First Fall Workshop on Nov. 1: The View From Left Field

Workshop in Archival Practice:
The View From Left Field
November 1, 6:00-8:00 PM
19 University Place, Room 222
Supported by the NYU Graduate Program in English and Co-Sponsored by the Modern and Contemporary Colloquium
Workshop Leaders
Shelley Rice, Arts Professor in Department of Photography and Imaging and
Department of Art History and Exhibition Co-Curator
Jonno Rattman, Exhibition Co-Curator
Hillel Arnold, Archivist and Exhibition Consultant

Event Description: What does it take to bring images from the archives into the classroom and onto gallery walls? The View From Left Field, an exhibition co-curated by Professor Shelley Rice, Jonno Rathman and the late Michael Nash, answers this question by demonstrating the evolution of what Professor Rice has called a “world in a box”—an exhibition of photographs that grew from Professor Rice’s Fall 2011 seminar, “Toward a Critical Vocabulary” and has emerged as a showcase of the Daily Worker/Daily World Photographs Collection, part of the archives of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) at New York University’s Tamiment Library & Robert Wagner Labor Archives. The View From Left Field marks an unprecedented fusion of pedagogy with institutional collaboration and offers its viewers a window into the histories of photography, journalism, American diplomacy and the lived reality of citizens in the grip of a 20^th century indelibly marked by the Cold War. Co-curators Shelley Rice and Jonno Rattman, along with archivist Hillel Arnold, will speak about their experiences in designing and implementing The View From Left Field and will take your questions about the challenges and rewards of their innovative and in-depth engagement with the Tamiment Library’s archival holdings. Open to students, archivists and faculty from any department or institution.

Exhibition Information: The View from Left Field is currently on view (through November 17^th) in the Department of Photography & Imaging at New York University: 721 Broadway, 8^th Floor. The exhibition is dedicated to Michael Nash.

You can read more about the exhibition in a blog post by Shelley Rice here.

Image Citation: Czech Construction in Oshava, September 1951. Daily Worker/Daily World Photographs Collection, Tamiment Library & Robert Wagner Labor Archives, Box 121, Folder 20393.

Reminder: Networked New York Conference Tomorrow

We are thrilled to be co-sponsoring this amazing event with the Project on New York Writing and the Colloquium on American Literature and Culture at NYU – two groups I cannot say enough good things about. Please join us at 19 University Place in the Great Room for a day filled with discussion of literary, material, and digital connections in the city!

To get a taste of all this day has to offer, read more about the conference themes from eloquent organizers Annie Abrams and Blevin Shelnutt. For annotated information about our keynote speaker and panelists, visit Patell and Waterman’s History of New York. We hope to see you there tomorrow!

Join Us: Networked New York Conference March 9 at NYU

The Project on New York Writing, the Colloquium in American Literature and Culture, and the Workshop in Archival Practice at New York University present

Networked New York: a conference on material, literary and digital connections in the city

Friday, March 9, 2012, 10:00 am – 5:30 pm

19 University Place, the Great Room

all sessions are free and open to the public

Keynote: “Playing the Field, Thoughts about Social Networks and the New York Downtown Arts Scene”

 Marvin Taylor, Director, Fales Library & Special Collections

Schedule (click for annotated program) 

10:00 – 11:15, Panel 1 – Institution and Enterprise

11:15 – 12:30, Panel 2 – Community, Production, and Place

1:30 – 2:45, Panel 3 – Authors and Neighborhoods

3:00 – 4:00, Keynote – “Playing the Field, Thoughts about Social Networks and the New York Downtown Arts Scene”

4:00 – 5:30, Panel 4 – Blogscapes and Digital Interaction

For more information, visit networkednewyork.wordpress.com, e-mail us at  nyucalc@gmail.com, or find us on Twitter @NYUCALC and @NYUArchiveWork. 

Springing into March Collaborations

For the Workshop in Archival Practice, Spring 2012 is abuzz with exciting collaborations! First up (and coming up soon!) is a day-long conference, Networked New York, presented by the Project on New York Writing, the Colloquium on American Literature and Culture and our group.  Join us on March 9 at 19 University Place in the Great Room. From Walt Whitman to the Bowery Boys and beyond, this event is one you won’t want to miss. Detailed information on this event coming in our next post!

On March 16, Jane Carr will be speaking on a roundtable panel with Professor Elizabeth McHenry from the NYU English Department and archivists from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the 9^th Columbia University Libraries Symposium. The symposium will be held from 8:30 to 4:30 in Uris Hall. The theme of this year’s symposium is New Models of Academic Collaboration and we will be talking about the NYU-Schomburg Initiative, an institutional partnership that trains advanced graduate students to be student processors at the Schomburg (including two of our founders, Jane Carr and Laura Helton). You can register for the symposium here.

Finally, look for another exciting conference to close out the month of March. A two-day event on March 30 and March 31, Show & Prove 2012:  The Tensions, Contradictions, & Possibilities of Hip Hop Studies. This event will be held at 721 Broadway, 6^th Floor and the Workshop will be moderating an exciting roundtable discussion featuring representatives from the Cornell University Library Hip Hop Collection, the Hip Hop Education Center and the Hip Hop Word Count, along with performance studies scholars. Conference web site and more information will be posted soon! In the meantime, please contact Dr. Imani Kai Johnson for more information.