Author Archives: Carolyn Bratnober

The Black Theology Papers Project | guest blogger Heather J. Ketchum

by Carolyn Bratnober on November 15, 2019

NOTE: The following was written by Union Theological Seminary student Heather J. Ketchum (MDiv 2020). Her brief bio is below.

———-

This week, the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature convene in San Diego for the annual AAR/SBL conference, and this year, I was pleased to collaborate with faculty and librarians at the Burke Library on an exciting new online resource related to the conference: the Black Theology Papers Project. This online repository, which launched this week in honor of the 50^th anniversary celebration of Dr. James H. Cone’s Black Theology and Black Power, “aims to preserve and promote the intellectual heritage of black theology.”

The project provides electronic access to many of the papers and presentations given at the Black Theology Unit panels at the annual AAR/SBL conference. Thousands of scholars in religion-related areas gather in scores of small groups (or units) such as the Black Theology Unit at AAR/SBL, usually the week before Thanksgiving. These groups host panels on various themes such as “Racial Liminality and Cruciform Bodies in Cone and King” or roundtable discussions over recently published works like Josef Sorett’s Spirit in the Dark: A Religious History of Racial Aesthetics (Oxford University Press, 2016). These papers and presentations are wonderful glimpses into the ongoing work in the field.

Because of travel costs, scheduling, and other factors, many people who would otherwise love to engage in conversations around the cutting edge of religious scholarship cannot attend. Thus, Adam Clark, Andrea C. White, and Josef Sorett put together the Black Theology Papers Project, or BTPP, in the hope of expanding the availability of these papers beyond the yearly conference, making the scholarship more accessible and preserving the brilliant work going on in the discipline of black theology.

My role in this was helping take the papers emailed to the unit co-chairs and formatting them to a uniform journal template and then uploading them to the website. The process involved lots of split screens and a great deal of copy/paste.

split computer screen with on the left a pdf unformatted form of authors document (here, M. Rufus Burnett Jr.’s paper, entitled “Afro-Christian, Afro-Blue: Land Based Autonomy and the Making of Blues Identities at the Turn of the 20th Century”) and on the right a word document with the paper formatted in the journal template

This is how my workstation looked while working on the Black Theology Papers Project

This large-scale digital project was constructed in collaboration with the Columbia University Libraries, and with staff at the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary. Columbia uses an online platform called OJS (Open Journal Systems) which is put out by the Public Knowledge Project. Columbia has a host of other online journals put out by various groups affiliated with the university. Once the article has been formatted, it is ready to be uploaded to OJS along with a signed Author Agreement and general information about the author. The BTPP journal is broken up by years and sections how a print journal would be except it is exclusively an online format. The final product (as of November 18th, 2019) looks like this:

The Black Theology Papers Project

It has been a wonderful project to work on and help launch! We hope that you will explore the site at https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/btpp and learn a bit about the current happenings in Black Theology. –Heather J. Ketchum

———-

Heather J. Ketchum is a third-year MDiv student at Union Theological Seminary (NYC) concentrating in Systematic Theology. During her studies at UTS, Heather has worked at the Burke library as a Circulation Assistant and, more recently, assisting in the Burke special collections and archives. Heather is a Research Assistant for Andrea C. White, Professor of Theology & Culture at UTS, and the Assistant Minister at Madison Avenue Baptist Church. When not reading and writing about theology, Heather enjoys exploring the New York craft coffee scene.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Microfiche: the Nachlass Collection

by Carolyn Bratnober on August 9, 2019

“Microfiche is cool” is a sentence one rarely hears any more, in the Internet age. Yet I am constantly reminded of the astonishing efficiency of microformatting, when researchers ask to see the collection of primary-source materials of Dietrich Bonhoeffer—noted German theologian, pastor, and anti-Nazi dissident, and onetime student at Union Theological Seminary—preserved on microfiche, collectively known as the Nachlaß (“Nachlass,” or Estate) collection. This microfiche collection is decidedly cool—so much so, in fact, that we decided to create an entire exhibit about it.

The Nachlaß includes many of Bonhoeffer’s early writings and personal papers, his research notes, and letters from prison. Most of Bonhoeffer’s original manuscripts and papers have been preserved in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, with some primary documents in English kept here at the archives of the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary. These two libraries possess the only two known copies of the complete Nachlaß microfiche collection in the world (that our staff is aware of), making this collection both unique and invaluable to researchers. Each “twin set” of microfiche contains an enormous quantity of material: several thousand fragile documents, condensed into a breadbox-sized collection of roughly 300 plastic fiche cards. The Nachlaß is one of the most frequently-used microfiche collections at the Burke Library.

Photograph of a microfiche card from the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Nachlass collection of primary-source documents. Archives of the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University Libraries.

What is microfiche, exactly? (Those who have always lived in the same world as the Internet, after all, might never have heard of it before.) Well, microform technology—including microfiche cards and microfilm reels—originated in the early 1800s with the advent of photography. It became widely popular in libraries and archives in the mid-20th century as a reproduction and preservation medium (before the days of Internet digitization and online exhibits). Documents are photographed and printed as tiny images, which can then be inserted in a reader machine and enlarged on large reader screens, allowing readers to view and skim materials at a relatively fast pace. Microform plastic is sturdy, durable, and highly portable (think: a single plastic fiche card containing 80 document images, compared to a folder of 80 loose sheets of paper). Images of documents on microfiche can be seen by a large audience, while the original fragile documents are kept in archival storage. Microfiche was one of the original digital media! Thousands of printed books and journals have been microformatted, as have several rare manuscripts and primary-source collections—such as the Bonhoeffer Nachlaß.

Collecting and preserving Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s papers and creating the Nachlaß collection was a monumental undertaking. Following Bonhoeffer’s death in 1944, his letters and documents were meticulously collected by his close friend Eberhard Bethge, in collaboration with the Bonhoeffer family. Bethge devoted much of his life to editing and publishing Bonhoeffer’s works, such as the Letters and Papers from Prison and Ethics, and wrote the first biography of his professor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Man of Vision, Man of Courage in 1967. Amidst the subsequent surge of interest in Bonhoeffer, it was Bethge, along with his colleague Dietrich Meyer, who spearheaded the idea of creating a microfiche collection of Bonhoeffer’s papers, for use at “various Bonhoeffer research centers” in the 1980s. The Burke Library acquired the microfiche collection with the facilitation of Professor Clifford Green, Bonhoeffer Chair Scholar at Union Theological Seminary, and former Burke Library archive specialist Ruth Cameron. Now researchers can have eyes on original primary-source documents, written in Bonhoeffer’s own hand, via the microfiche copies, while the originals are housed in storage.

Page from a notebook belonging to Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A page of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s handwritten notes for a course, “Religion and Ethics,” taught by Reinhold Niebuhr at Union Theological Seminary in the early-1930s, imaged from the Nachlass microfiche collection. Archives of the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University Libraries.

Our newest exhibit showcases some rarely-seen materials from Bonhoeffer’s days as a student at Union Theological Seminary in the early-1930s, such as the above image of handwritten notes Bonhoeffer took in a “Religion and Ethics” course taught by Reinhold Niebuhr, enlarged and printed from Nachlaß microfiche onto plain 8.5 by 11 inch white paper. This medium reflects the mode in which researchers view microformatted primary-source materials today, and we hope this exhibit raises questions and curiosity about accessibility, duplication, and preservation in the 20th century and the Internet era.

Photograph of the exhibit case housing the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Nachlass microfiche collection exhibit

Photograph of part of the exhibit case housing the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Nachlass microfiche collection exhibit at the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary.

The original documents are housed in the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Primary Sources collection in the Burke Library Archives. The exhibit is currently on view at the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, 3041 Broadway, on the ground floor (Level L1) exhibit space. It will be on view through January 2020.

A Life of its Own: an Itinerant Manuscript

by Carolyn Bratnober on June 26, 2019

UTS Manuscripts Student Series Post 3 of 4, by Emily Gebhardt, a Graduate Student in the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program at Columbia University*

At first glance, UTS MS 019 resembles many of the other medieval manuscripts and codices housed in Burke Library’s collections—it is old, it is worn, and it has clearly seen better days, or perhaps days where there was not as much “stuff” on its pages. “What are you?” I said to myself the first time I sat down with this rather bulky book. While the entry data listed on Digital Scriptorium catalogues the codex as an ordinary collectarium dateable to the fourteenth century and belonging to a Benedictine monastic community in Deutz, Germany, I soon found that by gently turning each folium, this manuscript was much more than an assortment of psalms for the hours of the Divine Office. It comprised at least three texts and its collation ranged from gatherings of six to eleven, or even twelve, folia. The haphazard collation points to the idea that these texts were composed separately, by separate scribes (the hands differ from text to text), and then bound together.

A folio from UTS MS 019, at the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York.

“What are you trying to tell me?” I asked, and although expecting a non-reply, I was a bit surprised at the answer I received. The collectar portion of the codex has miraculously maintained two original sliding page markers made of leather, complete with metal hinges(!). While two page sliders remain, there are many prominent “scars” or use-marks on the parchment from previously placed markers, now lost. After analyzing my photographs, and sifting through several Google search queries, I began to note a repetition in the placement of each bookmark or scar—they were pointing to psalms that were said for some of the most significant Christian feasts and holidays of the calendar year, like St. Stephen’s Day (December 26) and the season of Lent (the forty days of repentance between Ash Wednesday and Easter). Furthermore, the scarring also highlighted the importance of several locally venerated saints like St. Lawrence, who is associated with abbot Rupert of Deutz (ca. 1075-1130).[1] By noting the location of each scar or page marker, a pattern emerged that demonstrated the text’s function as a highly used book—it was clearly very well-loved and important to the community in which it was used.[2] Each of the page-markers and their scars were certainly awe inducing, but it was the oily thumbprint in Gathering 15 folium 5r that had me running around showing photos from my iPhone in an attempt to validate my assumptions.

Gathering 15 folium 5r, from UTS MS 019, at the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York.

The print appeared in a separate text from the Collectar—here followed several sections of “stage directions” for a number of rites and ceremonies, including the shaving of the tonsure and burial rites. While the thumbprint could be from a modern manuscript admirer, its placement within the text, alongside other use-marks, made a compelling case for a medieval counterpart who left his mark on the page. The thumbprint was at the bottom of the folium, located exactly where one would thumb the leaf to turn it over. The real clincher for its placement was that it occurred in a portion of text detailing the holy unction. A priest performing this rite would usually dip his thumb into the oil before bestowing the benediction upon a person. The text detailing the unction was also liquid damaged, perhaps indicating that, at one point or another, this codex was also “blessed” by the holy unction—most likely a benevolently clumsy religious spilt the oil during ritual. The Agenda morientis, or the rites for the sick and dying, immediately followed the Agenda Unctionis (Gathering 16, folia 2r and 2v).

Gathering 15 f. 5v, from UTS MS 019, at the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York.

The diverse nature of UTS MS 019’s contents reflects that this codex did not stay in one part of the monastery. In fact, it probably had a rather itinerant existence. For instance, while texts of the Divine Office (collectar section) were usually kept in the sacristy or vestry, the rites for the sick and dying would be performed within a monastery’s infirmary. UTS MS 019 had a life of its own—it was not a static object that remained in one spot. Although several worn bosses on its cover show that it was continually stored on its back, the contents and use-marks speak to its life as a codex that was functionally, and repeatedly, appreciated by the community in which it was housed.

[1] Gregory Dipippo, “Liturgical Notes on the Vigil of St. Lawrence”, New Liturgical Movement. August 9, 2018. http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2018/08/liturgical-notes-on-vigil-of-st-lawrence.html#.XBGQjC2ZNsM.

[2] Oftentimes, the inclusion of specific saints or martyrs in a codex will help the researcher in determining its origin or provenance. They are hidden gems and fantastic clues.

*Emily Gebhardt is a Graduate Student in the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program at Columbia University. When she’s not studying manuscripts and medieval history, she enjoys seeing the sites of New York City and attending the occasional concert. She’s a particular fan of the wide range of foodie hotspots, both new and old, which the city has to offer. She recommends Otto’s Tacos on Ninth Avenue between 48^th and 49^th Streets—and of course the many food trucks on Broadway just off campus!

The UTS Manuscripts Student Series highlights Blog posts by students who undertook in-depth studies of manuscripts held at the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, in the Columbia masters-level seminar “The Medieval Book as Material Culture” (taught by Prof. Alison Beach) in the Fall of 2018. Their compositions will be posted on the Burke Blog throughout the Spring and Summer of 2019.

“Summa contra gentiles” and its Readers

by Carolyn Bratnober on April 19, 2019

UTS Manuscripts Student Series Post 2 of 4, by Valerie Wilson (MA candidate, Medieval and Renaissance Studies)*

The script of the Burke Library’s UTS MS 005, a manuscript of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa contra gentiles within the Burke’s Van Ess Collection, is one of its most baffling features. The manuscript comes from the Benedictine monastery of St. Vitus at Gladbach, which is in Mönchengladbach, a village near Düsseldorf. It is composed of 150 folios, and was rebound in the fifteenth or sixteenth century. Although according to sources like Digital Scriptorium, the manuscript was apparently made in the thirteenth century, the script looks later than that. It an advanced Gothic book hand that has the characteristic pointiness of German Gothic, but is too advanced for the thirteenth century in that location. German scripts tended to lag behind the more southern regions of Europe in script-development; you might have seen a Gothic book hand this advanced in Italy in the thirteenth century, but it would have been rounder. This script therefore poses an important problem in the manuscript’s date—is it from the thirteenth century, or later?

A folio from UTS MS 005, a manuscript of Thomas Aquinas’s “Summa contra gentiles.” From the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York.

I believe the answer to this question lies in its marginal notes, or lack thereof. To fully dive into this, we first need to establish some context. Thomas Aquinas wrote Summa contra gentiles in the mid-thirteenth century, after he had completed a teaching residency at Cologne, which is just down the Rhine River from Düsseldorf. It contains philosophical arguments designed to logically prove the correctness of Christianity in debates and arguments with non-Christians. Aquinas died in 1274, so if this manuscript was indeed created in the thirteenth century, it would have been roughly contemporary with Aquinas’s life. If this was current scholarship with a local connection, why are there no contemporary notes in it?

In the thirteenth century, the University of Paris was on the cutting edge of the Western European intellectual community. This, of course, meant to many Church officials that it was also a potential breeding ground for heresy. In 1270, the bishop of Paris, Stephen Tempier, issued a list of condemned ideas that were derived from the University of Paris’s own faculty [Wippel 171–172]. This was part of the larger intellectual war between the Neo-Platonists, whose arguments were drawn from pagan philosophers, and the Neo-Augustinians, who were against pagan sources [Wippel 174, 184]. Thomas himself had developed a new form of Aristotelianism called Thomism, and although he himself was not condemned in 1270, this did put a target on his back [Wippel 175, 182]. Aquinas left Paris in 1272, two years before his death, and after his departure the Neo-Augustinians grew stronger [Wippel 184]. Three years after Aquinas’s death, Tempier issued another set of condemnations, many of which directly attacked Aquinas’s ideas [Wippel 195–196]. Tempier even started a separate investigation of Aquinas, although it obviously never led to a conviction of heresy [Thijssen 72, 98]. Nevertheless, these condemnations marked an intellectual turn against Neo-Platonism, and stunted Thomism’s growth [Robiglio 52, Wippel 199].

If the manuscript was finished sometime between the Condemnations of 1277 and Aquinas’s canonization in 1323, it might have simply been put away for fear of potential heresy. These dates also agree with the manuscript’s script; if it were written in the very late thirteenth or the early fourteenth century, that could explain the script’s level of development. But what of the rest of the manuscript’s life? This manuscript had a reader who made a lot of marginal notes in the form of symbols, manicules, and occasionally words. I believe he was probably working around the time the book was rebound, in the fifteenth or sixteenth century. This is because the words in his marginal notes look to be in a Humanist hand, which is a Renaissance script.

Marginalia in a folio from UTS MS 005, a manuscript of Thomas Aquinas’s “Summa contra gentiles.” From the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York.

I lean more strongly toward a sixteenth-century date because the reader would have had an incentive to find ways to philosophically argue against non-Catholics: the rise of Protestantism in Germany. I also believe that he was a sixteenth-century reader based on the width and softness of the lead in which he makes his notes. They look like they were made with something close to a modern pencil, instead of the thinner leadpoint stylus used to rule the manuscript’s margins. This would mean the notes date to the mid-sixteenth century, after the invention of the pencil. This puts the reader in the geographic and chronological epicenter of the Reformation, which is really exciting! Most importantly, this reader helps us determine that this manuscript was a living, breathing document. I feel lucky to have participated in its history, too! -VW

*Valerie Wilson is currently working toward her Master’s degree in Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Columbia University. She is interested in all things medieval, but especially textual transmission and book culture.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Robiglio, Andrea A. “Breaking the Great Chain of Being. A note on the Paris Condemnations of 1277, Thomas Aquinas and the Proper Subject of Metaphysics.” Verbum 4, no. 1 (2004): 51–59.

Thijssen, J.M.M.H. “1277 Revisited: A New Interpretation of the Doctrinal Investigations of Thomas Aquinas and Giles of Rome.” Vivarium 35, no. 1 (1997): 72-101. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41963590.

Wippel, John. “The Condemnations of 1270 and 1277 at Paris.” Medieval and Renaissance Studies 7 no. 2 (1977): 169–201.

Britannica Academic, s.v. “Mönchengladbach.” URL: https://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/M%C3%B6nchengladbach/53322.

CATALOGUE ENTRY:

Library: Burke Library, Union Theological Seminary, New York, New York.

Shelfmark: UTS MS 005

Collection: Van Ess

Date: 13^th century according to Digital Scriptorium, possibly 14^th century

Location: Benedictine monastery of St. Vitus, Gladbach, Mönchengladbach

Number of folios: 150

Gregory’s Rule: Highly likely

Gatherings: Unable to determine because of tight binding

Binding: 15^th or 16^th century

Ink color: Black

Pigment colors: Blue and Red

Script: Late Gothic bookhand

Headings: Book headings on each set of facing pages (i.e., Liber III)

Catchwords: Yes, occasionally, in text boxes

Parchment quality: Fairly white and uniform, lots of holes and stitching-repairs made before any writing was done. Some bookworm holes, especially on outer leaves.

Prickings: Yes, but pages are partially cut, so some are not visible.

Ruling: Yes, in leadpoint. Ruled in two columns.

St. Eustace and Unexpected Emptiness in a Fifteenth-Century Book of Hours

by Carolyn Bratnober on April 5, 2019

UTS Manuscripts Student Series Post 1 of 4, by Eleanor Stern (Barnard College 2019)*

Inside of UTS MS 051, a fifteenth-century French book of hours believed to have belonged to King Henry III, now housed at the Burke Library, I expected to find certain kinds of illuminations. Most books of hours begin with a calendar, each month marked by illustrations of the the zodiac or of seasonal occupations (Gunhouse). But, as I turned its pages in Burke’s special collections reading room, I saw that the calendar was surrounded by floral and geometric motifs.

UTS MS 051, f1r, January in the calendar of the manuscript, a Book of Hours. From the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York.

The floral motifs were skilfully illuminated, but conspicuously detached from the human activities of the calendar year. Though these illuminations take up only the center of each folio of the calendar, they are surrounded by substantial margins, so that the red, blue, and gold writing that marks each saint’s feast day floats island-like amid blankness. As I continued to turn the pages—past the gospel readings, past the hours of the virgin and the office for the dead, past luxurious full-page illuminations marking each section with ultramarine and gold—the book hewed more or less to what is expected in the genre (Gunhouse). It was atypical mostly in its luxuriousness. Use marks decreased with each passing page, as if its medieval owners had begun each day with the full intention of piety and prayer, only to get distracted somewhere around terce. And then, at the back of the book, (where there were few use marks to be found), I came across something even less expected than the abstract blankness surrounding the calendar pages. Here on f143 was a full-page illumination of St. Eustace, or “Eustachio,” as the illuminator has labeled him.

UTS MS 051, f143r. An illumination showing Saint Eustace. From the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York.

Eustace stands ankle-deep in a river, water rippling over his feet. He is clothed in ultramarine, his head set against a golden halo. Trees grow behind him on pastoral-looking hills of malachite, resembling the ones surrounding the Virgin Mary and her cousin Elizabeth in a visitation scene on f32. But this scene has none of the tranquility of that previous one. Eustace’s arms are raised in distress. His feet point towards one bank of the river, while his head twists backwards at an odd angle towards the other. On closer inspection, it becomes clear why. On each grassy bank, an animal—a wolf and a lion, it appears—holds a small child in its mouth. One child wears red, the other blue, and each lies limp, his head upside-down. The illuminator has captured Eustace in a scene of martyrdom: the moment where his two sons are carried away by wild animals (Shuffleton). St. Eustace is said to have begun his life as a Roman soldier named Placidas, working in service of the emperor Trajan. One day, Eustace/Placidas caught sight of a deer with a crucifix aglow among its antlers. This experience converted him suddenly to Christianity, and his family joined him in this new faith, in spite of warnings that Satan will test him. And test him Satan does: first he loses his property and servants, then his family. After finally being reunited with his family by the emperor Hadrian, Eustace still refuses to denounce his faith, and as punishment is roasted to death inside of a giant hollowed-out brass bull. The moment portrayed in MS 051 is the one in which he loses his sons to wild animals (Shuffleton). This Job-like series of tribulations reminded me of the abstraction surrounding this manuscript’s calendar. Books of hours, made to assist individual prayer, usually contain expressive images for meditation (Gunhouse). This one is no exception. F62, for instance, shows Christ being nailed to the cross, his body riddled with wounds to induce visceral responses.

UTS MS 051, f62r. An illumination depicting a crucifixion scene. From the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York.

Yet, in the narrative of Eustace slowly losing all he has in favor of an abstract faith, and in the wide margins surrounding each day of the year, this book promotes a kind of meditative blankness as well. Rather than solely creating feelings of devotion through narrative imagery, or through a celebration of the tangible, the makers of this manuscript aimed to create these emotions through reminders of deprivation: what, they prompt, remains when that which is tangible is lost? -ES

*Eleanor Stern is a Senior at Barnard College majoring in English. She is from New Orleans.

Works Cited

UTS MS051. The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University Libraries, New York, NY.

Gunhouse, Glenn. “A Hypertext Book of Hours.” A Hypertext Book of Hours, www.medievalist.net/hourstxt/home.htm.

Shuffleton, George, editor. “Item 1, Saint Eustace: Introduction.” Robbins Library Digital Projects, 2008, d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/shuffelton-codex-ashmole-61-saint-eustace.

Queering the Archives at Union Theological Seminary

by Carolyn Bratnober on March 8, 2019

Students in the course Christian Ethics 223, “Queering Ethics,” taught by Prof. Sarah Azaransky at Union Theological Seminary, visited the Burke Library on Wednesday, March 6th, to discuss queer frameworks of power, authority, and queer subjecthood in relation to archives. The class and I delved into hands-on archival inquiry with the papers of emilie m. townes, a former professor at Union and currently the Dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School, a self-identified lesbian and a leading figure in womanist thought. We framed our activity with discussions of archival theory, with readings from Derrida and Foucault among others. The students debated the ethics of archival acquisition processes and research — especially as it affects the history and lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) persons today. For several of the students, this encounter at the Burke Library was their first time handling archival documents.

Students enrolled in CE 223 “Queering Ethics” taught by Prof. Sarah Azaransky at Union Theological Seminary, examining an archival document folder at the Burke Library. This photo appears on the Burke Library’s Instagram account @BurkeLibraryUTS

In preparation, the eighteen masters-level students in the class read a literature review of theoretical views of the archive by Marlene Manoff titled “Theories of the Archive from Across the Disciplines” (Libraries and the Academy, 2004, 4:1). We framed our discussion around ethical issues at play in critical archive studies when it comes to the custodianship of both literal archives as well as the proverbial collective archives of social memory. If, as Derrida says, “There is no political power without control of the archive,” who decides what is kept in the archive, and how is their political power sustained? When it comes to topics in LGBTQ studies, especially in art, literature, and political movements, key figures often defy typical organizational frameworks, and resist categorization. How do researchers identify a gay or transgender writer, for example, who spent their early life in the closet, and was not labeled as such or recognized for their work (or their identity) until later in time? What are the power dynamics at play for archivists, in curating and making primary-source materials of these figures available and searchable for scholars? How do researchers with questions pose their inquiries without being imposing on, or intrusive to, queer subjects? Hefty questions indeed. After a break, we shifted gears from discussing archival processing to handling materials from the emilie townes papers first hand.

The students worked in pairs to examine the contents of one document folder each from the emilie townes papers, including some manuscript writings from early in her PhD program. One group found that some of Dr. townes’s personal research notes had been typewritten on the back of what appeared to be event flyers or inserts for church program booklets. The students speculated it may have been to save paper, but the reason was not readily apparent; we were unable to tell from the Finding Aid whether the existence of these flyers had been previously documented at all. One of the event flyers (pictured below) advertised a 1987 event called “Homosexuality and the Church” at Faith United Methodist Church, in Downers Grove, Illinois — a particularly eye-catching object, given the present ongoing debates concerning homosexuality in the UMC denomination. (Leaders at the recent UMC General Conference in St. Louis, MO, debated and voted to reaffirm the current stance of the denomination, that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” But the debate continues, as numerous LGBTQ-affirming UMC churches around the world maintain the contrary stance, in welcoming solidarity with their LGBTQ communities.) It is truly a pressing issue, one that is deeply personal to me and to many students at Union. Yet, from a cursory look, without apparent information about this document, we cannot know how it came to be among her papers, nor what role this event played in Dr. townes’s life and education. A key takeaway from this exercise, predictably, was that archival documents often raise more questions than answers.

“Homosexuality and the Church” event description page, on the verso of a typewritten document of research notes, from the emilie m. townes papers, series 2, box 2, folder 3, Archives of Women in Theological Scholarship, the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York.

Some of these masters-level students are beginning to consider the possibilities for continued graduate study, and possible projects for future archival inquiry. Some students are even considering collaborating on a potential project on the LGBTQ history of Union Theological Seminary together, requiring extensive time in the UTS records held at the Burke archives. Such a project would be a hefty undertaking, but one of great value to the community here, I have no doubt. In the end, the session received a greatly positive response, and it seems these intrepid students thoroughly enjoyed their close encounter with the archives.

Color Our Collections at the Burke Library

by Carolyn Bratnober on February 22, 2019

For the second year in a row, the Burke Library participated in a worldwide weeklong initiative to spread awareness and engagement with Special Collections known as Color Our Collections.

Poster for Color Our Collections, February 2019. Image resembles a colored-in picture from a medieval manuscript of two people drawing.

Poster for Color Our Collections Week 2019 (http://http://library.nyam.org/colorourcollections)

In this series of events, initiated by the New York Academy of Medicine, libraries and museums around the world upload black-and-white versions of images in their Special Collections to create unique coloring books for users to color-in with pencils. (Coloring, traditionally an activity associated with young children, has grown in popularity among adults of all ages in recent years, for its relaxation effects and impact on mindfulness and calm; many bookstores now carry coloring books for adults, and lately I have seen multiple people my own age coloring in coloring books on airplanes.) During Color OurCollections Week, many institutions host coloring events and offer printed versions of their coloring books. Guests can attend these coloring events or visit ColorOurCollections.org and download coloring books from libraries and museums around the world. Participants can upload photos of their creative coloring to social media using the hashtag #ColorOurCollections and see others’ posts and explore the collections from far-flung institutions. This lets users explore and engage through hands-on experience with their collections from home. The Burke Library uploaded a coloring book chock full of images from the archives, rare books and manuscripts.

Image is the cover of a student publication called The Plastic Bag from 1968, image shows a rhinoceros being lifted by balloons with the title "the free university: lifting the weight"

Image from the Burke Library 2019 #ColorOurCollections Coloring Book, “The Plastic Bag” student literary publication, circa 1968 (from the Union Theological Seminary Records, Archives of the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, New York)

There are many wonderful coloring books available on this year’s Color Our Collections page from other libraries and institutions; our colleagues at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University uploaded a very fine selection of images, and the New York Academy of Medicine (the original founders of Color Our Collections) always include intriguing health-related and scientific images from their special collections. From outside the U.S., the Escuela Superior de Artes de Yucatán and Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg coloring books were both beautiful. Having been raised going on canoe trips in the north woods of Minnesota, I was intrigued by the coloring book from the Grand Portage National Monument Archives, featuring images of Ojibwe artwork, birch bark canoes, and the region’s natural features.

Page from the Color Our Collections 2019 coloring book of the Grand Portage National Monument Archives. Image is a black-and-white edited photograph of a room in a museum featuring a birch bark canoe and indigenous artwork from Minnesota.

Page from the Color Our Collections 2019 coloring book of the Grand Portage National Monument Archives (https://library.nyam.org/colorourcollections/grand-portage-national-monument-archives-collection-coloring-book-2019)

The Burke Library’s own on-site Color Our Collections event, featuring complimentary tea and snacks, drew about a dozen guests, including students from Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University, as well as a few library staff members who saw a poster for the event and decided to drop in on their lunch break to do some coloring.

Photograph from the Color Our Collections 2019 coloring event at the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University

Participants seemed intrigued by the images from the Burke’s collections, engaged in lively conversation about the history of the Burke and its role in the university, and appreciated the fact that we hosted such a nice event open to the community. Some of them took extra coloring books to give to friends. We promoted the event on social media, and some of our remote followers commented requesting links to the site so they could download their own coloring books. Having been alerted to the existence of Color Our Collections last year by Myong Jin, the Collections Assistant at the Burke Library, I was very glad to have collaborated with her again put on our second such successful event this year, and look forward to hosting it again in 2020.

“Spirit of ’68” Part II: Research in the Administrative Files

by Carolyn Bratnober on October 26, 2018

By Jake Hearen, Student Research Assistant for the “Spirit of ’68” Exhibit

(Posted c/o Carolyn Bratnober, Public Services Librarian)

I came to Union a bit behind the power curve. My formal involvement within a theological framework is relatively new. I had not heard of James Cone until I visited in the spring; I promise his books are near the top of my reading list. So, I jumped at the opportunity when I heard about Special Collections needing assistance with researching for the upcoming exhibit.

I realized how daunting the project as I became oriented to the particulars of the project. At its focus was the Union Commission and its predecessor organization, The Free University of Union Theological Seminary. These initiatives resulted in response to the tensions between Columbia students and the administration brought about by the Vietnam War and the gentrification brought of Columbia’s expansion affected the Union community.

In its entirety, the project was a single archival box stuffed with materials mostly from the 1968-69 school year but other documents appeared to include several that came from far beyond the walls of Morningside Castle. There were a few student publications from Columbia regarding the student protests. There were even a few standout pieces such as an international gathering of college students and a manifesto from the 1969 National Black Economic Development Conference.

Archival folders in UTS2 Records, Administrative Files, Series 4B, Box 2, The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University, New York NY

But what stood out most came from within the seminary. One letter, drafted by a student who witnessed seminarians severely injured while mediating between police and Columbia students, noted how our unique role as future chaplains and ministers allows us to instill change from within power structures more than any other vocation. Another document from the Union Commission itself highlighted the values of the seminary such as looking at the potential application of computers as technology evolves and the importance of the Burke Library.

This institutional memory clarified the gaps I felt between an earlier Union with activists like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the later of James Cone. Those seminarians stood defiant with their peers before the atrocities beset upon an Eden and said no more. Their spirit of coming together against the destructive will of institutional corruption with compassion in their hearts is something that I pray I embolden over my next few years and the many more to come. -JH

“Spirit of ’68” Part I: Building an Exhibit…

by Carolyn Bratnober on October 12, 2018

The year 1968 has been memorialized recently with a slough of exhibits, events, new books, and other testimonials marking the 50th anniversaries of that year’s revolutionary upheavals, movements, and protests — Union Theological Seminary of course has a long history of resistance activism, and librarians at the Burke thought that Union should have its own display of archival materials from that historic year.

Recent memoirs and history monographs on the year 1968. Photograph by Carolyn Bratnober, The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary (2018)

Little did I know, at the start of creating this exhibit, that Union underwent its own revolutionary changes that year, and indeed Union played a pivotal role in Columbia’s infamous 1968 student protests. My research for the 1968 exhibit unearthed some of this history, which I am excited to share via the Burke Blog as part of this series.

I knew about Columbia’s student protests from reading James Kunen’s memoir The Strawberry Statement many years ago. In April of 1968, students at Columbia occupied university buildings in protest of Columbia’s involvement in recruitment and weapons research for the War in Vietnam, and in the gentrification of Harlem in general. Columbia’s administration sought to quell the protests, which lasted several days and drew significant media attention, by calling law enforcement — whereupon, predictably, the police used brutal tactics against the students, throughout several days of violence. When I consulted the archives of Union Theological Seminary’s president’s office files, community photographs, and student publications from that time period, to see what I could find for our 1968 exhibit, I was heartened to see news coverage showing Union students involved in resistance during the Columbia protests, and even doing nonviolent interventions with the police. What surprised me was the fact that Union students and administrators came together on this issue, agreeing to cease all UTS classes for the remainder of the school year; there is a letter from President John C. Bennett included in the exhibit, officially halting classes and forming a series of alternative revolutionary teach-ins called the Free University in which students could assemble and strategize to build revolutionary momentum around the protests. I and my co-curators thought these events should definitely be the focal point of our exhibit on Union in ‘68. We conducted a great deal of research to get a closer look at these resistance efforts, which in fact catalyzed a series of liberatory changes at Union (which will be described in greater detail in subsequent blog posts by my collaborators) and we decided to call this exhibit “Spirit of ‘68: Revolution and Resistance at Union Theological Seminary.”

"Union Students Strike for Columbia" banner, UTS 2 Records, the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York

“Union Students Strike for Columbia,” photograph (1968) UTS 2 Archive Records, the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York

The whole exhibit was a team effort. Staff from the UTS Development Office, Emily Odom and Kevin Bentley, who possess extensive knowledge of Union alumni, helped with curation. It was their idea to host an event during the 50th Reunion of the UTS Class of 1968 in early October, when many alumni would be coming to town, which was truly a stroke of genius. We organized a nice reception to mark the opening of the exhibit on October 4th, and extended invitations throughout the Union community. Background research was a major part of putting the exhibit together, and the files from this time period in the UTS archives are extensive; thankfully, a Union student, Jake Hearen, offered to pitch in on the reading and research, and he became our indispensable Research Assistant for the project.

“Spirit of ’68” exhibit display on level L1 of the Burke Library. Photo by Carolyn Bratnober, The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary (2018).

Prior to starting the research for this exhibit, I had thought putting the physical display together was going to be the most challenging part; however, as it happened, members of the Conservation & Preservation Department for the Columbia University Libraries were happy to help construct photograph frames, book cradles, and display mounts for each of the items we selected. (After all, these materials are both unique and extremely fragile, and they deserve utmost care in their handling and display.) The entire team worked hard to create this exhibit, it was a massive undertaking and could definitely not have been done by one person alone.

For the opening reception, we also had the idea to involve the guests in collecting memories and metadata about the items on display– we put up a projector screen and projected a slideshow of images of documents and photographs from the time period, and invited guests to note in a nearby notebook if they recognized individuals by name, and dates and place info for events featured in the slideshow. We also included a table of books about 1968 for guests to browse (some of which are pictured here). It turned out to be quite an event, attended by alumni, faculty, librarians, and students, with sparkling conversation over desserts and champagne, and everyone seemed to enjoy the evening very much. Eventually I hope that research around these events will lead to broader understanding of this time period– I hope to include some of this crowd-sourced metadata in the archival Finding Aid, and to have many of the exhibit’s materials digitized for an online exhibit that will offer researchers the chance to see these items remotely in the years to come, and to continue exploring this revolutionary era in our community’s history.

Students and alumni at the “Spirit of ’68” Exhibit Opening Reception (October 4, 2018). Photo by @UnionSeminary on Instagram (2018).

Apps and Tools for Citations and Note-Taking: a Workshop for Undergraduates

by Carolyn Bratnober on September 28, 2018

Anyone who has written a research paper knows that formatting footnotes and bibliographies can take up a great deal of time and mental energy in the library. Whether tracking a scholarly conversation within secondary literature, or scouring a huge archival collection in primary source research, managing one’s thoughts and research notes (and making sure one can find them again) can be cumbersome; yet, in today’s electronic world, there are scads of tools available to help researchers find and manage their citations and their ideas. This week, a professor asked if we could hold a session at the Burke Library, facilitating a discussion and workshop about the pro’s and con’s of some of the top digital apps and programs for managing citations and taking notes, just for undergraduates writing thesis papers in Religion and Theology. We enthusiastically rose to the occasion! I set out to review the top tools used by researchers in the Burke Library, and began developing the workshop. It ended up being a great opportunity to engage with some information-literacy principles around data privacy, digital preservation, and fair use as well.

First I conducted an informal survey over social media, asking writers, researchers, and students what digital tools and apps they take notes with. Out of 10 responses, the apps that were mentioned included Evernote, Google Docs, Notability, OneNote, Trello, Scapple, and Zotero (many respondents also mentioned that they use pen and paper — some things never change!) Within a few days I had the chance to explore each of these tools and their potential usefulness for college students. I created this table (below) to guide our discussion of the pro’s and con’s of every app, so the students could decide for themselves which ones would fit their note-taking needs. (NOTE: I am not paid to advertise these products, I am simply reviewing them for instructional purposes.)

Zotero is the program I decided to start the workshop with and spend the most time on. For those who have not yet boarded the Zotero train to Easy Bibliography Town, it’s a program that lets you keep track of your sources (books, articles, special collections, etc) and generate bibliographies, footnotes, endnotes, and parenthetical references for papers with the click of a button; no more copying titles, authors, and publisher locations by hand and formatting where the comma goes for every single footnote. You download the program and install a quick add-on to your web browser, then simply find the items in CLIO or any other library catalog, and you’re able to add the sources to your Zotero library with a click in your browser.

Google Docs and Evernote are two popular mainstream programs for organizing text-based notes. Both allow users to save content to a computer hard drive or in “the cloud” (web-based servers requiring a login). OneNote provides the unique feature of letting users enter text and also draw freehand shapes, arrows, and circles to map ideas visually. The students who attended this workshop were already using Google Docs for taking notes, for the most part, though some had tried OneNote as well. The group in the workshop engaged in thoughtful conversation about price and costs with these programs; Evernote is free to use, OneNote is only available through the somewhat expensive Microsoft Office suite, and Google Docs is “free” to use but it also requires a login and may track user activity.

Three newer apps — Notability, Trello, and Scapple — were completely new to everyone in the workshop (including me). Through exploration I found that Notability ($9.99) is a fun note-taking app for Mac computers and mobile devices (not PC’s, sadly). Users can type, draw, and even speak into a microphone to record notes and annotate PDFs with markings and highlighting. Scapple ($12 for students) is a mind-mapping app for connecting ideas and concepts. Trello (free/requires login) is an organizational collaboration tool that allows groups to assign project components and due dates. The students in the workshop discussed the potential pro’s and con’s of using newer apps, including concern about the novelty of these companies and whether or not their work could be deleted if the companies don’t last. Longevity is a concern in any project that involves digital preservation; it was a good chance for the students to discuss these information principles, in a conversation centering their own intellectual outputs.

I added to the workshop an app called Tropy, which I heard about from a colleague who works primarily in archival research. Tropy allows users to take photos of archival collections, upload them and organize them based on their research needs (for example: a lengthy archival document, captured one photo per page at a time, can be saved as a single group) and users can markup and annotate the image files to record their notes and ideas. Our exploration of Tropy also included a conversation around copyright and fair use; Tropy.org provides an overview of what constitutes fair use of archival collections for research purposes, which nicely framed the discussion.

All together, these apps span a great deal of potential uses, and provided a stepping stone for an engaging conversation around several information-literacy principles as well as a lively hands-on workshop. We are definitely considering hosting it again as a one-off workshop in the future.

The Burke Library Blog

The Burke Library is one of the largest theological libraries in North America.