique Romare Bearden used in his art and which Me and Uncle Romie's illustrator, Jerome Lagarrique, chose as homage to Bearden. Children will leave with their own collage books.
Admission is free, but reservations are required. For reservations, call the Public Programs department at (312) 255-3700.
CHICAGO MAP SOCIETY: The Mississippi River in Maps & Views: From Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Reception, 5:30 pm, Presentation, 6:00 pm
Speaker: Robert A. Holland
Father of Waters, the Gathering of Waters, the Big Muddy, Ol' Man River. The Mississippi is America's main street, celebrated in history, song, story, and maps. CMS member Bob Holland will preview his newly published book, The Mississippi River in Maps and Views. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.
If you have questions, please call (312) 255-3659.
December 2008
MEET THE AUTHOR: The Chicagoan: A Lost Magazine of the Jazz Age
Tuesday, December 2, 6:00 pm
Speaker: Neil Harris
According to its editors, the Chicagoan magazine represented "a cultural, civilized, and vibrant" city "which needs make no obeisance to Park Avenue, Mayfair, or the Champs Elysees." First published in 1926, it sought passionately to redeem the Windy City's unhappy reputation for organized crime, political mayhem, and industrial squalor by demonstrating the style and sophistication of the Midwest. A booksigning follows the talk.
WEDNESDAY CLUB: The Revival and Transformation of Antiquity in the Renaissance
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Reception, 5:30 pm, Presentation 6:15 pm
Speaker: Hanna H. Gray, President Emerita, University of Chicago, Newberry Library Trustee
Intellectuals of the early modern period looked to the ancient past and its great books to reform the education and culture of their own time. But the "revival" of antiquity meant interpreting and reinterpreting that past in the context of a different era-and inevitably creating new versions of its history and teachings. Hanna Gray explores the tension between Renaissance humanism's ideal of revival and its application to contemporary conditions.
Reception includes a violin performance by David Douglass, Director of the Newberry Consort
MEET THE AUTHOR: Chicago Neighborhoods and Suburbs: A Historical Guide
Thursday, December 4, 6:00 pm
Speaker: Ann Durkin Keating
From the South Side to the West Side to the North Side, just about every local knows how distinctive Chicago's neighborhoods are. Few of us, however, know exactly how they came to be. Historian Ann Durkin Keating sheds new light on twenty-first-century Chicago. A booksigning follows the talk.
ARTIFACTS OF CHILDHOOD EXHIBITION SYMPOSIUM: American Identity in Children's Literature Symposium
Saturday, December 13, 2008
9:30 am - 2:30 pm
Speakers: "All-of-A-Kind Americans? Becoming a Jew in Sydney Taylor's America," June Cummins-Lewis, San Diego State University
"Indians as Artifacts: How Images of Indians Are Used to Nationalize America's Youth," Debbie Reese, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
"Little Black Sambo and the Complicated History of African American Children's Books," Michelle Martin, Clemson University
"Trying to Forget Pedro and Juanita: The Emergence of Chicano/a Children's Literature," Phillip Serrato, San Diego State University
After the talks, the panel will discuss issues of authenticity, audience, self-esteem, and presentations of social conflict and cultural differences that make the field of multi-cultural children's literature so important and contested.
The Newberry Consort, the Library's early-music, period-instrument chamber ensemble, continues its current season, "Musical Treasures of the Newberry Library," in January. For information and tickets, visit www.newberry.org/consort or call (312) 255-3700.
Gallery Hours:
Monday, Friday, and Saturday
8:15 am - 5:30 pm
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday
8:15 am - 7:30 pm
January 2009
Genealogy and Local History Orientation
January 3, Saturday, 9:30 am
Interested in learning about your family history or researching your neighborhood? A member of the Newberry's Local and Family History reference staff will introduce beginners to the basics of research with an informal orientation.
Essential Cinema: On the Necessity of Film Canons
January 7, Wednesday, 5:30 pm reception; 6:15 pm presentation
Speaker: Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Since DVDs have made formerly unavailable films accessible, the task of choosing what movies to see has become more complicated, and potentially more adventurous. Thus film canons-lists of iconic films in various genres- have become more popular, despite resistance from many academics. Jonathan Rosenbaum entered the fray in his book, Essential Cinema: On the Necessity of Film Canons, which includes a list of his 1,000 favorite films. He will discuss changes in film culture that have led to the proliferation of these lists, and the way niche markets, blogs, chat groups, and cine-clubs have reconfigured cinephilia and film-going as a collective as well as solitary activity.
Artifacts of Childhood Exhibition Program/The Shakespeare Project of Chicago
January, 10 Saturday, 11:00 am
50-Minute Hamlet
For grades six and up
The passion, poetry, and pathos of William Shakespeare's preeminent masterpiece condensed to a child-friendly 50-minute performance. This empowering two-actor adaptation of Shakespeare's masterpiece appeals to both those new to The Bard and those who already have an appreciation of his genius. A discussion follows the show. Adapted and directed by Artistic Director Jeff Christian.
Babes in the Wood: The Death of Childhood and the Birth of Modern Children's Literature
January 17, Saturday, 11:00 am
Speaker: Patricia Crain, New York University
Something happened to children's literature in the nineteenth century; it became recognizably modern. To explore this transformation, Patricia Crain charts the long life of a famous but now seldom-read children's classic, The Children in the Wood, about the kidnapping and death of two toddlers. This tale's strange evolution, from a sixteenth-century broadside through lush illustrated editions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, offers a window into the origins of modern ideas of childhood and children's literature.
The Newberry Consort
Special Benefit Concert: Fair Oriana-A Party for Queen Elizabeth I Upon the 450th Anniversary of Her Coronation
January 18, Sunday, 3:00 pm
Support the Consort and enjoy a concert of English viol consort music, and wine and light refreshments. The program will conclude with the 1912 silent movie classic, Queen Elizabeth, to which the Newberry Consort will add a live soundtrack. An aging but peppy Sarah Bernhardt starred in the film and was evidently pleased with the result: she cried out, "I am immortal! I am a film!" Come and enjoy an afternoon of music and cinema with the Newberry Consort.
Visit www.newberry.org/consort for performance information and tickets ($75), or call (312) 255-3700.
Chicago Map Society
"A noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die"
January 22, Thursday, 5:30 pm
Speaker: Dennis McClendon, Chicago Map Society
Those words, following closely on the heels of his more famous utterance "Make no little plans," certainly apply to Daniel Burnham's 1909 Plan of Chicago. The "noble diagrams" that Burnham, Edward Bennett, and their associates prepared one hundred years ago are among the most important maps ever made of Chicago. Though never fully realized, the dazzling vision and inspirational power of the "Burnham Plan" influenced our city's development throughout the twentieth century, and will continue to do so in the twenty-first. On the centenary of the Plan, longtime Plan of Chicago scholar, urban cartographer, and former Map Society president Dennis McClendon will talk about the maps and diagrams used in the document and subsequent promotional efforts, and how the Plan reshaped the city.
For more information about Library programs visit our web site at www.newberry.org or call (312) 255-3700. If you would like to support the Library and become an Associate visit www.newberry.org/giving or call (312) 255-3543.
All Meet the Author or Editor talks are co-sponsored by the Newberry's A. C. McClurg Bookstore.
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 exhibitions based on its collections, musical and theatrical performances, lectures and discussions with today's leading humanists, seminars and workshops, and teacher programs. Visit us online at www.newberry.org or in person at 60 W. Walton St., Chicago, IL.