The Archives and Special Collections Division of the City College Libraries, in collaboration with the Rifkind Center for The Humanities and Arts, invites you to the second Club Hour Conversation of the Fall 2023 series.
On Tuesday, November 14, at 12:30, Robert Higney (English) will discuss international literary magazines spanning the interwar period through the Cold War. Beyond the Library’s holdings of modernist “little magazines” from England, such as The Thrush (1909), Rhythm (1912), and Coterie (1919), we have substantial runs of some of the colonial and post-colonial publications “whose political or cultural projects,” according to the critic Simon Gikandi, “were enabled by modernism, even when the ideologies of the latter were at odds with decolonization.” These include Présence Africaine, founded in 1947 in Paris and Dakar; Black Orpheus, founded in Ibadan, Nigeria in 1957; and Marg, published in Bombay beginning in 1946. These publications—each of them visually striking in ways best grasped in person—present a fascinating journey through international literature and politics across the twentieth century.
As usual, we will be meeting on Tuesday from 12:30-1:30pm, in the Archives Reading Room, 5-301, on the 5th floor of Cohen Library. Refreshments will be served courtesy of the Rifkind Center.
The lineup for the rest of the semester:
December 12: Niel Shell (Mathematics) on Nathaniel Shilkret: Archival traces of a star of the early 20th-century music industry
The series will continue in the Spring.
For each occasion, librarians and faculty will select items from the rich Archives and Special Collections holdings of Cohen Library, and give short, informal presentations introducing these materials, allowing the audience a hands-on encounter with archival materials, rare books, and other special collections items on paper.
We look forward to see many of you there!
With questions, please contact the organizers (Professors Sydney van Nort, Ellen Handy, and András Kiséry) at akisery@ccny.cuny.edu or ehandy@ccny.cuny.edu
