The Truth is Out There?

What exactly do aliens have to do with civil rights? What would drive supposedly sane people to believe something that defies all rational explanation? Why exactly are we so fascinated in what (or who) may exist outside the threshold of our world when we already have more than enough trouble to last lifetimes contained within our own borders? These are the questions that Matthew Bowman interrogates in his latest book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill, a rigorously researched historical account of an alleged alien abduction of a married couple in 1961. Continue reading “The Truth is Out There?”

Not the Camilla You Think It Is…

 

I had a tough time selecting a book to read and review for this blog this time. I didn’t know anything about the League of Nations or Woodrow Wilson, nor did I really care to learn the ins and outs of the gubernatorial races in mid-twentieth century Louisianan politics enough to continue reading the two books I started on those topics, so I turned on the TV and looked for a distraction. Continue reading “Not the Camilla You Think It Is…”

A Foucaldian February

If on these wintery rainy days of February, the structures of power are getting you down, consider coming to the History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library and having a Foucaldian February. The library has a great many books by Foucault, about Foucault, about his writings, and generally inspired by Foucault, which will hold you in good stead until the last day of February (The 29th this year!) and even through to the next leap year (and well beyond.) 

Continue reading “A Foucaldian February”

Merry Christmas, Jason Donovan

Where’d You Get Your Information? (Part II)

This post is the second in a set on the British band Cornershop and their obsession with information. In part two, we examine a song, “Jason Donovan / Tessa Sanderson,” about two libel cases that seem especially to have captured their imaginations: Continue reading “Merry Christmas, Jason Donovan”

Testing Digital Humanities Tools for Research

No doubt if you are in academia right now–or even outside of academia you might’ve heard a bit about digital humanities. While researching end-of-semester papers, I thought I would test out a few DH tools for research that have been recommended to me and see how well they work for my subject matter. I’ll be testing JSTOR’s Text Analyzer and Connected Papers. Continue reading “Testing Digital Humanities Tools for Research”

Reading the Women’s Pages

For those interested in cultural and social history, one of the most invaluable resources made available through the University of Illinois Library are the historical newspaper databases. Containing the decade-spanning backfiles of such major newspapers as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Chicago Tribune, these databases provide readers the opportunity to envision what it might have been like to live during a certain era and experience world-changing events as they were initially recorded. Continue reading “Reading the Women’s Pages”

Armed and Fashionable– When Fashion Meets Public vs. Personal Safety

While “flipping the books” (converting library call numbers from Dewey to Library of Congress) in the circulating collection of the History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library, the book entitled, “The Hatpin Menace: American Women Armed and Fashionable, 1887-1920,” crossed my desk. The cover art was catchy; a beautiful, behatted young lady with a Mona Lisa smile looked out at the prospective reader next to a silly black-and-white cartoon of a man being skewered by a woman’s hatpin that is as long as she is tall. Continue reading “Armed and Fashionable– When Fashion Meets Public vs. Personal Safety”

Microfilm Research, Digital Research

Microfilm and Digital Research 

Intro:

The History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library holds over 100,000 reels of microfilmed newspapers in its collection as well as most of the University Library microfilm. The term “microform” encompasses microfilm and microfiche (as well as the now obsolete microcard.) What is microfilm and why do researchers and historians use it?

(University of Illinois Libguide to Microform)

Continue reading “Microfilm Research, Digital Research”

Where’d You Get Your Information? (Part I)

Letter from 1993, with Unexplained Anachronisms

Tjinder Singh and his post-punk band Cornershop really, really care about information—its technologies, its media, its creators, its consumers—which, for the 1990s at least, is a little unusual. Why care about anything at all when punk has bequeathed them a license to lunge pell-mell down the abyss of heedless anger, smashing up everything and replacing it with nothing? Continue reading “Where’d You Get Your Information? (Part I)”

Call for Applications: 2023-2024 Research Travel Grant

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library and the Department of History are pleased to announce a Research Travel Grant to support scholars conducting research in any of the Library’s collections.

The University Library is one of the largest research libraries in the U.S., holding more than 14 million volumes and 24 million other items and materials in all formats, languages, and subjects. Special collections include the papers of literary figures such as Marcel Proust, H.G. Wells, Carl Sandburg and Gwendolyn Brooks, extensive collections of Slavic and East European materials and of materials documenting the history of science, technology, international agricultural programs, and librarianship, the premier collection on international amateur sports and the Olympics, and a unique collection of sub-Saharan African research materials. Travel grant recipients will also have access to the Library’s digital collections (including journal subscriptions and licensed databases) during their stay.

For more information about the Library’s collections, see: https://www.library.illinois.edu/collections/special-collections

Travel grants awards typically range from $1,000 to $2,500 per recipient. Funds may be applied toward round-trip travel, and accommodations and expenses in Urbana-Champaign, IL.

Continue reading “Call for Applications: 2023-2024 Research Travel Grant”