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2010 Events & News

January 14, 2010
Lecture: “Militant Publics: Physical Training, Guerilla-Styled Protest, and ‘Civic’ Violence in Gujarat, India." Arafaat Valiani, Kluge Fellow, at 12:00 PM in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building.

Prof. Arafaat A. Valiani will give a lecture drawing upon his current book project which ethnographically and historically investigates how practices of physical training have produced novel forms of civic conduct that are tied to public performances of violence in the western Indian state of Gujarat. In his Kluge presentation, Prof. Valiani will historically situate neighborhood-based physical training, which has been organized by the contemporary Hindu Nationalist Movement in Gujarat, by connecting it to the non-violent nationalist movement of Mohandas Gandhi which was launched in the state in the early twentieth century.

January 21, 2010
Lecture: "Persian Rumi versus American Rumi: A long journey from Afghanistan to Iran, then to Iraq, Mecca, Turkey, Europe and, eventually to the United States." Abdolkarim Soroush, Distinguished Visiting Scholar, at 4:00 PM in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building.
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January 31, 2010
Kislak Short Term Fellowship in American Studies - Application deadline - January 31, 2010.
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February 22, 2010
Panel Discussion: “Sino-Indian Maritime Rivalry and the US” led by C. Raja Mohan, Kissinger Chair, at 4:00 in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building.

As China and India emerge as great powers, they are beginning to transform the maritime security politics in the Western Pacific and Indian oceans. A panel discussion at the Library of Congress will examine the naval dynamic among China, India and the United States and the implications for the maritime balance of power in Asia.

The moderator for the panel discussion is C. Raja Mohan, holder of the Henry Alfred Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Kluge Center. Mohan is professor of South Asian studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
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February 28, 2010
Alan Lomax Fellowship in Folklife Studies - Application deadline - February 28, 2010.
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February 28, 2010
Kislak Fellowship in American Studies - Application deadline - February 28, 2010.
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March 2, 2010
Lecture: John Haynes, Kluge Staff Fellow, discusses his book "Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America."
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March 25, 2010
Lecture: "Civic Passions: Seven Who Launched Progressive America." In the last quarter of the 19th century, great industrial growth resulted in corporate excesses and economic inequities, somewhat similar to current economic and social conditions.

Cecelia Tichi will discuss the era and its parallels to today in a lecture about her new book "Civic Passions: Seven Who Launched Progressive America (and What They Teach Us)" at 4 p.m. on Thursday, March 25, in Room 119 on the first floor of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington D.C. The event is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are needed.
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April 15, 2010
Lecture: Holger Hoock, Kluge Fellow, “Civil War in the British Empire: Practices and Representations of Violence in the American Revolutionary War” at 12:00 in Whittall Pavilion, Thomas Jefferson Building.

America’s War for Independence - the high ideals associated with it notwithstanding - was also a protracted imperial civil war, fought with weapons, laws, and rhetoric. It was dangerous and deadly, not only for combatants - American patriots and loyalists, British forces and their German auxiliaries, Native and African Americans - but also for many civilians. However, the nature and sheer pervasiveness of the violence generated by the revolution’s partisan fury and eight years of war have not been fully appreciated.

In this illustrated lecture, Dr Holger Hoock gives an overview of his Kluge Fellowship project - a cultural history of violence in the American Revolutionary War against the background of European conventions of warfare, and of experience with civil war and counter-insurgency in the British Isles.

Political violence in the Revolution involved the coordinated violation of people’s lives, physical and emotional wellbeing, and property. Thousands of ordinary people suffered verbal abuse, arbitrary arrest, and confiscations; many were subjected to violent rituals, torture, and rape, some were lynched. “Collateral” violence in war left very large numbers of non-combatants and prisoners from all sides abused, maimed, or killed, and countless fields and villages devastated.

How did war descend into atrocious reprisals and the warfare of devastation? To what extent did the conduct of the British army - battlefield atrocities, plunder, rape, maltreatment of prisoners of war - contribute to the loss of American hearts and minds? And how does Britain’s conduct of the American Revolutionary war inform our understanding of limited and total war in the era of emerging international law?

This event is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are needed.

April 17, 2010
Application Due Date: David B. Larson Fellowship in Health and Spirituality.
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April 29, 2010
Lecture: Jennifer Loughmiller-Newman, Kislak Fellow, “Kislak Ceramics: Drugs, Drinks, and Ritual Goods, Actual or Imaginary Content?” at 12:00 in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building.

The ancient Maya created extraordinary ceramics for ritual use. These Classic period artifacts (600 to 900 AD) often are decorated with graphic images depicting ritual acts and, less frequently, with hieroglyphic text which seemingly indicates the vessel's contents (for example kakaw/chocolate, may/tobacco). Have the Maya presented us with direct evidence of ritual behavior or do we have ideological representations of that behavior? Perhaps something in between? This presentation will discuss the pursuit of the answers through the examination of Classic Maya vessels from the Kislak collection at the Library of Congress.

This event is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are needed.

May 6, 2010
Lecture: Svetlana Kujumdzieva, Kluge Fellow, “The Library as witness to music history: The case of the Sinai Musical manuscripts housed at the Library of Congress,” at 12:00 in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building.

Dr. Kujumdzieva believes that the Library of Congress’ microfilmed collection of musical manuscripts from St. Catherine’s Monastery, Mt. Sinai, one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the world, are representative of music from the Byzantine era and, by extension, for all Orthodox music that entered the orbit of Byzantine Christian civilization. In her talk, she will examine Byzantine music in its various stages and how it is contextualized in these manuscripts in order to answer some basic questions. Exactly what was chanted in these early times? What were the earliest assembled books to include medieval chant repertories and how did these repertories grow from the sources? How was the music notated and how was it transmitted in the Eastern Orthodox world? By answering these and other questions, Kujumdzieva will discuss why the Sinai manuscripts were microfilmed and why they are so important in the history of music.

This event is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are needed.

May 6, 2010
Lecture: James F. Childress, Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in American History and Ethics, “Respecting Conscience, Protecting Patients: Unresolved Tensions in American Health Care,” at 4:00 PM in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building.
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May 18, 2010
Discussion: "History as a Way of Life: Jürgen Kocka in Conversation with Klaus Larres," 4 p.m. in the Whittall Pavilion, ground level of the Thomas Jefferson Building.

Two distinguished historians will discuss German and American historiography at the Library of Congress in a program titled "History as a Way of Life: Jürgen Kocka in Conversation with Klaus Larres. The historians will focus on Kocka's contributions to the rise of social history, which became the dominant force in contemporary history on both sides of the Atlantic. Kocka will also illuminate the continuing benefits of studying history in the 21st century.

The event is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are needed.
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May 19, 2010
Lecture: “Russian Imperial Bindings as artifact and a key for reconstruction of the Imperial Libraries” Ekaterina Gerasimova, Fulbright Fellow, at 12:00 PM in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building.

The global social-political and cultural cataclysm at the beginning of 20th century in Russia eradicated the moral and spiritual basis for millions of people. The destruction of archives and private libraries, especially those of the Russian emperors and grand dukes, and the ensuing world-wide dispersal of books caused an unreliable “new” version of history to be written. These books, with their heraldic symbols, ex-libris plates, and marginal inscriptions, reveal a clear, extensive and true picture of the activities and intellectual pursuits of their original owners.

In her talk, Dr. Gerasimova examines Russian imperial books once owned by Catherine the Great and Nicholas II, now a part of the LC Rare Book & Special Collections Division (John Batchelder and Yudin Collections), the Law Library, and Harvard University, and how they may be a basis for a virtual reconstruction of the Russian Imperial Libraries. This event is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are needed.

May 20, 2010
Lecture: “Transitional Justice or Just Transitions?: The German Case, 1945-50," Devin Pendas, Burkhardt Fellow, at 12:00 in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building.

While everyone has heard of the Nuremberg Trials, few people are aware that at that same time, tens of thousands of Germans were being prosecuted in German courts for Nazi crimes. Historian Devin Pendas will discuss the surprising role these trials played in the early history of the two Germanys, West and East. Contrary to what many advocates of what has come to be called "transitional justice" would expect, prosecuting Nazi atrocities played an important role in consolidating East Germany's emerging Stalinist dictatorship. And it was West German hostility to prosecuting Nazi crimes that proved most important to its eventual democratic success.

May 26, 2010
Lecture: “Failure of the Freedman’s Bank: Freedom, Finance and Security in 19th c. American Capitalism,” Jonathan Levy, Mellon Fellow, at 12:00 in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building.

In 1865, Congress chartered the non-profit "Freedman's Savings and Trust Company," a savings bank designed for a population of four million newly emancipated American slaves. By 1873, it had received a staggering $50,000,000 in deposits. But the banking house Jay Cooke & Co. was charged with investing the freedpeople's savings, and when Jay Cooke & Co. failed during the panic of 1873, so did the Freedman's Bank. Liberated from their former masters, the freedpeople had very suddenly come face to face with the frenzied finance of the Gilded Age.

June 24, 2010
Lecture: "Walt Whitman, Rural New Yorker," Karen Karbiener, Kluge Fellow at 12:00 pm in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building. This event is free and open to the public. No tickets or reservations are required.

A boy from rural Long Island moves to Brooklyn and, without money or mentorship, conceives, writes, and self-publishes America's declaration of cultural independence. This story remains one of the great mysteries of American literary scholarship. How did Walter Whitman - grammar school dropout and second son of a farmer-turned-carpenter - become Walt Whitman? This lecture will focus on the most obscure yet most seminal period of Whitman's life: his childhood and youth on his beloved "Paumanok," where he claims to have been born as a poet.

July 12, 2010
Lecture: “The European Colonial Empires in Asia and Africa,” historian William Roger Louis, 4 p.m. on Monday, July 12, in Room 119 of the Thomas Jefferson Building. The lecture is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are needed.
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July 15, 2010
Kluge Fellowship application deadline is July 15, 2010.
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July 21, 2010
Lecture: “The Empires Who Came In From The Cold: Decolonization and the Cold War,” Jason Parker, Texas A&M University, at 4:00 in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building. This event is free and open to the public. No tickets or reservations are required.
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July 28, 2010
Lecture: “The Airlift: African Students Overseas in the Era of Decolonization,” Daniel Branch, University of Warwick (UK), at 4:00 in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building. This event is free and open to the public. Tickets or reservations are not needed.
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July 29, 2010
Lecture: "The Rise of Printed Visuality: Printers and Page Design, 1467-1482," Renzo Baldasso, Kluge Fellow, at 12:00 pm in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building. This event is free and open to the public. Tickets or reservations are not needed.

In an effort to differentiate their books from those produced by scribes and illuminators, several printers devised a bold, ink-rich mechanical style that circumvented the aesthetic standards of the manuscript page. The design choices of Ulrich Han in Rome, Günther and Johann Zainer in Augsburg and Ulm, Johannes in Verona, Johann Müller (Regiomontanus) in Nuremberg, and Erhard Ratdolt in Venice proved particularly influential in defining the graphic vocabulary and aesthetic identity of the printed page. In addition to displacing manuscripts as the examples to be emulated, their books codified a visual grammar that effectively transformed the interaction between readers and the page. Considering publications printed between 1467 and 1482, Baldasso will engage some of these graphic choices, setting them within the context of their visual culture.

August 5, 2010
Lecture: “George Kennan and the Russian Nihilists: A Sojourn into the Dialectics of Friendship,” Andrew Gentes, Kluge Fellow, at 12:00 pm in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building. This event is free and open to the public. Tickets or reservations are not needed.

In 1885 George Kennan travelled to Russia as a reporter for "The Century" to investigate and write about the so-called Nihilists. Hundreds of political dissidents had been exiled to Siberia since the mid-1870s, and in 1881 Russia's most violent revolutionaries attracted international attention with the assassination of Alexander II. "The Century" hoped to capitalize upon a prurient interest in "bomb-throwing fanatics." However, what Kennan met instead in Siberia were dozens of earnest and rational young men and women who told of a cruel and despotic regime and proved to be cultured individuals sharing Americans' love of freedom and democracy. This talk draws upon philosophical inquiries into the nature of friendship to explore several of Kennan's relationships with revolutionaries during a pivotal time in both American and Russian history. It shows the extent to which the private and the political spheres overlap, and suggests that because friendship is historically conditioned and therefore not what it once was, so too has politics changed.

August 18, 2010
2010-2011 Kluge Fellows selected. Kluge Fellows are selected by the Librarian of Congress based on the appropriateness of their proposed research application to Library collections by LC staff and recommended by a panel of their peers assembled by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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August 19, 2010
Lecture: "The Map in Garb: Clothing and Cartography in Spanish America," Alexander Hidalgo, Kislak Fellow, at 12:00 in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building. This event is free and open to the public. Tickets or reservations are not needed.

From the moment of contact, clothing (or lack thereof) became a central element in the construction of European identity in relation to the New World. This presentation examines expressions of dress in European maps, atlases, travel literature, and ephemeral art. It contrasts these Western depictions with representations produced by Amerindians in manuscript maps from central and southern Mexico. An analysis of these two distinct bodies of evidence reveals the tension between ideology, Spanish imperial policy, and everyday practice while highlighting early constructions of race, gender, and status in the Americas.

August 24, 2010
Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has appointed Benjamin Fordham, professor and chair of Binghamton University’s Political Science Department, as the Henry Alfred Kissinger Scholar in Foreign Policy and International Relations in the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, effective August 2010.
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September 9, 2010
Statement by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington on the Passing of Philanthropist John W. Kluge.
[ Statement ]

September 14, 2010
New Fellowship: The Kemp Scholar in Political Economy conducts research on any aspect of political economy and "The American Idea," definied as the basic principles of equality, opportunity, and inclusion. Application deadline is November 15th.
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September 16, 2010
Lecture: “Three Presidents, Three Policies: Nixon, Bush, Obama and Europe,” Klaus Larres, Distinguished Visiting Scholar, at 4:00 PM in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building. This event is free and open to the public. Tickets or reservations are not needed.

A former holder of the Henry Alfred Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Kluge Center, Larres will analyze the approach taken by Presidents Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and Barack Obama in managing and exploiting relations with Washington’s European allies at crucial points in world affairs.
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September 23, 2010
Lecture: “Professional Help for Public Policy: Policy analysis as a Field of Intellectual Inquiry and Practice,” Roger White, Scholar in Residence, at 4:00 PM in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson building. This event is free and open to the public. Tickets or reservations are not needed.

According to White, policy analysis, which has emerged over the past half-century as a field of intellectual inquiry and practice, is one of a number of sources that inform the public and policymakers about policy needs, options and operations.
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September 30, 2010
Lecture: "Making new sources accessible: A digital concordance to early Cold War Soviet espionage records,” John E. Haynes, Kluge Staff Fellow, at 4:00 PM in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building. This event is free and open to the public. Tickets or reservations are not needed.
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October 14, 2010
Lecture: “Obama’s Victory and the Democratic Struggle for Power,” former Kluge Center distinguished visiting scholar Jeffrey Alexander, 4:00 PM in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building. This event is free and open to the public. No tickets or reservations are needed.

Alexander will offer a new way of looking at the Democratic struggle for political power, discussing what happened and why during Barack Obama’s run for the presidency, arguing that images, emotion and performance are the central features of the battle for power.
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October 15, 2010
The John W. Kluge Center is accepting applications for a Kislak Fellowship that offers a post-doctoral scholar an opportunity to conduct research related to the discovery, contact and colonial periods in Florida, the Caribbean and Mesoamerica using the Jay Kislak Collection. Applications must be postmarked by Friday, Oct. 15, 2010.

The Kislak Fellowship Program supports scholarly research that contributes significantly to a greater understanding of the cultures and history of the Americas. The fellowship is awarded for a period of up to eight months at a stipend of $4,200 per month, and provides an opportunity for concentrated use of materials from the Kislak Collection and other collections of the Library of Congress. The program supports research projects in the disciplines of archaeology, history, cartography, epigraphy, linguistics, ethno-history, ethnography, bibliography and sociology, with particular emphasis on Florida, the circum-Caribbean region and Mesoamerica. The program encourages interdisciplinary projects that combine disciplines in novel and productive ways.
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December 8, 2010
Lecture: “Building model modernities in Shanghai and Mumbai.” Daniel Brook, Black Mountain Fellow, at 12:00 PM in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building.

Today, as Shanghai and Mumbai lead their nations’ reengagements with the global economy, it is prudent to examine their strikingly parallel histories. Both cities were born as nineteenth-century imperial projects to construct commercial gateways to enormous potential markets using imported Western architecture and architects. Though explicitly built to be Asia’s most modern—and, concomitantly, least Chinese or Indian—metropolises, by the early twentieth century, the cities had unwittingly developed into unique East-West hybrids. Purposefully stifled by their national governments during the Cold War decades, today, as the financial hubs of the world’s fastest-growing economies, these fraternal twin cities are rediscovering their historical roles as outward-looking links to the wider world. Through the unique architectures of Shanghai and Mumbai, from their imperial origins to their current building booms, Black Mountain Institute fellow Daniel Brook will examine the cities’ volatile, continuing experiments in forging a Chinese and Indian modernity.

December 9, 2010
Lecture: “Cornelis de Bruyn and his contemporaries: Internationalism and late seventeenth century Dutch art.” Rebecca Parker Brienen, Kluge Fellow, addresses the phenomenon of Internationalism as exemplified in the work and career of painter, traveler, and writer Cornelis de Bruyn (1652-1726). 12:00 pm in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building.

Internationalism has generally been used to refer to an elegant artistic style that became popular late in the seventeenth century, but here the definition has been expanded to include the self-conscious cosmopolitanism cultivated by late seventeenth century Dutch artists, many of whom traveled outside the borders of the Dutch Republic. De Bruyn traveled longer and more extensively than any other European artist of the period. During his 27 years abroad, de Bruyn worked as a painter in Venice and Rome and at Peter the Great’s court. He was a collector of antiquities and natural history specimens, made the first accurate drawings of Persepolis in Persia, and published two richly illustrated accounts of his travels. A survey of de Bruyn’s life and work and that of his contemporaries from The Hague demonstrates their international outlook and the scope of their social and professional networks, providing new insights into the character of late seventeenth and early eighteenth Dutch art, a little studied, misunderstood, and historically undervalued period.

December 16, 2010
Lecture: “The early cartography of Panama and Darien: Creating a descriptive and interpretive carto-bibliography of a world crossroads.” Hernan Arauz, Kislak Fellow, at 12:00 in LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building.

Due to its role as a world's crossroads, the Isthmus of Panama has been one of the most mapped regions in the Americas. Hernan Arauz examines some of Panama’s most significant maps and their interpretation and how the feats of the early conquistadors, buccaneers, surveyors and explorers influenced the development of cartography there.

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