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 […]

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A Life of its Own: an Itinerant Manuscript

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 […]

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Never Enough Singing!

Never Enough Singing is the title of the Festschrift published in 2011 on the occasion of Seth Kasten’s retirement from the Burke Library. It is among the items featured in the inaugural exhibit in the Seth Kasten Memorial Exhibit Case. Seth (1945-2017) was a reference librarian at the Burke for more than 35 years. In […]

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“Summa contra gentiles” and its Readers

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.

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 […]

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

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 […]

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The Burke Library Goes International

One of the great joys of working at an educational institution is the chance to meet and interact with students, teachers, and researchers from all over the world. At the Burke, that kind of interaction usually takes place when people come to visit us in New York City. But recently I had the distinct pleasure […]

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Queering the Archives at Union Theological Seminary

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

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. […]

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Color Our Collections at the Burke Library

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. 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 […]

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On the Virtues of Small Books

From Jeffrey Michael Wayno, Collection Services Librarian, the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary   As a librarian, I have a rather awkward confession to make: I’ve been having a difficult time finishing a book. A few months back, in the midst of my yearly summer reading binge, I started Robert Caro’s The Power Broker, […]

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