NEH Fellowships at the Newberry Library

FAIN: RA-50050-07

Newberry Library (Chicago, IL 60610-3305)
James R. Grossman (Project Director: September 2006 to November 2011)
Daniel Greene (Project Director: November 2011 to March 2011)

Three fellowships a year for two years.

This proposal requests funding for three years of publicity and three years of fellowships to continue a highly successful program of residential humanities fellowships at the Newberry Library. Over three decades, this program has generated a rich and documented harvest of humanities scholarship while serving as a catalyst for the creation of a dynamic intellectual community within this research institution. The proposal details the achievements and impact of the program and outlines the library's procedures for publicity, selection, and orientation of fellows.

Associated Products

The West: Encounters and Transformations. 3rd ed (Book)
Title: The West: Encounters and Transformations. 3rd ed
Author: Brian Levack and Meredith Veldman
Author: Edward Muir
Abstract: N/A
Year: 2011
Publisher: Longman
Type: Multi-author monograph

Impertinent Meddlers in State Building: An Anti-War Movement in Seventeenth-Century Italy (Book Section)
Title: Impertinent Meddlers in State Building: An Anti-War Movement in Seventeenth-Century Italy
Author: Edward Muir
Editor: Paola Guglielmotti, Isabella Lazzarini, and Gian Maria Varnanini
Abstract: N/A
Year: 2011
Publisher: Firenze University Press
Book Title: Europa e Italia: Studi in onore di Giorgio Chittolini

An Evening at the Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice (Book Section)
Title: An Evening at the Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice
Author: Edward Muir
Editor: Jane Fulcher
Abstract: N/A
Year: 2011
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Book Title: Oxford Handbook of the New Cultural History of Music

Spice Race: The Island Princess and the Politics of Transnational Appropriation (Article)
Title: Spice Race: The Island Princess and the Politics of Transnational Appropriation
Author: Carmen Nocentelli
Abstract: N/A
Year: 2010
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: PMLA, 125, no.3

The Idolatrous Nose: Incense on the Early Modern Stage (Book Section)
Title: The Idolatrous Nose: Incense on the Early Modern Stage
Author: Holly Crawford Pickett
Editor: Jane Hwang, Degenhardt and Elizabeth Williamson
Abstract: N/A
Year: 2011
Publisher: Ashgate
Book Title: Religion and Drama in Early Modern England: The Performance of Religion on the Renaissance Stage,

Angels in England: Idolatry and Transformation at the Red Bull Playhouse (Book Section)
Title: Angels in England: Idolatry and Transformation at the Red Bull Playhouse
Author: Holly Crawford Pickett
Editor: Peter Kanelos and Matt Kozusko
Abstract: N/A
Year: 2010
Book Title: Thunder at a Playhouse: Essaying Shakespeare and the Early Modern Stage
ISBN: SusquehannaUP

Dramatic Nostalgia and Spectacular Conversion in Dekker and Massinger’s The Virgin Martyr (Article)
Title: Dramatic Nostalgia and Spectacular Conversion in Dekker and Massinger’s The Virgin Martyr
Author: Holly Crawford Pickett
Abstract: N/A
Year: 2009
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 49 no.2

Evening's Empire: A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe (Book)
Title: Evening's Empire: A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe
Author: Craig Koslofsky
Abstract: What does it mean to write a history of the night? Evening's Empire is a fascinating study of the myriad ways in which early modern people understood, experienced, and transformed the night. Using diaries, letters, and legal records together with representations of the night in early modern religion, literature and art, Craig Koslofsky opens up an entirely new perspective on early modern Europe.
Year: 2011
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/evenings-empire-a-history-of-the-night-in-early-modern-europe/oclc/701021121&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: worldcat listing
Access Model: no link to book text
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Type: Single author monograph

Prizes

Book of the Year
Date: 1/11/2012
Organization: History Today
Abstract: The Longman-History Today Book of the Year prize recognizes a person or organization that has made a major contribution to history.

'An invincible force meets an immovable object’: Gertrude Stein comes to Chicago (Article)
Title: 'An invincible force meets an immovable object’: Gertrude Stein comes to Chicago
Author: Liesl Olson
Abstract: N/A
Year: 2010
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Modernism/Modernity

Introduction (Book Section)
Title: Introduction
Author: Liesl Olson
Abstract: N/A
Year: 2010
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Book Title: Narration, by Gertrude Stein

Empires of Love: Europe, Asia, and the Making of Early Modern Identity (Book)
Title: Empires of Love: Europe, Asia, and the Making of Early Modern Identity
Author: Carmen Nocentelli
Abstract: Drawing on a wide range of European sources on polygamy, practices of male genital modification, and the allegedly excessive libido of native women, Empires of Love emphasizes the overlapping and mutually transformative construction of race and sexuality during Europe's early overseas expansion, arguing that the encounter with Asia contributed to the development of Western racial discourse while also shaping European ideals of marriage, erotic reciprocity, and monogamous affection.
Year: 2013
Primary URL: http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15091.html
Primary URL Description: Publisher's website
Secondary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/empires-of-love-europe-asia-and-the-making-of-early-modern-identity/oclc/807768059&referer=brief_results
Secondary URL Description: WorldCat entry
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780812244830
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

Prizes

Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies
Date: 1/10/2015
Organization: Modern Language Association of America
Abstract: Awarded annually for an outstanding scholarly work that is written by a member of the association and that involves at least two literatures.

Motion Rhetoric in Serial Conversion Narratives: Religion and Change in Early Modern England (Book Section)
Title: Motion Rhetoric in Serial Conversion Narratives: Religion and Change in Early Modern England
Author: Pickett, Holly
Editor: Lowell Gallagher
Abstract: The tumultuous climate of early modern England had a profound effect on its Catholic population's domestic life, social customs, literary inventions, and political arguments. Redrawing the Map of Early Modern English Catholicism explores the broad spectrum of the early modern English Catholic experience, presenting fresh and often startling assessments of the most problematic topics in post-Reformation English
Year: 2012
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/redrawing-the-map-of-early-modern-english-catholicism/oclc/770618000&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: worldcat listing
Access Model: no link to book text
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Book Title: Redrawing the Map of Early Modern English Catholicism
ISBN: 1442643129

Made in India: How Meriton Latroon Became an Englishman (Book Section)
Title: Made in India: How Meriton Latroon Became an Englishman
Author: Nocentelli, Carmen
Editor: Jonathan Gil Harris
Abstract: https://www.worldcat.org/title/indography-writing-the-indian-in-early-modern-england/oclc/810257958&referer=brief_results
Year: 2012
Primary URL: http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=550130
Primary URL Description: publisher's listing
Access Model: no link to book text
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Book Title: Indography Writing the "Indian" in Early Modern England
ISBN: 9780230341371

Universities of Social and Political Change: Slaves in Jail in Antebellum America (Book Section)
Title: Universities of Social and Political Change: Slaves in Jail in Antebellum America
Author: O'Donovan, Susan
Editor: Michele Lise Tarter
Editor: Richard Bell
Abstract: Buried Lives offers the first critical examination of the experience of imprisonment in early America. These interdisciplinary essays investigate several carceral institutions to show how confinement shaped identity, politics, and the social imaginary both in the colonies and in the new nation. The historians and literary scholars included in this volume offer a complement and corrective to conventional understandings of incarceration that privilege the intentions of those in power over the experiences of prisoners. Considering such varied settings as jails, penitentiaries, almshouses, workhouses, floating prison ships, and plantations, the contributors reconstruct the struggles of people imprisoned in locations from Antigua to Boston. The essays draw upon a rich array of archival sources from the seventeenth century to the eve of the Civil War, including warden logs, petitions, execution sermons, physicians' clinical notes, private letters, newspaper articles, runaway slave advertisements, and legal documents. Through the voices, bodies, and texts of the incarcerated, Buried Lives reveals the largely ignored experiences of inmates who contested their subjection to regimes of power.
Year: 2012
Primary URL: http://www.ugapress.org/index.php/books/index/buried_lives
Primary URL Description: publisher's listing
Secondary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/buried-lives-incarcerated-in-early-america/oclc/809184582&referer=brief_results
Secondary URL Description: worldcat listing
Access Model: no link to book text
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Book Title: Buried Lives: Incarcerated in Early America
ISBN: 978-0820341194

Making Modernism: Literature and Culture in Twentieth-Century Chicago (Web Resource)
Title: Making Modernism: Literature and Culture in Twentieth-Century Chicago
Author: Liesl Olson
Abstract: The focus of Making Modernism is the literature of Chicago in connection with the unique urban, economic, and cultural history of the city. Chicago’s contributions to international modernism have predominantly focused on architecture, which we acknowledge with a design derived from the windows of Frank Lloyd Wright. This exhibit, however, gives emphasis to the literature of Chicago and its connections to developments across the arts. Making Modernism emphasizes four thematic lines of inquiry relating to twentieth-century Chicago’s literary and cultural life: (1) the geographic centrality of Chicago both locally and internationally; (2) modernism’s distinctive reception history in Chicago; (3) the historically overlooked women in Chicago who served as important cultural arbiters; and (4) the connections between the “Chicago Renaissance” in the arts, which occurred between 1910 and the mid-1920s, and the “Chicago Black Renaissance,” which began in the 1930s and continued through mid-century.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://publications.newberry.org/makingmodernism/
Primary URL Description: Link to the online exhibit

Stormy, Husky, Brawling: Chicago Poetry 100 Years After Sandburg’s Chicago Poems (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Stormy, Husky, Brawling: Chicago Poetry 100 Years After Sandburg’s Chicago Poems
Author: Liesl Olson
Abstract: In March, 1914, Poetry magazine published Carl Sandburg’s controversial Chicago Poems, including the title ode to Chicago in which he famously coins it “City of the Big Shoulders.”To mark the occasion, from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 12, the Newberry will host an event that, if not brawling, promises to be rollicking, with a custom-made cake from Swedish Bakery and free beer from Haymarket Pub & Brewery, and readings, musical performances, and talks by—and discussions with—the following: Marc Smith, Robert Polito, Alison Cuddy, Erica Bernheim, Marten Stromberg, Kari Lydersen, and Bill Savage. “Stormy, Husky, Brawling” is emceed by Liesl Olson, Director of the Scholl Center for American History and Culture at the Newberry. The event was organized by Olson with the help of literary historian Paul Durica, founder of the interactive public history programs called “Pocket Guide to Hell.”
Date Range: March 12, 2014
Location: The Newberry Library

100 Years of Poetry: ‘In the Middle of Major Men’ (Article)
Title: 100 Years of Poetry: ‘In the Middle of Major Men’
Author: Liesl Olson
Abstract: Monroe is the most celebrated woman of Poetry magazine—and arguably its most important editor—though many women helped to edit Poetry both in Monroe’s time and throughout the magazine’s 100-year history. They include Monroe’s indispensible first assistant, Alice Corbin Henderson; writer and war correspondent Eunice Tietjens; poets Jessica Nelson North and Marion Strobel; and Margaret Danner, a highly successful African American poet who worked with Karl Shapiro and Henry Rago in the 1950s and 1960s. Like Monroe, these women navigated a larger literary culture dominated by men.
Year: 2012
Primary URL: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/244666
Primary URL Description: Link to the article on the Poetry Foundation's website
Access Model: Web access
Format: Other
Publisher: Poetry Foundation

Representing Chicago: The City in Art, Literature, and Music (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Representing Chicago: The City in Art, Literature, and Music
Abstract: Guest lecturer for ENGL 28815: From the late nineteenth century onward, writers and artists have been inspired by Chicago and have also created its most enduring representations. Six different creative communities, three from the city's past and three from its present, serve as access points for a broader consideration of the creative "infrastructure" (libraries, cafes, print shops, studios, theaters, newspapers, bars, magazines, radio) that has made and sustained cultural production. Collaboration and cross-disciplinary work distinguish these communities, which stretch from the "Little Room" of the nineteenth century to the Poetry Foundation of today, from the Dil Pickle Club in Towertown to the Hideout in Lincoln Park, and from the Parkway Community House of the WPA era to the Arts Incubator of the Obama age. While the focus is on Chicago-produced literature, all of the arts are explored. Students are expected to produce critical and creative work and to collaborate with a contemporary creative community in producing a public experience.
Author: Liesl Olson
Date: 3/1/2015
Location: The University of Chicago

White City, Black Metropolis (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: White City, Black Metropolis
Author: Liesl Olson
Abstract: This paper begins with a look at the relationship between Gwendolyn Brooks and Richard Wright within the larger context of the Chicago Black Renaissance. Drawing upon new and extensive archival research, the paper maps out what was distinctive about Chicago’s literary culture at this time-especially in comparison to Harlem. It tells a story of interracial collaborations supported by the Works Progress Administration, and explores the question of how black writers conceived of an audience for their writing, when they were dependent upon white publishers. Ultimately the paper puts forth two claims: that the art and literature of Bronzeville balanced the aims of social realism with the experimental forms of literary modernism; and that the Chicago Black Renaissance was a movement with its own distinctive energy even as it was informed by a set of aesthetic concerns characteristic to Chicago more broadly. Writers and artists discussed in the paper include: Nelson Algren, Arna Bontemps, Gwendolyn Brooks, Horace Cayton, Jack Conroy, Eldzier Cortor, Ralph Ellison, Vivian Harsh, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Wayne Miller, Inez Stark, Gertrude Stein, Era Bell Thompson, Margaret Walker, Richard Wright.
Date Range: April 23, 2015
Location: The Newberry Library

Interdisciplinary Modernist Studies and the Cultural Event (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Interdisciplinary Modernist Studies and the Cultural Event
Author: Liesl Olson
Abstract: This seminar examines the challenges and rewards of working across the borders separating fields such as literary criticism, art history, performance studies, and the natural and social sciences. Does the lauded interdisciplinarity of modernist studies offer original insights or risk “dilettantism"? What are the best methodologies for truly interdisciplinary projects? Invited Participants: Christopher Reed, English and Visual Culture, Penn State; Liesl Olson, American History and Culture, Newberry Library.
Date Range: November 6-9, 2014
Location: Modernist Studies Association Conference, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Primary URL: https://msa.press.jhu.edu/conferences/msa16/index.html
Primary URL Description: Conference website

Who was Hemingway at 25? (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Who was Hemingway at 25?
Writer: Liesl Olson
Writer: Lauren Chooljian
Producer: WBEZ-NPR
Abstract: No abstract available
Date: 7/17/2013
Primary URL: http://www.wbez.org/series/year-25/year-25-ernest-hemingway-108094
Primary URL Description: Link to the recording of the radio segment
Access Model: Website access
Format: Radio
Format: Web

Hemingway in Chicago (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Hemingway in Chicago
Abstract: Ernest Hemingway lived in Chicago for a year and a half, from 1920 to 1921, when he was 21 years old. At the same time, H.L. Mencken claimed that Chicago had become “the literary capital of the United States.” Living in various apartments in Towertown–the then bohemian neighborhood surrounding the Newberry Library–Hemingway was influenced by a vibrant literary and artistic scene, including the writers Carl Sandburg and Sherwood Anderson. But it is the untold story of Hemingway’s relationship with another young journalist starting out in Chicago, Fanny Butcher, that illuminates Hemingway’s lifelong conception of Chicago and the American Midwest.
Author: Liesl Olson
Date: 12/11/2012
Location: The Newberry Library

Modernism and the Invention of the Metropolis (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Modernism and the Invention of the Metropolis
Abstract: No abstract available.
Author: Liesl Olson
Date: 5/1/2012
Location: The University of Chicago

Chicago Renaissance: Literature and Art in the Midwest Metropolis (Book)
Title: Chicago Renaissance: Literature and Art in the Midwest Metropolis
Author: Liesl Olson
Abstract: This remarkable cultural history celebrates the great Midwestern city of Chicago for its centrality to the modernist movement. Author Liesl Olson traces Chicago’s cultural development from the 1893 World’s Fair through mid-century, illuminating how Chicago writers revolutionized literary forms during the first half of the twentieth century, a period of sweeping aesthetic transformations all over the world. From Harriet Monroe, Carl Sandburg, and Ernest Hemingway to Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks, Olson’s enthralling study bridges the gap between two distinct and equally vital Chicago-based artistic “renaissance” moments: the primarily white renaissance of the early teens, and the creative ferment of Bronzeville. Stories of the famous and iconoclastic are interwoven with accounts of lesser-known yet influential figures in Chicago, many of whom were women. Olson argues for the importance of Chicago’s editors, bookstore owners, tastemakers, and ordinary citizens who helped nurture Chicago’s unique culture of artistic experimentation.
Year: 2017
Primary URL: http://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300203684/chicago-renaissance
Publisher: Yale University Press

Pirates vs. Press Gangs: The Battle for the Atlantic (Article)
Title: Pirates vs. Press Gangs: The Battle for the Atlantic
Author: Denver Brunsman
Abstract: n/a
Year: 2019
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Historia (Sao Paulo) vol 28

The Morality of Doubt: The Religious Skeptics of Seventeenth-Century Venice (Book Section)
Title: The Morality of Doubt: The Religious Skeptics of Seventeenth-Century Venice
Author: Edward Muir
Editor: Ute Lotz-Heumann
Abstract: n/a
Year: 2019
Publisher: Routledge
Book Title: A Sourcebook of Early Modern History: Life, Death, and Everything in Between In Honor of Susan C. Karant-Nunn

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