Join us for these monthly lunchtime presentations by Kislak curators, faculty, and students focusing on specific works or small archives/collections found among the holdings of the Kislak Center.
Lectures will be held monthly during the academic year on Fridays from 12:00-1:00pm. Zoom links will be sent to all registrants in advance. For details on individual presentations, please see dates and titles below.
This presentation will introduce some of the female and BIPOC composers represented in the Eric Mandell collection of Jewish music material, which was gifted to the Penn Libraries in 2023.
David Toccafondi explores the unique power of ephemera — everyday disposable paper items often overlooked but rich in cultural significance.
Drawing on lessons learned from collaborating with Native American and First Nations peoples, in-resident researcher Emily Jean Leischner will share stories and snippets from her initial survey of Indigenous knowledge in the Kislak Center archives.
Roger Chartier, Annenberg Visiting Professor in History and Professor at the Collège de France, will analyze a recently acquired almanac created in Paris in 1789, containing engravings of revolutionary events and erasable pages for recording notes.
Penn alumna Susan Molofsky Todres provides a glimpse into student life and interests through the memorabilia collections of the University Archives.
Roger Chartier and John Pollack explore when and why maps become associated with fictional works.
This talk will introduce the breadth and scope of the 2021 landmark gift of the Philadelphia Orchestra Association and Academy of Music Archives to Penn Libraries.
In this presentation, Hope Jones, Project Archivist working on the Arnold and Deanne Kaplan Collection of Early American Judaica, will explore the histories of people not always prioritized in the telling of American history.
J.M. Duffin will discuss the diaries of Philadelphia banker Cornelius N. Weygandt and West Philadelphia homemaker Anna Rebecca Garland.
Regan Kladstrup shares the heartbreaking story behind the creation of author Emma Bell Miles' The Spirit of the Mountains.
Holly Mengel, Head of Archives and Manuscripts Processing, shares vivid visual documentation from the archive of artist Ursula Sternberg-Hertz.
In this talk, Jessica Martucci will discuss the collections of Mary C. Brennan (1930-1992), a nurse who served in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps throughout World War Two.
Learn about how Tokyo FRUiTS, a Japanese fashion magazine, inspires generations of fashionistas.
Arthur Kiron (Schottenstein-Jesselson Curator of Judaica Collections) discusses how digital technologies may help mediate between private property ownership rights and public interest in material cultural heritage, with a focus on Judaica.
Kelin Baldridge (Special Collections Processing Center) introduces Elizabeth Fee, public health historian and former Chief of the History of Medicine Division at the National Library of Medicine, showing selections from the recently-donated Elizabeth Fee papers.
Roger Chartier and John Pollack will discuss the recent acquisition of a copy of the folio first edition of Garcilaso de la Vega's Commentarios reales...de los Yncas (1st part), printed in Lisbon by Crasbeeck in 1609.
Brie Gettleson (Latin American Studies Librarian) introduces the newly acquired Morgner Central American Political Ephemera collection as an important resource for understanding contemporary and recent political histories of Central America.
Collector and jazz historian John Szwed, in conversation with curator Samantha Hill, discusses the archive he assembled on the influential Philadelphia Jazz artist Sun Ra.
This talk by Alicia Meyer (Kislak Center) will focus on the literary pursuits of Havelock Ellis and a coterie of Victorian sexologists, printers, and scholars who created the original Mermaid Series of Old Dramatists.
Hidden Collections Processing Coordinator Samantha Dodd unhides a collection of Korean War military photographs and highlights the life and career of Army surgeon Colonel Christmas. She will also discuss her work with making hidden collections accessible.
Mitch Fraas (Kislak Center, Penn Libraries) explores the changing value systems of libraries.
Chris Lippa talks about the recently-cataloged Hedgerow Theatre records held in the Kislak Center and visits key moments in the theater's history.
Zhangyang (Charlie) Xie (C'24) presents research on Chinese Communist posters from the 1960s supporting the Civil Rights struggle in the United States.
In 1947 the African American journalist and Philadelphian, Orrin Evans, published the one and only issue of All Negro Comics. Sean Quimby will look at how Evans sought to do this and why, sadly, the comic’s run was limited to just one issue.
Mitch Fraas will showcase a variety of ephemeral items held by the Kislak Center which intersect with the history of poor relief and food distribution.
This talk will explore the early history of restaurants and showcase materials relating to Beauvilliers’ restaurant and its celebrity chef.
David McKnight will describe Peter Way's collection and focus briefly on the four Charlotte Guillard texts that were among Peter Way’s most revered books.
Nicholas Brenner and John Pollack will present an extraordinary work of early photography entitled Constantinople Ancienne et Moderne.
This talk will introduce a fascinating hybrid book now housed at the Kislak Center, a 1524 edition of Hendrik Herp’s Mirror of Perfection.
