Last week, I had the opportunity to participate in a conference on Medicine, Religion and Alchemy in South India: Resources and Permutations of Siddha Traditions and Siddha Medicine that convened at Tübingen University, Germany, 25-27 July 2019. The conference brought together scholars from Austria, France, Germany, India, Poland, Switzerland, and the United States who met […]
Category: Global Studies
The Muslim World Manuscript Project: A great Pedagogical tool! What can manuscripts teach us?
The summer months at Columbia University allow more mental space and time to savor enjoyable conversations and delve into the numerous treasures that the Columbia University Libraries offers to the scholarly community. Last week, I sat down with Prof. A. Tunç Şen, (who just had a baby) and asked him a few questions about his […]
The Muslim World Manuscript Project
How do archives get activated? The Muslim World Manuscript Project at the Columbia University Libraries On the shore where Time casts up its stray wreckage, we gather corks and broken planks, whence much indeed may be argued and more guessed…. Anonymous One question that fascinates me is how the power of archives gets activated. […]
Ilia Zdanevich: The Tbilisi Years: An Exhibit at Columbia’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Through July 12, 2019
From guest blogger, and exhibition Curator, Thomas J. Kitson, PhD* Professor Valentina Izmirlieva (Slavic Department) and I approached Rob Davis (Librarian for Russian, Eurasian & East European Studies) and Tanya Chebotarev (Bakhmeteff Archive, RBML) early last year about the possibility of mounting an exhibition on Ilia Zdanevich (1894-1975). The Russian-Georgian Futurist poet ended up in […]
Dr. Ambedkar and Columbia University: A Legacy to Celebrate
Dr. Ambedkar and Columbia University: A Legacy to Celebrate Every morning, I look forward to glancing at Dr. Ambedkar’s bust, in the far East corner of the Lehman Social Sciences Library, on my way to work. My eyes first rest on the bright garlands (offerings of admirers) that often adorn the bust, hanging around the […]
Sorry, This Page Does Not Exist!: The Brazilian Presidential Transition (2018) Web Archive
The web lives in the present tense. But, as librarians understand all too well, scholarly research and knowledge production require sustainable long-term access and preservation of evidence that supports the deciphering and understanding of the world. The broken links we encounter throughout the web can signify the loss of important information, sometimes when it seems […]
Women and Gender Studies, Resources for International Research, and… Coffee! Find out more!
For the occasions of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, celebrated on March 8th, I sat down with Sarah Witte, our Women & Gender Studies Librarian, and Yuusuf Caruso, our African Studies Librarian, and asked them about resources that the Columbia Libraries makes available to researchers interested in women and gender studies at the […]
Oliver “Tuku” Mtukudzi, 1952-2019
OLIVER “TUKU” MTUKUDZI, 1952-2019 Photo: Oliver “Tuku” Mtukudzi performing in 2018. Credit: Mário Pires. From African Arguments (UK). Columbia University’s WWW-Virtual Library on “Tuku” African Arguments (UK): “Rest in power: Oliver Mtukudzi…,” by Rumbidzai Dube, January 25, 2019. Afropop Worldwide (USA): “Remembering Oliver Mtukudzi,” by Banning Eyre. January 24, 2019 ; “Oliver Mtukudzi dies at […]
100th Anniversary of Birth of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela & Barack Obama’s 2018 Mandela Lecture
For 20 years, one popular feature of Columbia University Libraries’ virtual library for “African Studies Internet Resources” has been and continues to be a list of web links to reliable information about famous people of African descent, past and present. This month marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the much celebrated South African, […]
Columbia Acquires “Annual Departmental Reports Relating to Nigeria and the British Cameroons, 1887-1962”
Columbia University Libraries’ has just acquired a searchable online version of the British Colonial Office’s “Annual Departmental Reports Relating to Nigeria and the British Cameroons, 1887-1962.” As part of their series “British Online Archives”, Microform Academic Publishers is making available a digitized version of the microfilmed administrative records on colonial Nigeria and Cameroon. The collection […]