first efforts

"An Affecting Incident"

I spent part of this morning working on some research for a book chapter I'm working on. In one of my secondary sources I came across a passing reference to a newspaper article from November 1863 and decided to follow up. The headline of the article was "An Affecting Incident." Thinking that was pretty specific, I hopped into the 19th Century Newspapers Database and typed that in as a title. But I hit search before I remembered to limit the search by date. No matter, I thought. It's not like there will be very many returns of that phrase.

I was wrong. Apparently the 19th century U.S. was chock full of "affecting incidents." The search turned up 116 articles with the headline "An Affecting Incident." Here are just a few of the affecting incidents I wasn't looking for:

"Female of advanced age" robbed of her life savings of thirty-two dollars, Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 1833.

"Exhibition of the affection of a slave for his master," Raleigh, NC Daily Register, 1853

"Unexpected Meeting and Recognition of Two Sisters After Separation of 20 Years," Daily Cleveland Herald, 1861

"A Bride Killed at the Altar," New Haven, CT Daily Palladium, 1864

I love research.

Field trip flea

This week at Illinois we had the pleasure of hosting Michael Leff as the final speaker in the Lincoln's Rhetorical Worlds speaker series; Oratorical Animal has a great summary of our reading group conversation yesterday. Before that meeting, I took Mike on a little field trip. His visit happily coincided with the campus exhibition of the Morrill Land Grant Act, signed by Abe himself. It only seemed right to bring Mike to see it at the Krannert Art Museum.

On the way back from the Krannert, we swung by the Rare Book Room at our library to see the recently-acquired 11 millionth volume: Ben Franklin's 1744 printing of Cicero's Discourse on Old Age. It's the first English-language translation of a Latin text printed in the new world, and according to those who know, a fine example of book printing for the period. Franklin printed it in extra big type to help those with aging eyes. Leff was pleased to see it; he said it was the first text he read all the way through in Latin.

As we readied to leave, the Rare Books curator wandered over. "I just finished with a Shakespeare class in there," he said, gesturing toward a glass-walled, locked room. "Shakespeare's First Folio and some other things are in there, if you want to check them out." Um, yeah.

And so we wandered over the checked out the First Folio - one of about 200 copies still in existence, worth somewhere in the realm of 6 million bucks (hence the locked room). The curator had also pulled various other books from the period to give the students a sense of what book publishing looked like in the 1600s. Stuff like Hooke's 1665 Micrographia, a compendium of illustrations of the natural world as seen through the new technology of the microscope. It features an unbelievably cool, foot-long pull-out image of a flea (see above). And Topsell's History of Four-Footed Beasts, which, among many other things, discusses medicinal uses for the fur and flesh of cats. Here, kitty, kitty...

What a joy it was to play tourist in my own backyard and be reminded, yet again, of the amazing, amazing stuff you can find just lying around in our library.

Morrill-inois

Throughout the month of October, the Krannert Art Museum here on our campus is hosting the Morrill Act. Yes, THE Morrill Act, the ACTUAL act, signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862 to create land grant universities like ours. It's on loan from the National Archives, here as part of our Lincoln Bicentennial campus commemorations.

I'm dying to see it in person. I'm hoping that it glows a little. And smells like corn.

The baby of the family

The loss of Senator Ted Kennedy is sad news, and there's certainly not much I can add to the public tributes about his life and accomplishments. But in googling around for news this morning I came across this photo of a very young Teddy with his oldest brother Joe. And that's when I realized: one of the reasons I've always felt an odd kinship to Ted Kennedy is that he was, like me, the "baby of the family." The baby of a big, Irish Catholic family, to be specific. Though they were 9 kids and we were 6, though they were rich and famous and important and us, um, not so much, though he lost too many siblings too young and me one (one too many), I've always felt a connection. When you're the youngest child in a big family, you often wonder how you'll find your way, how you'll measure up, how you'll make your own mark. And -- I hesitate to admit this because it might sound too morbid -- you often wonder what it will be like if you're the last one left. While in this case it turned out that Teddy  wasn't the last one left, the baby of the family certainly did figure out dramatic ways to make his own mark on the world. RIP.

image credit: JFK Library, "Edward M. Kennedy with his brother Joseph P. Kennedy in Palm Beach Florida, December 1939/January 1940."

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How we end up doing what we do

Last night the Rhetorical Studies Reading Group hosted Angela Ray, who is in town for the Lincoln's Rhetorical Worlds speaker series. Our drill for the RSRG is that we ask the visitor to give us two or three things to read, then we gather at the IPRH and have a wide-ranging, informal discussion. Angela gave us a couple of published pieces to read, and also a fascinating essay-in-progress: a study of Helen Potter, a late 19th century performer who earned her living imitating, quite faithfully, popular speakers and actors of the day. Because of the complexity of Potter's (sometimes cross-gender) performances, Angela's working with a wide range of materials that deal with everything from phrenology to dress reform to passing to elocution. She's also wrestling with questions folks who do rhetorical history frequently encounter: What kinds of materials properly constitute "the text" or "textual fragments" in a historical case? And, what kinds of conclusions can one draw from these materials when there is so much we don't have access to?

One of my favorite things about these meetings is that we learn how people came to do the work they do. In Angela's case, her story involves degrees in English and drama and an early job that introduced her to a strange little field called rhetoric. It involves a grad seminar that piqued her interest in studying the lyceum movement. And, perhaps most importantly, it involves professors who not only encouraged her and challenged her but pulled rare books from their shelves and gave them to her. To keep! There are all kinds of gifts we get from our mentors, but that's a pretty cool one.

A Lincolnish week

My rhetoric colleagues and I are pleased to host the second public lecture in the Lincoln's Rhetorical Worlds speaker series. David Zarefsky will give a public lecture on the "House Divided" speech; if you're local, join us at Levis Faculty Center on Wed., Feb. 4 from 3:30-5:30 pm. More info on the talk and speaker series here. During his visit Professor Zarefsky will also discuss some of his published work with the Rhetorical Studies Reading Group and visit Ned O'Gorman's class on Lincoln. Phew!

For those of you not local, you can still participate in David's visit. On Tuesday morning at 10 a.m., he will be the featured guest on our local public radio station's morning talk program, Focus 580. The topic is "Political Strategy and Public Opinion in the Words of Abraham Lincoln." Check here for info about listening live or downloading the podcast. 

Our governor was arrested today

Just go to TPM. They've got it all. It would be eye-rollingly funny if it weren't so blatantly awful and scummy.

Thoughts upon reading a heap of undergraduate papers

My students frequently double-space between paragraphs. They never used to do this. I cannot decide if this is simply a lame attempt to make the paper seem longer or if it reflects something about how young(er) people have acquired writing skills in the Internet age.

They also like to use the word "amongst." Where does this come from? I don't hear them walking around saying "thou" or "forsooth."

I blame Sarah Palin for my students' new love of the phrases "calling out" and "shout-out." As in, "McCain called out Obama on his ties to William Ayres" or "LBJ gave a shout-out to the marchers in Selma." !

It's FINALLY here!

  already, would ya?

And when you're done (or maybe even before you go), look at this.