News, announcements, updates, and happenings in the UVA Library

Exploring the past and future of River View Farm

It’s possible to mistake Ivy Creek Natural Area & Historic River View Farm, located off Earlysville Road in Albemarle County, for simply a nice place to take a hike, with gentle hills, thriving wildlife, and views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Lisa Shutt, an Associate Professor in UVA’s Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies, had taken several walks in the area before she took an interest in a towering white barn near the trailhead.

“I didn’t know the history of the barn, I didn’t know the history of the lands that Ivy Creek Natural Area is on,” she said. Once she found out that history, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Her curiosity about the place led to a partnership with UVA Library, which, for the past year, has been working in various ways to help resurface and preserve information about the area, originally known as just River View Farm. 

In 1870, Hugh Carr, a recently emancipated Black farmer, paid $100 for 58 acres of land near the intersection of Ivy Creek and the Rivanna River. Carr continued to accumulate land, growing the property to nearly 125 acres. He built an I-House farmhouse and multiple outbuildings, and raised seven children there with his wife, Texie Mae Hawkins. Their eldest daughter, Mary, inherited the farm and served as a prominent educator in the African American community, eventually becoming principal of Albemarle Training School — one of the only schools in the area where Black children could continue their education beyond seventh grade. She added to the farm over the years by buying adjacent pieces of land, which her siblings and others had owned. Her husband, Conly Greer, was the first Black agricultural extension agent in Albemarle County. He traveled the county by horseback to train other Black farmers in cutting-edge agricultural methods. From 1937-38 he built the large frame demonstration barn that caught Lisa Shutt’s attention so many years later.

“I became fascinated by this place and wanted to preserve and share the legacy of this incredible family, especially with UVA students,” Shutt said. “Most of the people I come across who are deeply invested in the preservation of non-UVA local histories tend to be community members. I want our students to be just as invested in local histories.”

While the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County own the land and maintain the buildings at Ivy Creek Natural Area & Historic River View Farm, the Ivy Creek Foundation helped get the property listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Over the past couple of years, Susie Farmer, the Director of Education for the Ivy Creek Foundation, has worked with UVA’s Special Collections Library, where many documents relating to the family and farm are held.

Shutt reached out to Farmer and local historian Alice Cannon to further research the work and teachings of the Carr and Greer families. This past spring, with the permission and support of the Ivy Creek Foundation, including their Descendants’ Committee, Shutt taught a UVA African American Studies seminar, “Engaging Local Histories: River View Farm.” The class brought undergraduate students to the land, as well as to Special Collections. “I wanted students to think about what Black communities and Black individuals had to do in order to be successful in time periods where that was made extremely difficult by white power structures,” Shutt said.

“Successful research and preservation is a wildly collaborative effort that calls upon a variety of specialized skills for advancement: genealogy, 3D scanning, archival maintenance, navigation, cataloging, and even re-cataloging,” said Librarian for African American & African Studies Katrina Spencer, who helped Shutt’s students with their research. “The work on River View Farm with local community members is a great example of that.”

History made real

Students in Shutt’s class hiked the land, learning which areas were used for farming, and explored the barn’s interior. They visited local food scholar Leni Sorensen on her farmstead in Crozet, where, in the tradition of Mary Carr Greer’s food preservation classes, Sorensen taught them how to make and preserve strawberry jam. The students were trained to be barn docents, giving them the ability to lead tours of the entire farm. And Shutt reached out to Spencer, who is also the Library’s subject liaison to the Woodson Institute, to help guide her students through the Carr family papers in Special Collections.

Spencer prepared an instructional session for Shutt’s students and enlisted Jean Cooper, the Library’s Principal Cataloger and Genealogical Resources Specialist, to assist. The two tailored the session, held in Clemons Library, to the various topics on which students were focusing: some were researching Black education, others were delving into Black land ownership. The librarians gave an overview of how to identify primary sources, how to search databases and access Special Collections, and how to interpret census data, with a deep dive into genealogy, a specialty of Cooper’s.

“Charlottesville is the kind of place that grabs you and won’t let you go; it’s a fascinating place,” Cooper said about conducting genealogical research. “African American genealogy is especially fascinating because it’s so hard. There’s not a whole lot of written evidence … and so you have to figure out how to get there.”

With training from Cooper and Spencer, the students were ready to visit Special Collections a week later to explore three boxes of Carr/Greer papers. “When the students got to Special Collections, they just kind of were in awe,” Shutt said. “I would call it almost a spiritual experience to be able to put our hands and eyes on these documents that were once held by members of this family: a little cookbook, the original contract where Hugh Carr made his mark to pay for the land, academic papers written by Mary Carr Greer when she studied at the Piedmont Industrial Institute.”

Shutt said the students returned to Special Collections without her several times, sending her photos of things they found. The primary documents they analyzed became source material for 20-page research papers each student wrote at the end of the semester. “I think sometimes when students are examining history, it can seem like a fairy tale to them, like they’re watching a movie or reading a novel; it’s so removed from them,” Shutt said. But when they either go to River View Farm or to Special Collections, history is made real.”

Taylor Whirley, a rising third-year student who took Shutt’s class, agreed. “I became engrossed within the history of a family that I had never met and am not a part of, but I quickly developed a desire to ensure that their stories were told within the UVA community,” she said. “Through this class, I learned more about Charlottesville and Albemarle County history than ever before, which was an incredibly eye-opening experience in general.”

Reparative work at the Library

When Shutt reached out to Spencer for help, the request led not only to a successful instruction session, but also to some necessary updates in the Library’s records.

“I saw the term ‘River View Farm’ for the first time when Lisa got in touch with me,” Spencer said. “I didn’t know what it was. And I knew that if I was going to teach about it, I had to start doing some digging.” She was surprised to find scant information about the family members in the Library’s catalog when she began searching for it. “Our River View Farm entries didn’t reference Hugh Carr, or Mary Carr Greer, or that family. And I thought, ‘Well, shouldn’t these go together, if these were the people who owned this property and developed it?’”

Spencer approached Ellen Welch, a Library Manuscripts and Archives Processor, for help with this issue. “Part of my work is responding to suggestions for improvements in describing our collections,” Welch said. “The description for the Ivy Creek Natural Area papers was so minimal that the history of the Carr family was invisible to anyone searching our collections. With Katrina’s suggestion, I was able to bring the Carr family history into the description so that patrons can know more about this important family in Albemarle County during the 19th century.”

In March, Welch published a deeply researched post on the Special Collections blog, “Notes from Under Grounds” exploring the Carr/Greer family and the Library’s Papers of the Ivy Creek Foundation collections (MSS 10770 and MSS 10176). “As a longtime local resident, I had known about the Ivy Creek Natural Area but had no knowledge of Hugh Carr,” she wrote. “This is what makes reparative work so essential in libraries and historical repositories. It is exciting to shine a light on their remarkable lives, making them well known to our patrons today and in the future.”

3D cultural heritage data

While Welch was illuminating River View Farm history in the Library catalog, Will Rourk, the Library’s 3D Technologies Specialist with the Scholars’ Lab, was creating new primary source data about the site for historic preservation purposes, using high-tech equipment to do so.

With an academic background in architecture and architectural history, Rourk is an expert in cultural heritage preservation using 3D data. Equipped with laser scanners, aerial drones, and photogrammetric technologies, Rourk teaches architectural history students to collect, process, preserve, and distribute 3D data of historic objects, buildings, and sites, including the Rotunda Dome, archaeological artifacts at Monticello, and the Pine Grove School in Cumberland, Virginia.

During the fall 2022 semester, Rourk’s students used laser scanning equipment to collect 3D data of the barn, the farmhouse, and surrounding landscape at River View Farm. “In all we collected 55 individual scan datasets of the barn and 123 datasets for the house and landscape,” he said. His students produced a thorough storymap website on their work. Late last month, Rourk uploaded all of the data about the barn and farmhouse to LibraData, UVA’s data repository, hosted by the Library.

“Once the 3D data is up in the Library, then it’s accessible to the scholarly community,” Rourk said. The data has a variety of uses, including historic structure reports for architecture firms, 3D printing of artifact replicas, or even for the immersive virtual reality spaces in the Library’s Robertson Media Center. “We have a ton of this data running in the virtual reality lab in Clemons,” Rourk said. “You can virtually visit the Pine Grove School, cabins for the formerly enslaved, as well as the [now demolished] U-Hall arena.”

Rourk is planning on loading the River View Farm data onto the VR stations in Clemons for virtual explorations this summer. The data is also being used to help preservation efforts of River View Farm. Rourk is working closely with Jody Lahendro, who was a preservation architect at UVA for 16 years and now, in retirement, serves as a board member of the Ivy Creek Foundation. The 3D data from Rourk and his students will be crucial to Lahendro’s current volunteer work assisting Albemarle County Parks & Recreation in developing a historic structure report for River View Farm.

“All these people in the historic preservation community that I work with are just doing amazing, interesting work. And I am propelled by their eagerness to do good,” Rourk said. “I feel like the Library does good because we help people who do good. And this is one small way that I can do that.”

To take a tour of River View Farm or to learn about other educational events and scheduled hikes on the land, visit the Ivy Creek Foundation website.

 

 

“Moving the profession forward”: UVA Library wins grant to host Archives Leadership Institute

Explore podcasts, literature, and archives depicting a rich array of LGBTQ+ experiences

In June, the U.S. celebrates Pride Month, in honor of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising. Across the country, people gather with parades, events, parties, and other celebrations to honor the history and impact of the LGBTQ+ community. This post highlights podcasts, literature, and archives that document the rich array of lived experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals.

Whether you are exploring your own identity or want to build your allyship capacities, we hope that this month’s materials provide you meaningful ways to learn about our vibrant community.

- Catalina Piatt-Esguerra, she/hers (Associate Dean for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility) 

 

First, from Amanda Wyatt Visconti, they/them, (Managing Director of Scholars’ Lab):  

The “Gender Reveal” podcast

The “Gender Reveal” podcast interviews a diverse array of trans, nonbinary, intersex, and two-spirit people. Whether you want to be a better ally, explore your gender, or just hear about a broad array of trans lives, the show connects you to a variety of lived trans experiences (including activism, creativity, work, and joy), rather than only transition or tragedy. You can listen through various platforms or read episode transcripts if you prefer. “Starter packs” collect episodes to start listening to specific kinds of interviewees, including trans authors, actors, Indigenous and two-spirit folks, social justice and union activists, and academics.

Zines!

Zines are DIY self-publications, often small paper booklets easily replicated on copy machines and distributed for free. They’ve historically been a low-barrier way for LGBTQIA+ folks to share advice and art with one another. UVA’s library catalog offers an array of zines and zine-related reads; and when the main library completes its renovation you’ll be able to visit the Scholars' Lab zine wall on the third floor to grab as many free zines on LGBTQIA+ and other topics as you want! For now, here are a couple of LGBTQIA+ zine resources you can access online:

• “Embodiment: Secrets Under Our Skin” by the Feminist Union of Charlottesville Creatives for “profoundly personal stories, poems, and creative artworks conceived from radical bodily exploration.”
• “TGI 'n fine: A resource & care zine for trans, gender non-conforming, & intersex youth” by the LYRIC Center for LGBTQQ Youth, with advice for exploring and navigating gender transition.
• Barnard College’s Zine Library offers links to many free digital zines by women, nonbinary people, and trans men, with emphasis on zines by women of color and a newer effort to acquire more zines by trans women; as well as resources on how to make your own zines.

 

Second, from Brenda Gunn, she/her/hers (Associate University Librarian for Special Collections and Preservation):

“The Black Flamingo”

Dean Atta’s debut novel, “The Black Flamingo” (on order for UVA Library), is a banned book in several locales and states. First published in Great Britain in 2019, Atta’s book launched in the U.S. a year later and met challenges calling for the removal of this young adult novel from library shelves. Atta writes in verse to tell the story of Michael as he transitions from living at home in London with his mother and younger sister, to enrolling in a nearby university to study English in the hopes of becoming a writer. Michael is mixed race; his father is of Jamaican descent and his mother is Greek. He is also gay. Michael moves through novel spaces as a university student and gains strength and motivation from his new experiences, especially with the Drag Society. As he develops his drag persona — the black flamingo — and settles into this group space of acceptance, Michael defines himself in defiance of all those who would try to do that for him. Winner of multiple awards, including the Stonewall Book Award from the American Library Association, “The Black Flamingo” should appear on only one list: must read.

 

Third, from M. Grace Hale, she/hers (Reference Librarian):

“The Mimicking of Known Successes”

The Mimicking of Known Successes (on order for UVA Library), is a beautifully written novella. Maika Older, the author of the critically acclaimed “Centenal Cycle” series, introduces a cozy sapphic mystery, complete with tea, scones, an elite university, and a gender-bending Sherlockian/Watsonian team. The storyline manages to combine eco-criticism and post-apocalyptic politics with a lightness of heart that keeps you wanting more. The twist is that the story is set on Jupiter where humans have retreated after climate collapse made Earth uninhabitable. Humans have retained a foothold in the solar system by building a colony of ring-like habitats connected by light rail lines around Jupiter but dream of rehabilitating Earth.

The central mystery concerns an unidentified man who goes missing on one of the provincial rail stations, and the shadowy agency that appears to deal with it. Mossa, an investigator, is called on to look into the disappearance. When the missing man turns out to be a scholar from Valdegeld, home to the colony’s elite university, Mossa decides to call on Pleiti, a Classics scholar, to get the inside scoop on faculty life. Pleiti is a specialist in pre-collapse Earth ecosystems and may or may not still have a candle burning for Mossa after their college romance ended badly years before.

The novella pokes wicked fun at the foibles of academia and the dangers of a nostalgia ethos, using minimalist strokes to build a world that leaves the reader wanting to know more. The mystery unfolds on the storm-plagued Valdegeld platform and eventually collides with political maneuvering around the colony’s efforts to repopulate Earth’s ecosystem so humans can someday return. The tone manages to be both cozy and atmospheric, touching with a light hand on the politely cutthroat world of elite research institutions as well as the human capacity for hope.

 

Lastly, from Mandy Rizki, she/her/hers, (Reference Librarian):

Digital Transgender Archive

The Digital Transgender Archive is an online database compiling archival material from the lives and experiences of transgender people, with more than seventy institutions contributing from around the world. The database can be searched by collection, keyword, or tagged location – meaning photos of trans folks in Berlin in 1920 are tagged in Berlin on a world map, even though they are physically in the Human Sexuality Collection at Cornell! Items in the database include 1990s newsletters from the East Coast FTM group, photographs from the 1978 ‘Gay Day’ parade in San Francisco, newspaper clippings from Sao Paulo, correspondence, and so much more.

 

Join us for the Holsinger Studio Family Celebration on June 11

There are only  a few more weeks to catch “Visions of Progress: Portraits of Dignity, Style, and Racial Uplift,” UVA Library’s vibrant exhibition that showcases portraits that African Americans in central Virginia commissioned from the Holsinger Studio during the first decades of the 20th century. Curated by UVA associate professor of history John Edwin Mason, the exhibition has garnered national media attention and drawn thousands of visitors to the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. It closes on June 24.

To celebrate the exhibition’s final weeks, join UVA Library and the Holsinger Studio Portrait Project at a Family Day celebration on June 11 from 1-4 p.m., located in the Small Special Collections Library. Supported by a grant from the Jefferson Trust, Family Day activities include:

• Tintype portraits by Richmond-based photographer Em White: Registration via Eventbrite required; reservations open today (Monday, June 5) at noon.
• A portrait studio printing post-modern cartes-de-visite (popular 19th-century calling cards) in the exhibition’s Main Gallery.
• A Historic Clothing Collection show-and-tell from 1-3 p.m. with Collection Manager [HJP(1] Marcy Linton, featuring garments from the Holsinger Studio era.
• A visit from the Free Book Bus from 1-3 p.m. at 170 McCormick Road.
• Storytime readings from local celebrities (including musicians and newscasters), featuring books about photography and portraiture.
• A “Zine Jam” workshop for tweens and teens with “Women Making Books” curator Annyston Pennington. Cut, paste, write, and create to make your own zine. (“Women Making Books,” located in the First Floor Gallery in the Small Special Collections Library, closes June 11.)
• Snacks, make your own portrait, Holsinger Studio coloring books, and more!
• Free parking in the Central Grounds Garage all day.

“It’s going to be hard to close and deinstall ‘Visions of Progress’ — there has been so much community interest and a steady flow of visitors and joy in our gallery,” said Holly Robertson, Curator of University Library Exhibitions. “We want to end on a high note, and we hope families will bring their kids to experience the exhibition as portrait sitters. And we hope everyone walks away with a sense of pride and understanding when thinking about the Black portrait sitters at the Holsinger Studio one hundred years ago.”

What’s next for UVA Library’s exhibition program? “It’s time to look back at the Harlem Renaissance,” Robertson said. “Get out your flapper dresses and zoot suits because we’re going to have a costume party for the opening of ‘Their World As Big As They Made It: Looking Back at the Harlem Renaissance’ on Wednesday, September 13!”

For more information about the Family Day celebration, visit the Holsinger Studio Portrait Project Page, or email HolsingerStudio@virginia.edu.

What recent Supreme Court rulings on copyright and terrorism mean for libraries

What does an iconic Andy Warhol silkscreen portrait of the musician Prince have to do with the work of libraries? It all relates to the issue of fair use, according to Brandon Butler, the University of Virginia Library’s Director of Information Policy. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision about Warhol’s licensing of “Orange Prince,” as well as two other rulings — Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google — that addressed platform liability for user content.

We spoke with Butler about the rulings and what they mean for libraries. A copyright lawyer, Butler keeps tabs on open access and fair use issues, court rulings, and the future of AI on his blog, The Taper. Check out his thoughts below!

Q. Can you give brief overviews of the Warhol, Twitter, and Gonzalez cases?

A. I’ll be as brief as I can! Warhol v. Goldsmith is about (you guessed it) Andy Warhol, and in particular it’s about him licensing one of his celebrity silkscreen portraits of Prince for use on a magazine cover. The portrait was based on a photograph, and the photographer objected to Warhol’s use. The Twitter and Gonzalez cases were about whether platforms like Twitter and Google could be held partly liable for terrorist attacks that the plaintiffs said were incited by content hosted on their platforms. In the end, Warhol lost and the tech platforms won.

Q. What were the main concerns about the cases, especially in terms of how they relate to the work libraries do?

A. For Warhol, the library concern was that the Court would revisit its broad and flexible fair use approach and shrink the scope for lawful fair use of in-copyright works. I joke sometimes that libraries are basically warehouses full of legally encumbered objects, and without fair use libraries and their users would be severely limited in what we can do with the information we work so hard to collect and share. We need fair use for preservation, for computer analysis of text, to serve all patrons regardless of disability, to power criticism and commentary, to mount compelling exhibitions, and on and on. If the court had rolled back fair use in Warhol, it would have been a disaster for us.

The connection between libraries, tech platforms, and antiterrorism laws may be less obvious, but it’s still important. The legal arguments in those cases sought to hold Google and Twitter responsible not only for what users posted to their sites, but also for what viewers did outside of the platforms. This is relevant to libraries because many of us (most university libraries, especially) host information on behalf of our communities, and we need reasonable protections from liability for what we host. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to support things like Libra or UVA Create, because the risk would be too high. Also, I think it’s generally troubling to hold any information provider responsible for what other people do with the information they provide.

Q. Can you walk us through the rulings handed down last week and what they mean for library workers going forward?

A. In the Warhol case, the Court ruled that the Warhol Foundation (which has managed Warhol’s rights since his death) could not license the Warhol Prince image for use on a magazine cover without Goldsmith’s permission because that was too similar (nearly identical, in fact) to the purpose of Goldsmith’s photograph. In fact, when Warhol initially created his Prince images, he was working on commission for Vanity Fair and the magazine paid a license fee to Goldsmith so that Warhol could use the image. The ruling is extremely narrow for this reason — it really only applies in cases like this where the fair user has the same purpose as the original creator and is competing directly with the original work in its intended market. The scholarly and research uses we see in the library are miles away from this kind of stuff, so I’m pretty confident we won’t see many repercussions from Warhol in our work.

In the Twitter and Gonzalez cases, the court actually dodged what folks thought would be a hot-button issue: whether the court would apply a legal provision called Section 230 that protects online platforms when they might otherwise be liable for user speech. The court dodged the question by finding that the tech companies did nothing wrong here, so there was no need to invoke that platform immunity rule.

Q. Do you foresee challenges to these rulings in the future?

A. In a sense, yes. The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land, of course, so their word on any particular case is final. But the issues they avoided in these cases — when is artistic borrowing unfair, and when should internet companies be shielded from their users’ bad acts — live on, and the lower courts and even Congress are going to be wrestling with them for years to come.

Q. Anything else you’d like to add?

A. It’s interesting that these cases were all basically non-partisan. In an era when trust of the Supreme Court is at an all-time low, and the Court’s conservative supermajority seems to be flexing its power, there are still some issues where you can’t really predict how people will vote based on who appointed them. In Warhol, both the majority and the dissent were written by liberals and joined by conservatives, with a concurrence written by a conservative and joined by a liberal. In the tech platform cases, hard-right justice Clarence Thomas wrote for a unanimous court. This doesn’t mean the court is apolitical, or that it isn’t bitterly divided, but just that there are some areas of law where those divides haven’t asserted themselves.

Fine Arts Library closed for the summer

The Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library will be closed from May 19 to Aug. 15 due to construction on the patio surrounding the building.

Other Library locations will remain open. To find group or study spaces in other Library locations, visit library.virginia.edu/hours. During the closure, Fine Arts materials can be requested in Virgo for delivery to another Library location, and summer course reserves will be available in Clemons Library.

The nearby book drop boxes will also be closed during this time. Open drive-up drop boxes are located at Ivy Stacks and in the Central Grounds Parking Garage and there are a number of walk-up drop boxes elsewhere on Grounds. For directions and maps to all Library locations and drop boxes, visit library.virginia.edu/map.

Questions? Ask a Librarian or contact your subject liaison.

7 Books (and a movie) to celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Guest post by Haley Gillilan (Undergraduate Student Success Librarian), and Keith Weimer (Librarian for History and Religious Studies).

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, making it a great time to feature materials created by, for, and about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Join the Library in celebrating this heritage month and take a look at our recommendations below!

“Saving Time: Discovering A Life Behind the Clock” by Jenny Odell (Random House, 2023)

In her follow-up to her great work on resisting the attention economy, “How to Do Nothing,” Jenny Odell examines different senses of time. This book is incredibly expansive, considering the history of timekeeping, how we perceive time, and reflecting on how our relationship with time has changed over the pandemic. I found that this book took me quite some time to read, because I was digesting and savoring every page, and making many annotations. Ultimately, I found Odell’s book thought-provoking and emotionally resonant. —Haley Gillilan

“In Waves” by AJ Dungo (Nobrow, 2019)

This beautiful graphic novel by AJ Dungo is a meditation on grief and surfing. While it might not seem as if those two concepts naturally mesh, Dungo weaves together a gorgeous and heartbreaking narrative about the loss of his girlfriend, alongside the history of the sport. Elegant, monochromatic, full-page illustrations of water and islands wash over the reader. For those grappling with sadness, depression, or complicated grief, Dungo’s graphic novel might be a soothing balm and reminder that they are not alone. —Haley Gillilan

“The Bandit Queens” by Parini Shroff (Ballantine Books, 2023)

“The Bandit Queens” is unlike anything I’ve ever read. This novel follows a group of women in India who are plotting to get rid of their husbands, but if you think you know where this is going, I assure you that you don’t. I think that this novel would ultimately be considered “women’s fiction,” but it has something for everyone. It’s sadistically funny, tenacious, culturally immersive, and intense, but it also has some cozy mystery elements that many people would love. Anyone looking for an energetic rollercoaster with searing feminist commentary, look no further than Shroff’s “The Bandit Queens.” —Haley Gillilan

“Insurrecto” by Gina Apostol (Soho, 2018)

Gina Apostol’s novel “Insurrecto” presents an encounter between a Filipina immigrant, Magsalin (her professional name), and an American filmmaker, Chiara Brasi. Chiara is hoping to finish her father’s film about an uprising against American troops occupying the Philippines after the Spanish-American War, which led to U.S. acquisition of the Philippines, and has hired Magsalin as a translator of and consultant for her script. The novel uses the interactions between the two women, as well as depictions of the uprising and events from the 1970s when both women were children and Chiara’s father was using the Philippines as a set for a film about the Vietnam War, to represent stages in the history of U.S. imperialism and Filipino-American interactions. —Keith Weimer

“Making A Scene” by Constance Wu (Scribner, 2022)

This book of essays by actress Constance Wu is a refreshing memoir, with a mix of some heavy hitting emotional reflections and heartwarming anecdotes. I was looking forward to this book because Constance Wu has been brave and outspoken about abuse in the entertainment industry, and I wanted to read more about her experiences in her own words. I think that readers in our community might be particularly interested in this work, as Wu grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and some of her childhood memories feature prominently in the book. —Haley Gillilan

“Four Great Treasures of the Sky” by Jenny Tinghui Zhang (Flatiron Books, 2022)

For those looking for a book about characters living in a time period that is rarely depicted in mainstream media, “Four Treasures of the Sky” might have something to teach you. Our heroine, Daiyu, is smuggled from China to the United States in the 1880s. She adapts to her circumstances and fights for her freedom across the American West. Keep a box of tissues nearby, though, as the book barrels towards a heartbreaking conclusion. In Jenny Tinghui Zhang’s author’s note, she mentions that this book was an attempt to tell a story that is lost to time and give a narrative to those affected by the Chinese Exclusion Act. I recommend this book to all lovers of historical fiction.—Haley Gillilan

“After Yang” directed by Kogonada (A24 Films, 2021)

A very low-fi science fiction gem, it’s possible that “After Yang” slipped under your radar. Set in a near future where robots are used as nannies, Jake (Colin Farrell) desperately tries to find a fix for his daughter’s adoring and gentle android friend, Yang. In his efforts, he encounters Yang’s life beyond who he was as a babysitter. “After Yang” doesn’t have a lot of flashy special effects or explosions that these types of stories usually come with, but digs deep into existential ideas about grief and contentment. You can stream “After Yang” on our library streaming platform, Swank. —Haley Gillilan

“Christian Pluralism in the United States: The Indian Immigrant Experience” by Raymond Brady Williams (Cambridge University Press, 1996)

Raymond Brady Williams’ scholarly monograph, “Christian Pluralism in the United States: The Indian Immigrant Experience,” provides a through overview of this vibrant segment of the Indian American community circa 1996. Almost every Christian tradition in the American landscape is represented in the Indian community, and these are not all products of imperial missionary endeavors. (The “Mar Thoma Christians” and their “Malabar Rite” Catholic offshoots claim a heritage dating back to Jesus’ disciple Thomas in the first century.) These Christian communities experience many tensions in trying to maintain a faith commitment along with (regional) ethnic and in some cases caste identities, marriage traditions and rituals from the Indian subcontinent. Only the Baptists seem to have built something of a “pan-Indian” identity. A review of Prema Kurien’s 2017 book, “Ethnic Church Meets Megachurch: Indian American Christianity in Motion,” which I haven’t read, suggests that most of these tensions have continued for the past quarter-century, with shifts towards greater Americanization and “nondenominational” Protestantism (trends also present among other American ethnic groups). —Keith Weimer

Recommended reading for Jewish American Heritage Month 2023

Guest post by Sherri Brown, UVA Librarian for English and Digital Humanities

Since 2006, the United States has observed Jewish American Heritage Month each May. It may come as no surprise that the University of Virginia Library is celebrating the occasion with a list of recommended books by Jewish authors. See some of our recommendations below, along with picks from students in Professor Caroline Rody’s spring 2023 English class, Contemporary Jewish Fiction. We hope you find a book or two to pique your interest! (Find more events and materials related to Jewish American heritage here.)

Fiction:

“The Latecomer” by Jean Hanff Korelitz (Celadon Books, 2022)

Jean Hanff Korelitz’s novel follows the lives of the Oppenheimers, a family plagued by tragedy and its emotional repercussions. Phoebe, the last of four children, is born to Salo and Johanna 18 years after her triplet siblings. She must navigate the fallout from the web of lies and secrets her parents and the triplets have created over the years in order to understand the past and bring peace to her family. An engaging read that elicits a reflection on what it is that binds a family together and whether sharing a bloodline is not enough.

– Recommended by Sherri Brown, Librarian for English and Digital Humanities

“The Chosen” by Chaim Potok (Simon & Schuster, 1967)

Set in 1940s-era Brooklyn, Chaim Potok’s 1967 novel “The Chosen” paints a vivid and unstable world through the eyes of adolescent Reuven Malter, a young, modern Orthodox Jew who longs to become a rabbi. After a dramatic encounter on a baseball field, Reuven eventually strikes up a friendship with a young Hasid named Danny, the son of the larger-than-life rabbinic sage and tzaddik/leader, Reb Saunders. Though they hail from extremely different backgrounds, the boys rely on each other to navigate their entrance into adulthood.

Potok has crafted a masterful work rich with characterization and cultural depth. He captures the classic essence of a coming-of-age story and raises questions about Jewishness and the life-altering influence of friendship. Once Reuven and Danny’s paths intertwine, their life trajectories take on a new definition, and nothing will ever be the same.

— Recommended by Caroline Ford, graduate student

Beatrice White, an undergraduate student in Professor Rody’s class, also recommended “The Chosen,” explaining that “each page is a delicacy, detailing the beautiful and troubling journey from Jewish boyhood to manhood,” and describing the novel as “a must-read for any interested in the intricacies of young Jewishness and just how powerful friendship can be.”

“The Shawl” by Cynthia Ozick (1980). Printed in book format by Knopf, 1989.

I highly recommend “The Shawl” by Cynthia Ozick as an important piece of Holocaust literature. It is a harrowing short story about three characters, Rosa, Magda, and Stella, on their march to a concentration camp. During this march, Rosa tries in vain to keep her infant daughter, Magda, hidden from Nazi officers. She does this by concealing her in a shawl, which she keeps close to her breast. Throughout the story, this shawl acts as a layer of protection between Magda and the horrors of the outside world.

The reason why this story resonated so much with me is because it deals with themes of motherhood. There are many things about the Holocaust that are horrifying, but probably the most gut-wrenching to me is the sheer number of families that were torn apart. Although this short story is technically a work of historical fiction, Ozick has stated that the events in the story are an amalgamation of testimonies she heard from women who lost their children at concentration camps. Ozick does an incredible job of illustrating this inhumanity in an almost surreal way. Her writing is filled with unusual metaphors and bizarre analogies, ones that make the horrifying events in the story difficult to digest — but at the same time, you as a reader are unable to look away from the page. This is emblematic of how the protagonist, Rosa, feels on the inside, because after all, it must be impossible for her to fully comprehend the inhumanity that she is experiencing all around her. By the end of the story, the reader feels just as heartbroken as she does.

– Recommended by Leilani Johnson, undergraduate student

“Her First American” by Lore Segal (Knopf, 1985)

Lore Segal’s “Her First American” tells the semi-autobiographical story of the relationship between Ilka Weissnix, a young Jewish refugee from Nazi Europe, and Carter Bayoux, an older Black American. Carter is a teacher, and he makes it his mission to teach Ilka how to become naturalized into America’s unique racial culture. Through his lessons and Ilka’s experiences, readers watch people from different backgrounds fight to achieve coexistence in a divided world that works against them. Themes of empathy saturate the plot while Carter struggles with alcoholism and Ilka must learn how to relate to her traumatized mother. In this character-driven novel, Segal asks questions about how social conformity creates constrictions on relationships — and how people can overcome those restrictions.

– Recommended by an undergraduate student

“Maus: A Survivor’s Tale” by Art Spiegelman (Pantheon Books, 1986)

When it comes to modern Jewish literature, specifically Holocaust literature, the book I think best encapsulates this genre is the graphic novel “Maus” by Art Spiegelman. What stands out about “Maus” is how it depicts multiple generations of post-Holocaust trauma, and the reader can get the full scope of the impact of the event. Through the father’s story, the reader can learn about the history of the Holocaust, including the rise of the Nazi party and the experience of the concentration camps. Then, through the son’s narrative, the reader can gain insight into the prolonged impact of the Holocaust on the family dynamic. The father’s struggles with money and love show the long-term trauma of the Holocaust. The reader can also better understand second-generation Holocaust trauma through the son’s struggles with his father’s experiences. With “Maus,” readers can better understand the true impact of the Holocaust on American Jewish families, while also reading a compelling historical novel.

– Recommended by Grace Theriot, undergraduate student

“Jewish Humor” section of “Jewish American Literature: a Norton Anthology” edited by Jules Chametzky, John Felstiner, Hilene Flanzbaum, and Kathryn Hellerstein (W.W. Norton, 2001)

Jewish comedy defies easy explanation. Perceptive critics have described any attempts to identify a distinctively Jewish sense of humor as fruitless since, for any claim made as to what it truly is, a little thought immediately uncovers all kinds of exceptions and counterexamples. Furthermore, the counterexamples themselves go beyond being merely illustrative; they are nearly as extensive and numerous as Jewish history, which spans a wide geographic area, literally and figuratively. The book offers many examples showcasing alternative takes in a humorous way, leaving readers in awe.  The recurrence of dark comedy in the book may particularly capture readers. I highly recommend this work, as readers will dive into a whole world of stories in different settings that will keep them on their toes.

– Recommended by Sultana Omar, undergraduate student

Nonfiction:

“Voices From Shanghai: Jewish Exiles in Wartime China” edited, translated, & with an introduction by Irene Eber (University of Chicago Press, 2008). Also available as an ebook.

In the years leading up to the Second World War, many Jewish families fled Germany, Poland, and surrounding countries. A sizeable contingent of Jewish refugees — between 18,000 and 20,000 — arrived in Shanghai, China, between 1938 and 1941 (according to Eber), joining the over 6,000 Russian Jews who had arrived earlier in the 1930s. Eber brings us first-hand accounts of life in Shanghai before, during, and after the war through translated poems, stories, letters, and diaries penned by Jewish refugees during that time. While many of the Jews in Shanghai eventually immigrated to the United States, Canada, Australia, and other locales, this book is an important contribution to providing a glimpse of the range of feelings and experiences had by Jewish refugees during their time in China.

– Recommended by Sherri Brown

“Strange Haven: A Jewish Childhood in Wartime Shanghai” by Sigmund Tobias (University of Illinois Press, 1999)

For a more detailed account of day-to-day life in Shanghai during WWII, consider this memoir by Sigmund Tobias, Eminent Research Professor of Educational & Counseling Psychology at the University of Albany. Born in 1932, Tobias was only six years old when he fled from Germany to Shanghai with his parents. Tobias recounts his childhood growing up in Shanghai during the war, as his family and many other Jewish refugees acclimated to a new climate and customs while struggling with poverty, food shortages, and the eventual movement of refugees to a ghetto in part of the Hongkew district. In describing his life, Tobias also expounds on the details of living as an Orthodox Jew in a foreign city. Tobias immigrated to the United States in August of 1948. The final chapters of his memoir tell of his return to Shanghai 40 years after his departure. An illuminating and compelling read.

– Recommended by Sherri Brown

Researchers can direct queries about Jewish and Jewish American literature to Sherri Brown and research questions regarding Jewish Studies to Miguel Valladares-Llata, Librarian for Romance Languages and Latin American Studies, whose subject specialties include French, German, Jewish Studies, Latin American Studies, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese.  

A closer look: Alumni explore Bolívar Collection during ‘Juntos’ weekend

Earlier this month in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, a happy group of alumni, students, and staff posed in front of a portrait of Fernando Bolívar, who was likely the first Latin American student at the University of Virginia. The nephew and adopted son of the Venezuelan leader Simón Bolívar, Fernando enrolled at the University in 1827. He is the namesake for important hubs in UVA’s Latinx community today, including the student residence Casa Bolívar and the Bolívar Network, an alumni steering committee.

The group was gathered for the UVA Alumni Association’s inaugural Juntos weekend, a celebration for Latinx alumni. (The Spanish word “juntos” translates to “together” in English.) As part of that weekend, UVA Library sponsored two events on April 15, including a presentation of Simón and Fernando Bolívar’s artifacts held in Special Collections. For that event, called “A Closer Look: The Bolívar Collection,” UVA Library curators and archivists displayed Simón Bolívar’s silver and manuscripts, Fernando Bolívar’s papers, and portraits of both men that were donated to UVA in 1944 by the Venezuelan government. They also presented more modern items related to the Latinx experience at UVA and the Bolívar Network’s founding.

“The team that interpreted the objects from the Library’s Bolívar family collection were so thoughtful in their explanations and care for the precious items and their stories,” said attendee Gina Flores, a 2000 UVA alumna and founding student member of the Bolívar Network. “I appreciated the 1827 Bolívar history paired with more current Latinx histories. Seeing some of the founding documents of the Bolívar Network from decades ago reminded me how important it is to collect and preserve UVA Latinx history, past, present, and future. Seeing our community’s history validated my connection to UVA and sense of belonging as an alumna.”

That same morning, the Library partnered with Microsoft’s HOLA Network (its internal Latinx employee resource group), to host a breakfast in Special Collections’ Harrison-Small Auditorium, where Latinx Microsoft employees shared video testimonials about the power of Latinx community. “A weekend like this one is an opportunity for units, schools, and groups across the University to reflect on the journey of Latinx students, faculty and staff since the University’s founding,” said Catalina Piatt-Esguerra, the Library’s Associate Dean of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility, during the Microsoft event. “It’s a weekend that reminds us of the impact of community and the power of representation.”

Take a look below at images from that day, captured by photographer and Library employee Eze Amos.

For more about the Bolívar Collection, check out these links in the Library catalog:

• Fernando Simón Bolívar papers (MSS 12214)
• Papers pertaining to Fernando Simón Bolívar (MSS 38-205)
• Bolívar Family Silverware (MSS 14121)

Introducing the Iselin Collection of Humor

The University of Virginia Library is delighted to announce the donation of a major gift, the Iselin Collection of Humor. Built over many years by noted collector and retired attorney Josephine Lea Iselin, the Iselin Collection will be a tremendous asset for research and learning at the University across a wide range of disciplines.

The Iselin Collection, which will reside in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, consists of illustrated books, reference materials, periodicals, prints, manuscripts, and ephemera, principally of social and political satire. The Iselin Collection encompasses more than 800 items, including significant works of 19th-century English and French material, a 20th-century collection of illustrated humor books by well-known editorial cartoonists of the era, and an adjunct collection of 19th- and 20th-century American illustrated fiction, put together, as Iselin noted, “with an emphasis on the quality of the illustration and pure whimsy.”

Both the English and French materials include works by the most celebrated graphic humorists of the period. Giants of the genre of satire and caricature, such as George and Robert Cruikshank in England and Honoré Daumier, Gustave Doré, and J.J. Grandville in France, are the focus of the collections, but many other artists are included. Charles H. Bennett, Richard Doyle, Alfred Henry Forrester, Harold Knight Browne (Phiz), Thomas Rowlandson, John Tenniel, Charles Amédée de Noé (Cham), André Gill, Rodolphe Töpffer, and dozens of other well-known illustrators all appear. Portions of the collection have been the subjects of recent exhibitions at the Grolier Club (in New York City, where Iselin resides). In 2017, the club displayed “Vive les Satiristes! French Caricature during the Reign of Louis Philippe, 1830-1848,”, followed by “The Great George: Cruikshank and London's Graphic Humorists, 1800-1850” in 2021. “Vive les Satiristes!” and “The Great George” were curated by Iselin, and catalogs were published for both exhibitions.

The Iselin Collection has far-ranging potential for research, instruction, exhibition, and outreach, as the items relate to many fields of study, including art, art history, literature, political science, history, and media studies. In addition to availability in the Small Special Collections Library, the collection will also be used in Rare Book School courses in illustration, printing, bibliography, book arts, and book history.

Brenda Gunn, Associate University Librarian for Special Collections and Preservation, noted the importance of the collection. “Not only will it vastly improve our 19th-century French and English holdings, but it also serves as a complement and connection to our materials in American political cartooning and satire,” she said. The Library has significant holdings in that area, including manuscript collections, materials in the Tracy W. McGregor Library of American History, and the papers of acclaimed political cartoonist Patrick Oliphant, whose archive the University acquired in 2018.

Gunn remarked upon another distinction of the collection. “The Iselin Collection is notable not just for its exceptional content but also as one of the few gatherings of rare materials at the Library amassed by a female collector. The collection reflects Lea Iselin’s critical eye and her passion for the materials, and it shows her extraordinary skill in assembling them into a unified whole. Finally, the collection is in excellent overall condition. We are grateful to her for this singular gift and look forward to stewarding it and making it available for scholars and visitors.”

 The Iselin Collection of Humor is currently being cataloged. The UVA Library will continue to highlight this important collection as work proceeds.