Hopes and Dreams of “Modern Africa”, 1960-1965: Selected Photographs from The Marc & Evelyne Bernheim Collection

A new exhibition is currently on view in Knox Hall, 2nd Floor Hallway, 606 West 122nd Street, New York. Open to Columbia affiliates only. Curated by Dr. Yuusuf Caruso, African Studies Librarian, Columbia University, and co-sponsored by The Institute of African Studies and Columbia University Libraries. This exhibition is just a very small sample from […]

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Writing in Spanish and Portuguese among the Dutch: Jewish Sephardim in Amsterdam

In 1892, Temple Emanu-el, a Jewish Reform congregation in New York City, donated a collection of rare Judaica books and manuscripts to Columbia University. Richard James Horatio Gottheil, the son of Temple Emanu-el’s rabbi and Columbia’s newly established professor of Rabbinical Literature (his title would change many times over the next few decades) was instrumental […]

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“Strategies of Presenting Text and Illustrations: Turning the Pages of a Sixteenth Century Book of Wisdom”: An Interview with Seher Agarwala

  Last week, I “sat” down via Zoom with Seher Agarwala, a PhD student in the Art History and Archeology Department at Columbia , and asked her a few questions related to Indo-Persian manuscripts, the Muslim World Manuscript project and her own dissertation, which addresses the politics and ethics of 16th c. aesthetics in the […]

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Finding the women in Columbia’s Judaica collections

When searching for women in early manuscript collections, it may seem as if they are only found without agency; adjacent to the men in their lives.  However, when I began looking for traces of women in Columbia’s rare Judaica collection, I was delighted to discover that they have a presence throughout the collections. I began […]

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The MWM Project: An Interview with Shabbir Agha Abbas; Poring over Manuscripts for a broader and more vibrant understanding of Islamic Studies

This past week, I interviewed Shabbir Agha Abbas, a graduate student at Columbia University (MEI/MESAAS) working on Islamic Law and Shari’a Studies. Shabbir holds an MA in Religious Studies from Rutgers University and has been involved in the Muslim World Manuscript project, helping to catalog and describe manuscripts in the RBML collection. Our lively conversation, […]

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British records on “Apartheid South Africa” boosts primary resources on South Africa

Columbia faculty and students can now access the full text of digitized selected documents from the British National Archives on South Africa during the “apartheid” era.  The “Archives Direct” collection on South Africa from Adam Matthew includes files from the Foreign, Colonial, Dominion and Foreign and Commonwealth Offices spanning the period 1948 to 1980; divided […]

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Himalayan Times Archive (1947-1963)

A digital archive of the Himalayan Times, an English language newspaper published in Kalimpong, India is available from Heidelberger historische Bestände — Digital for the years 1949-1963. The newspaper provides historical material on social and political developments in the Eastern Himalayas after World War II. […]

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EIGHT early American Jewish newspapers, now available digitally!

I am pleased to announce that the following Early American newspapers are now available digitally through the following links.  With the exception of the American Israelite and American Hebrew and Jewish Messenger, all newspapers are freely available through the Historical Jewish Press website Columbia is very proud to have been involved, with New York University […]

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Six Archives Unbound Digital Collections

Columbia University Libraries has purchased six new Archives Unbound digital collections of primary sources: Afghanistan and the U.S., 1945-1963: Records of the U.S. State Department Central Classified Files (9,674 images from the U.S. National Archives) Afghanistan’s history, internal political development, foreign relations, and very existence as an independent state have largely been determined by its […]

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