Happy (mid) October, and happy American Archives Month! I’m Leah Edelman, the Outreach Archivist at the Burke Library, and though I started working here at the end of June, I thought this month would be a good one to introduce myself on the blog. With support from the wonderful library team, I manage all things […]
Category: History
Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Microfiche: the Nachlass Collection
“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 […]
A German Ecclesiastical Heritage in the Smaragdus Manuscript
UTS Manuscripts Student Series Post 4 of 4* The curiously-nicknamed “Smaragdus manuscript” (after the author of its first and most prominent text) is a curious collection of medieval writings officially known by its item number at the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, UTS MS 006. Written around the year 1100 in a Rhineland […]
Queering the Archives at Union Theological Seminary
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. […]
“Spirit of ’68” Part II: Research in the Administrative Files
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 […]
“Spirit of ’68” Part I: Building an Exhibit…
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 […]
Surprise from Japan: Encountering Toyohiko Kagawa
Several months ago, the Burke Library received an unexpected visitor, a researcher from Japan. She said she was from the Kagawa Memorial Center in Kobe, and she wanted to see some archival items in the collected papers of Toyohiko Kagawa. Although her visit was unscheduled, I helped her set up a reader account and request […]
Travel and Research in Israel/Palestine
Before becoming Circulation Supervisor here at the Burke Library, I attended Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (UTS-NYC) as a Master of Divinity student with a focus in Interreligious Engagement. My particular area of academic research lies in two distinct segments of scholarship; 1) Judeo-Christian relations in Late Antiquity, and 2) the […]
Mr. Smith Goes to Berlin: German Learning in the Papers of Henry Boynton Smith
Below is a blog post written by the Burke’s current Primary Source Intern, Andrew McLaren. Andrew McLaren is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Religion at Columbia.Andrew McLaren is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Religion at Columbia University. His dissertation research focuses on a historiographical text about conquests and politics in the […]
Organizing for Racial Justice, 1960s and Today: A conference recap
The public-facing work of #LoveInAction:Voices in Social Justice culminated on May 3rd with a one-day conference held in Union Theological Seminary’s Social Hall, “Organizing for Racial Justice, 1960s and Today.” The conference, an inter-school (Columbia and Union), inter-departmental (the Burke Library, the student fellows, Union alumni/ae, the Office of Alumni/ae Relations, and the Office of Student […]