Faculty Colloquium: Alexander Rocklin

Dear Colleagues,

Please join us this week, Friday, December 9th at 3 pm. in the Library Instruction Room for final Faculty Colloquium of this semester. (Rescheduled from original date of November 11th.) Treats will be provided.

Alexander Rocklin, Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies

Title: Race, Religion, and the Magic of Secularism in Antebellum AmericaAlexander Rocklin

Come meet the Fakir of Ava, the unrivaled magician and necromancer who will perform scientific illustrations showing through practical experiments the impositions of the Pagan Priesthood ancient and modern! Taking as my example the magician the Fakir of Ava, this talk examines the mid-19th century spectacle of stage-magic performances as a mode of popular secularism in the United States. If we understand secularism not simply as an inevitable political project but what John Modern calls a “conceptual environment” that makes the category religion a self-evident way of dividing up the world, this paper examines one mode through which the religious and the not-religious were naturalized for Americans. Taking religion and race as defined together, I will also analyze the ways in which popular secularism created particular racial-religious hierarchies that drew on and connected Americas to broader trends in colonial knowledge production across the globe. Prepare to be Amazed (or at least educated)!

Please feel free to invite students to attend this talk.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Doreen Simonsen and Daniel Rouslin
Faculty Colloquium Coordinators


Annual Tree of Giving Book Drive

The annual Tree of Giving Book Drive has officially begun.

The Hatfield Library, The Willamette Store and the Bistro are seeking donations of new or slightly used children’s books to be donated to Swegle Elementary School‘s library. We also encourage you to donate hats, gloves and scarves for students at Swegle.

The last day to donate is Tuesday, December 20. Items can be dropped off at The Willamette Store, Hatfield Library, Bistro or Sparks Athletic Center.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. Attached is an image of the poster for distribution on social media.

Thank you for your support!

 

2016-tog-poster

 

 

 


(Update January 4th, 2017)

Thank you for your support of the 2016 Tree of Giving Book Drive sponsored by the Mark O. Hatfield Library, the Willamette Store and the Bistro. We collected 171 books, 20 pairs of gloves, 6 scarves and 4 hats. The books will be added to Swegle Elementary School’s library and the gloves, scarves and hats will be distributed by the employees and teachers to students in need.

Again, thank you for your continued support and we look forward to the 2017 book drive.


Hallie Ford Literary Series: New Voices Showcase

Please join us on Wednesday, November 9 for the final event of the Fall 2016 Hallie Ford Literary Series at Willamette, a New Voices Showcase featuring readings by debut fiction writers Margaret Malone and Sara Jaffe. The reading will take place in the Hatfield Room of Willamette’s library at 5 p.m. and is free and open to the public. Books will be for sale courtesy of the Willamette Store.

Margaret Malone is the author of the story collection People Like You, winner of the Balcones Fiction Prize and a finalist for the PEN Hemingway Award. Her writing has appeared in The Missouri Review, Oregon Humanities, Propeller Quarterly, Coal City Review, Swink, latimes.com, and elsewhere. margaret-maloneShe is a graduate of Humboldt State University with a B.A. in Philosophy and now lives in Portland, Oregon. Margaret has been a volunteer facilitator with the non-profit Write Around Portland and is a co-host of the artist and literary gathering SHARE. She is the recipient of an Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship, two Regional Arts & Culture Council Project Grants and an Oregon Literary Fellowship.

Read Margaret’s story “The Only One” here: http://www.propellermag.com/March2015/MaloneFictionMarch15.html

Sara Jaffe is a fiction writer whose first novel, Dryland, was published by Tin House Books in September 2015. Her short fiction and criticism have appeared in a variety of publications, including Fence, BOMB, NOON, Paul Revere’s Horse, matchbook, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. She co-edited The Art of Touring (Yeti, 2009), an anthology of writing and visual art by musicians drawing on her experience as guitarist for post-punk band Erase Errata. sara-jaffeSara holds a BA from Wesleyan University and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and has received fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, RADAR Productions, and the Regional Arts and Culture Council. She is also co-founding editor of New Herring Press, a publisher of prose chapbooks.

Read Sara’s story “Stormchasers” here: http://bombmagazine.org/article/10066/stormchasers

For more information, contact:
Scott Nadelson, Hallie Ford Chair in Writing
Willamette University
snadelso@willamette.edu
503-370-6290


Hallie Ford Literary Series: Gary Ferguson

Please join us for the second event in the Fall 2016 Hallie Ford Literary Series at Willamette: a reading and discussion of contemporary issues in environmental movements by acclaimed science and nature writer Gary Ferguson on Wednesday, October 12. The event will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the Hatfield Room of Willamette’s library and is free and open to the public. Books will be available courtesy of the Willamette Store. This event is sponsored by the Learning by Creating Program and the Green Fund.garyferguson

Author of 22 books on science and nature, including the award-winning Hawk’s Rest, published by National Geographic Adventure Press, Gary Ferguson serves as a keynote presenter at conservation and outdoor education gatherings around the country. Over the past twenty five years Gary has traveled thousands of miles down the rivers, trails, and back roads of North America: trekking 500 miles through Yellowstone to write Walking Down the Wild (Simon & Schuster), wandering through the seasons with the first 14 wolves released into Yellowstone National Park for The Yellowstone Wolves: The First Year (Globe Pequot), spending a season in the field at a wilderness therapy program for the best-selling Shouting at the Sky (St. Martin’s Press). His most recent book, The Carry Home, is both a moving celebration of the outdoor life shared between Gary and his wife Jane, who died tragically in a canoeing accident in northern Ontario in 2005, and a chronicle of grief and the healing power of wilderness.carry-home

Gary will be joined by his partner Dr. Mary Clare, an internationally-known scholar whose work in social and cultural psychology and community health initiatives has recently involved environmental justice work with the National Parks and wilderness-based programs for returning veterans. Together they will discuss the shortfalls of modern environmentalism in the twentieth century and new opportunities to bridge environmental and social justice movements.

Listen to an interview with Gary on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Think Out Loud here: http://www.opb.org/radio/programs/thinkoutloud/segment/gary-ferguson-talks-about-the-carry-home/

For more information, contact:
Scott Nadelson, Hallie Ford Chair in Writing
Willamette University
snadelso@willamette.edu
503-370-6290


Alumni Weekend Events

We have a few events that will be held in the Hatfield Library during Alumni Weekend, Sept 22-25.  All are invited to attend and participate, and we hope to see you there! The link to the full schedule is:
http://willamette.edu/alumni/activities/alumni_weekend/schedule/index.html

FRIDAY, Sept 23rd

HATFIELD LIBRARY TOUR

9:00 – 10:00 a.m.
Join alumni for a tour of the Hatfield Library and a special presentation from University Archives. Stick around after the tour for the session, “Willamette’s Political Papers Collection.”
Mark O. Hatfield Library, Circulation Desk (1st Floor)

 

WILLAMETTE’S POLITICAL PAPERS COLLECTION
10:00 – 11:30 a.m.
Willamette University has a long tradition of educating politically and civically engaged leaders. But did you know WU’s Archives and Special Collections has a significant Political Archive documenting some of the most important regional and national legislation of the late 20th century? Join the Politics Department and Archives Department for a conversation centering on significant environmental legislation with former U.S. congressional leaders including Mike Kopetski and Bob Packwood ’54 (whose congressional papers are housed in WU’s archives) and learn why these collections are invaluable in helping us tell our collective story.
Mark O. Hatfield Library, Hatfield Room (2nd floor)

 

THE EVOLUTION OF WILLAMETTE’S ARCHITECTURAL AND NATURAL LANDSCAPE
1:30 – 3:00 p.m.
Curious to know how Willamette’s campus evolved from a single building in a field to the beautiful setting we appreciate today? Come hear public historian Dr. William F. Willingham ’66 as he shares information that he has accumulated while researching Willamette’s architectural and natural landscape for his forthcoming book on the subject.
Mark O. Hatfield Library, Hatfield Room (2nd floor)

FRIDAY, Sept 23rd

THE PROMISE AND PERILS OF ELECTIONS AMERICAN STYLE
10:00 – 11:00 a.m.
Join Professor Melissa Michaux, Politics, for this discussion: Elections are supposed to be the vehicle to transcribe voter preferences into action, set an agenda for a governing majority and reassure Americans that we live in a democracy where the will of the people are expressed. Many features of modern American elections make these goals difficult. What should voters expect from American elections? What are they likely to get?
Mark O. Hatfield Library, Hatfield Room (2nd floor)

 


Brings Plenty Opens 2016 Hallie Ford Literary Series

Poet, musician, and filmmaker Trevino L. Brings Plenty will open the 2016 Hallie Ford Literary Series on Thursday, September 15 at 7:30 p.m. He is the author of two full-length volumes of poetry, Wakpá Wanáği, Ghost River and Real Indian Junk Jewelry. Trevino Brings PlentyHis work has also been included in the collection Shedding Skins: Four Sioux Poets. A Lakota Indian born on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, Trevino explores in a variety of media American Indian identity and urban Indian life. He is a singer/songwriter and guitarist with the ensemble Ballads of Larry Drake, and he has read and performed his poetry from Portland, Oregon, to Amman, Jordan. About Trevino’s most recent book, the poet and novelist Sherman Alexie writes, “These poems are ‘porcupine quills,’ beautiful and sharp. They draw blood. They make me laugh and cry. I love this book.”

The event is free and open to the public. Books will be for sale, courtesy of the Willamette Store.

For more information, contact:
Scott Nadelson, Hallie Ford Chair in Writing
Willamette University
snadelso@willamette.edu
503-370-6290


Fall Semester Hours

We will continue our shortened building hours throughout the week of August 22nd (8 am – 5 pm).  On Saturday we will be open 10-4pm, but closed all day Sunday.  Monday, August 29, the first day of class, our hours will extend to 8 am – Midnight.

Our full semester hours will begin Monday, August 5th (7:45 am – 2 am) weekdays, Saturdays (10 am – 9 pm), and Sundays (10 am – 2 am).

Details at: http://library.willamette.edu/about/calendar/

 

the-eleventh-hour-1364077_960_720

(Image source: Pixabay.com)


Welcome (Back)

Welcome to the Mark O. Hatfield Library, for those who are new to our library.  And welcome back for those who are returning!  We are ready for your return, and hope you’re ready to come back.  As you probably already know, we have top notch librarians to help with your upcoming research, plus excellent tools and resources.

Here is a link to get to a page that will help orient you to our library, or refresh your knowledge.  (And for the record, several Pokemon have been found in and around the library!)


Faculty Colloquium: La Maldad de Martin Wong: Approximating Nuyorico

Dear Colleagues,

Please join us this Friday, April 15th at 3 pm. in the Hatfield Room for our ninth Faculty Colloquium of this semester. Treats will be provided.Roy Perez

Roy Perez, Assistant Professor of English and American Ethnic Studies

Title: La Maldad de Martin Wong: Approximating Nuyorico

Abstract: Nicknamed “Chino Malo,” gay Chinese-American painter and art collector Martin Wong lived in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the 1980s, where he circulated among and collaborated with a number of Puerto Rican artists and writers. In this talk, I explore how Wong’s proximity to Nuyorican (Puerto Rican New York) culture appears in and shapes his paintings. I also examine Martin Wong’s presence as a queer Asian American painter in the popular history of Latina/o arts and culture. Often depicting men of color in erotic positions and encounters, Wong’s paintings lurk on the margin of accepted Latino art history, challenging typical representations of Latino masculinity. What happens when we move Wong to the center of Latino art and cultural history? What does Wong’s vision of Nuyorico reveal to us about its people, landscape, and culture? I contend that Wong’s visual poetics enact a series of queer advances that unsettle Nuyorico’s “good” center. Mal movement or comportment—to defer fear of committing maldades and willfully do things badly, wrongly, or approximately—loosens racial identity practices from their toil toward completion and full knowing.

Please feel free to invite students to attend this talk.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Doreen Simonsen and Bobby Brewer-Wallin
Faculty Colloquium Coordinators


Hallie Ford Literary Series: Sister Outsider, April 19

Please join us for the final event in the Spring 2016 Hallie Ford Literary Series at Willamette, an evening with acclaimed performance poetry duo Sister Outsider, on Tuesday, April 19. The event will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the Cat Cavern, on the second floor the University Center, and is free and open to the public.

Sister Outsider is the award-winning duo of Dominique Christina & Denice Frohman. Both Women of the World Poetry Slam Champions, the pair travel extensively to introduce students to the wider function of language and art as activism. Inspired by the life and work of Audre Lorde, they write and perform their “otherness” into the center and use spoken word as a tool for social change.

Dominique Christina is a writer, performer, educator, and activist. She holds five national titles in the three years she has been competing in slam, including the 2014 & 2012 Women of the World Slam Champion and 2011 National Poetry Slam Champion. She is the only person to have won two Women of the World Poetry Championships. She has published two poetry collections, The Bones, The Breaking, The Balm and They Are All Me.

Denice Frohman is an award-winning poet, lyricist, and educator. She is the 2013 Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion, 2014 Canto Mundo Fellow, 2012 Leeway Transformation Award recipient, and 2013 Hispanic Choice Award winner. Her work has appeared in the Huffington Post and the forthcoming book, Jotas: An Anthology of Queer Latina Voices. Her debut spoken word album, Feels Like Home was released in 2013.

Get a taste of Sister Outsider performing here: http://www.sisteroutsiderpoetry.com/poems

This event is sponsored by the Department of English, Students for Feminism, and the Hallie Ford Chair in Writing.

Scott Nadelson
English Department, Willamette University