Springing Into Action

John Pollack, Curator of Research Services in the Kislak Center, regularly makes visits to classrooms to introduce students to Penn's remarkable special collections. Like so many other things these days, such interactions now take place virtually. Pollack uses special document cameras to give students a close-up look at manuscripts like this one over Zoom.

📸 Ferial Psalter, manuscript, [Trento (Italy), ca. 1350. By Eric Sucar.
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Did you know that some of Penn Libraries' collections are stored away from campus in our research annex? Located in West Deptford, NJ, LIBRA preserves and ensures access to lesser-used scholarly resources acquired over centuries by the Penn Libraries. Don't worry, Penn borrowers still have access to collections stored in the research annex—they can be requested through Franklin in the same way you would any other materials.
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Can ancient texts like the Odyssey or Medea offer anything to soldiers and other victims of war today? The people behind the @pennmuseum's Eternal Soldier program believe they can. This program brings together archaeologists, classicists, historians, clinicians, and veterans to discuss Classical tales. Its reading list includes translations, re-interpretations, and explorations of the ancient Greek epics and tragedies, all of which are available through the Penn Libraries. As academic engagement and classical studies liaison Rebecca Stuhr observes, “Retellings and modern translations like these help us understand the struggles of others. They can even bring us peace as we seek to understand our own personal struggles.” Here are just a few of the books from that reading list:

Translations:
Euripides (Diane Arnson Svarlien, trans.) Andromache, Hecuba, The Trojan Women, 2012
Euripides (Sheila Murnaghan, trans.) Medea: A New Translation, Contexts, Criticism, 2018
Homer (Emily Wilson, trans.) The Odyssey, 2018

Retellings and Explorations:
Bryan Doerries. The Theater of War : What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today, 2015
Peter Meineck and David Konstan. Combat Trauma and the Ancient Greeks, 2014
Eugene O’Neill. The Mourning Becomes Electra trilogy, 1931
Jonathan Shay. Achilles In Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character, 1994.

Visit library.upenn.edu to get more reading recommendations from our librarians.

📸 Night-time tour of the Penn Museum's Greece Gallery. By Raffi Berberian.
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We hope you ❤️ the Penn Libraries
Because the Penn Libraries ❤️s you!

Happy Valentine's Day! If you could send a Valentine's message to one of the Penn Libraries, which one would you send it to, and what would it say?

📸 A student picks up books from Van Pelt Library. By Eric Sucar.
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