SEASON FINALE
May 27, 2008.
William Noel, Curator of Manuscripts and Rare Books at the Walters Art Museum, talks about the book he co-authored with Reviel Netz entitled: The Archimedes Codex: How a Medieval Prayer Book is Revealing the true Genius of Antiquity's Greatest Scientist, and his ten-year project to uncover one of the most important documents in the history of science, the Archimedes Palimpsest.
39:24 min.
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May 20, 2008.
Kathleen Hart, professor of French and Chair of the Department of French and Francophone Studies at Vassar College, talks about Flora Tristan, George Sand, Louise Michel, and her book: Revolution and Women's Autobiography in Nineteenth-century France, published by Rodopi.
51:09 min.
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May 13, 2008.
Jennifer Phegley, literary historian and professor of English at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, discusses her book: Educating the Proper Woman Reader: Victorian Family Literary Magazines and the Cultural Health of the Nation, published by the Ohio State University Press.
43:35 min.
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April 15, 2008.
Peter Drummey, Stephen T. Riley Librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society, talks about the Society, the keeping of historical archives and manuscripts in the age of the Internet, and the exhibit: My Dearest Friend, Letters of Abigail and John Adams from the Collections of the MHS, on view through April 30, 2008 in the Archives and Special Collections Library of the Frederick Ferris Thompson Memorial Library at Vassar College.
64 min.
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April 8, 2008.
Alex Byrne, University Librarian at the University of Technology, Sydney, and 2005-2007 President of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), discusses intellectual freedom advocacy, libraries, internationalism, and his book: The Politics of Promoting Freedom of Information and Expression in International Librarianship, published by Scarecrow.
49:48 min.
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April 1, 2008.
David Weinberger, philosopher, author, commentator, and Fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for the Internet & Society discusses his latest book: Everything is Miscellaneous: the Power of the New Digital Disorder, published by Times Books.
49:44 min.
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March 25, 2008.
K. David Harrison, professor of Linguistics at Swarthmore College and Director of Research for the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, discusses his book, When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge, published by Oxford University Press.
60:00 min.
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March 4, 2008.
Nancy Bisaha, professor of history at Vassar College, talks about her book, Creating East and West: Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks, which "underscores the importance of this period for the evolution of concepts such as East and West, Europe and Asia, and suggests how these Renaissance views ... may still inform the modern discourse on Islam and the West." - RQ
50:10 min.
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February 26, 2008.
Biopsychologist and Tufts University Provost Jamshed Bharucha talks about exciting new research on the cognitive and neural basis of music perception and what it tells us about human thought, communication and development.
42:45 min.
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February 12, 2008.
Joel Smith, Curator of Photography at the Princeton University Art Museum, discusses his exhibition Saul Steinberg: Illuminations, on View at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar, November 2, 2007 through February 24, 2008.
38:44 min.
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February 5, 2008.
Geoffrey C. Bowker, Regis and Dianne McKenna Professor and Executive Director of the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Santa Clara University, discusses his book, Memory Practices in the Sciences, winner of the 2007 Ludwig Fleck Prize of the Society for Social Studies and Science, and named the "Best Information Book of 2006" by the American Society for Information Science & Technology, published by MIT.
53:35 min.
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December 11, 2007.
Mark Amodio, Professor of English at Vassar College, talks about his book: Writing the Oral Tradition: Poetics and Literate Culture in Medieval England, published by the University of Notre Dame Press. Hailed as "a major revision of oral theory" and "destined to reshape critical thinking about medieval poetry in English," Writing the Oral Tradition was selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Book for 2005.
60:01 min.
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November 27, 2007
A program of recordings from the Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries collection featuring music and poetry by Wolf Biermann, Hanns Eisler, Eric Bentley and Bertolt Brecht, as well as literature and statements read at a Read-in for Peace in Vietnam that took place at Town Hall in New York in 1966, featuring readings by Stanley Kauffman, Susan Sontag, Lenore Marshall, Arthur Miller, William Gibson, Jules Feiffer, and Walter Lowenfels.
59:47 min.
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November 20, 2007
Architect and architectural historian James Fischer, AIA, RIBA, talks about pathologies of professionalism and his exhibition: The Suspension of Disbelief: Advertising and Architectural Ethics, now on view in the Vassar College Art Library October 9-December 21, 2007.
60:20 min.
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November 6, 2007
Vassar author Joshua Harmon talks about his first novel, Quinnehtukqut, described as a "magical postmodern epic [that] ranges across time, threading fragments of oral history, diaries, and news accounts into parallel tales of mystery, wonder, and tragedy."
60:26 min.
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October 23, 2007
Public knowledge advocate John Willinsky discusses his book The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship, winner of the American Library Association's 2006 Blackwell Scholarship Award, published by MIT Press.
47:53 min.
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October 2, 2007
Michael Pisani, music historian and professor of music at Vassar College, talks about his book Imagining Native America in Music, published by Yale University Press.
60:27 min.
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September 25, 2007
Guest host Patricia Célérier talks with the famed blues artist Joe Louis Walker about his life and music.
49:56 min.
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SEASON OPENER:
September 18, 2007
Nicholas Adams, architectural historian and Professor of Art at Vassar College, discusses his landmark survey and history of the Twentieth Century's most prolific architectural collaborative: Skidmore, Owings and Merrill: SOM Since 1936.
57:33 min.
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SEASON FINALE:
May 22 & 29, 2007
Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, Professor of Hispanic Studies at Vassar College, talks about the book she co-authored with Margarite Fernandez Olmos entitled: Creole Religions of the Caribbean: An Introduction from Vodou and Santería to Obeah and Espiritismo, in a two-part interview to be aired May 22nd and May 29th.
Listen: Part 1 (61:11 min.) Part 2 (54:50 min.)
May 15, 2007
Eve D'Ambra, art historian and Professor of Art at Vassar College, talks about the subject of her new book, Roman Women, published this year by Cambridge University Press.
55:57 min.
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May 8, 2007
A program of recordings about libraries, reading, and education including music and poetry by George Abbe, Alasdair Clayre, Earl Robinson, Caetano Veloso, Calypso artist Walter Gavitt, and featuring a 1960's recorded interview (23 minutes) with R. Buckminster Fuller entitled, "The Educational Mind," from Folkways recordings in the Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries collections.
61:03 min.
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April 24, 2007
Renowned Franco-Algerian intellectual and journalist Henri Alleg talks with Patricia-Pia Célérier about politics, state-sponsored torture, censorship, and the Algerian War of Independence, on the occasion of a new English translation of his regime-shaking book, La Question, published by Nebraska University Press. Written from his prison cell and smuggled out for publication in 1958, The Question is the book that opened the torture debate in France during the brutal period of France's "War Without a Name," and was the first book since the eighteenth century to be banned by the French government for political reasons.
57:25 min.
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April 17, 2007
Perry Willett, Head of the Digital Library Production Service of the University of Michigan Libraries, discusses the U of M's role in the Google Books Library Project and Google's endeavor to translate the book holdings of the world's major research libraries into digital form for universal access via Google Book Search.
28:52 min.
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April 3, 2007
Emily Sheketoff, Associate Executive Director of the American Library Association and head of the Washington Office of the ALA, talks about the important public policy issue of Network Neutrality and the threat that AT&T, Verizon, and other corporate media giants pose to equal access to information on the Internet.
27:17 min.
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March 27, 2007
Susan M. Bielstein, Executive Editor for Art, Architecture, Classical Studies and Film at the University of Chicago Press, talks about her book: Permissions, A Survival Guide: Blunt Talk About Art as Intellectual Property.
42:14 min.
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February 27, 2007
Meg E. Stewart, Academic Computing Consultant for Geographical Information Systems at Vassar College, talks about the use of GIS applications inside and outside of the classroom.
31:59 min.
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February 20, 2007
Andrew Watsky, art historian and professor of art at Vassar College, discusses his award-winning book about the Japanese island of Chikubushima, it's history, architecture, and art.
49:59 min.
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February 13, 2007
To continue our program from February 6 of subject matter related to the New Deal, we will be airing WPA field interviews from 1940-41 with Farm Security Administration migrant camp inhabitants, along with a re-creation of a camp cultural event, from WPA recordings in the Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Collection of the Library of Congress.
60:20 min
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February 6, 2007
Patricia Phagan, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Frances Lehman Loeb Center at Vassar, talks about the exhibition: For the People: American Mural Drawings of the 1930s and 1940s, on view January 12 - March 11, 2007.
36:02 min
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January 30, 2007
Grace Roosevelt, Professor of History and Education at Metropolitan College of New York and author of Reading Rousseau in the Nuclear Age, talks about the history of the liberal arts curriculum, the encroachment of market forces on higher education, and the relation between liberal education and liberal politics.
42:12 min.
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December 5, 2006
Robert K. Brigham, Shirley Ecker Boskey Professor of History and International Relations at Vassar College, discusses his new book entitled: Is Iraq another Vietnam?
36:43 min
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November 28, 2006
Ray English, Director of Libraries at Oberlin College and Chair of SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, will talk on behalf of the watershed Federal Research Public Access Act (S-2695) and its manifold benefits for libraries, higher education, and information-seekers at large, and about what you can do to help the cause of open access.
46:14 min
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November 14, 2006
Rebecca Edwards, Eloise Ellery Professor of History at Vassar College, offers new perspectives on the transformations that swept the new American nation in the period between Emancipation and the first deployment of American troops overseas from her book New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age.
35:52 min
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October 31, 2006
Jeffrey R. Walker, Professor of Geology at Vassar College and editor of a new edition of the naturalist John Burroughs' book Signs & Seasons, talks about Burroughs, his life and work.
59:13 min
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October 24, 2006
Charles Henry, Vice Provost and University Librarian at Rice University and incoming President of the Council on Library and Information Resources, talks about his venture to revive Rice University Press as the first digital-only academic publishing house.
42:53 min
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October 10, 2006
Brian Lukacher, art historian and Professor of Art at Vassar College, talks about his new monograph on the British artist and architectural visionary, Joseph Gandy.
41:37 min.
Listen | | View | Screencast
The Library Café is a weekly program of table talk with scholars, artists, publishers and librarians about books, ideas, and the formation and circulation of knowledge. It is hosted by Thomas Hill, and can be heard on WVKR FM 91.3 Tuesday afternoons between 12:00 Noon and 1:00 p.m. ET (15.00-16.00 GMT) during the academic year.
