Shelf Life

Shelf Life

By Newberry LibraryArtsBooksHistory
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Shelf Life episodes

  • Michelangelo's Handwriting

    In this episode, we’re joined by scholars Bill Wallace and Isabella Magni to dissect a letter written by Michelangelo in 1545. But we’re less interested in what the letter says than in the way it was written. What does Michelangelo’s style of handwriting reveal about who he was as an artist and how he saw himself in Renaissance Italian society? 

    19 min
  • The Meaning of "Fa-La-La"

    Non-lexical vocables—your fa-la-la’s and hey-nonny-no’s—didn’t originate as nonsense filler-syllables for brightening up a song. In Renaissance England, they were used to advance a song’s satirical critique of society or as a lyrical surrogate for something that couldn’t be expressed explicitly. 

     

    Newberry research fellow Katie Bank tells us all about the history and legacy of non-lexical vocables.

     

    Host: Newberry Fellowships Manager Keelin Burke

    20 min
  • The Quest for Gutenberg Fragments

    Copies of the Gutenberg Bible weren’t always prized collectors’ items. During the Reformation, which emphasized the importance of vernacular translations of the Bible over the canonical Latin version, many Gutenberg Bibles collected dust or worse: disbound and scattered to the winds, their pages were used to bind other books or to wrap and protect archival documents. Eric White, Curator of Rare Books at the Princeton University Library (and author of "Editio Princeps: A History of the Gutenberg Bible"), tells us about his quest to find these fragments, two of which are right here at the Newberry. Eric speaks with Jill Gage, the Newberry’s curator of printing history.

    26 min
  • The War on Bugs

    Newberry conservators systematically intercept spiders, ants, book lice, and other bugs before they can reach the treasures in our collection. We speak with conservation staff about this important (and kind of gross) work, and then we join them as they patrol the deepest recesses of the library for pests. 

    25 min
  • To Meme or Not To Meme

    Book historian (and esteemed Twitter user) Sarah Werner discusses memes, reaction GIFs, and the promise and peril of being a library on social media.

    20 min
  • Mourning Glory
    “Not only does the wearing of black protect the mourner from unnecessary levity; but it reminds everyone else that they’ll eventually be in that position, too, and it stirs empathy.” Debra Mancoff, a scholar of art, culture, and fashion, walks us through the conventions and sartorial semiotics of mourning in Victorian England and America, and tells us how attitudes toward death and dying have changed over the years. --- Intro music: "Two Types of Awakenings" by Nheap
    36 min
  • The City Logical
    Daniel Burnham may have made Chicago beautiful. But Edward Brennan made it logical. The unsung hero of Chicago urban planning was a concerned citizen who obsessively brainstormed ideas to make the city easier to navigate and live in. His proposals, once adopted, became features of the city we take for granted today but can’t live without, like the standardized directional numbering system for addresses and the fact that Chicago no longer has 13 streets called Washington. In this episode, we speak with Bill Savage, a scholar of Chicago history, about why Brennan is so important, why Burnham is overrated, and how you can read the city like a text. --- Intro music: "Two Types of Awakenings" by Nheap
    32 min
  • The 1862 Int'l Exhibition Revisited
    The 1862 International Exhibition, held in London, is an oft-overlooked event within the pantheon of 19th-century world’s fairs—and for good reason. Occurring just 11 years after the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London, the 1862 rendition came off as derivative, and a cloud hung over it due to Prince Albert’s recent death, Queen Victoria’s prolonged period of mourning, and the American Civil War. Despite it all, the 1862 exhibition altered the world’s fair template in ways that would influence other such events held in the United States later in the century. In this episode, Ruth Slatter, scholar and co-creator of the Visit 1862 Project, resurrects the world’s fair visitor experience and discusses the legacy of the 1862 International Exhibition. She speaks with Elizabeth Cummings, Public Programs Manager at the Newberry. --- Intro music: "Two Types of Awakenings" by Nheap
    24 min
  • Don't Bring a Bow and Arrow to a Laser Gun Fight
    Educator, poet, and comic-book creator Lee Francis IV (Laguna Pueblo) discusses how comics can fill a gap in Indigenous-created literature, while at the same time serving as a vehicle for presenting Native stories and identities in modern, dynamic settings rather than the ahistorical past in which pop culture often portrays Native characters. Lee joins us over the phone from Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he is CEO and publisher at Native Realities Press and owner of Red Planet Books and Comics. He speaks with Will Hansen, Curator of Americana at the Newberry. --- Intro music: "Two Types of Awakenings" by Nheap
    21 min
  • African American Genealogy
    Genealogist Tony Burroughs breaks down the procedures for finding African American ancestors and discusses why a unique set of research tools is necessary for doing African American genealogy. According to Tony, the same institutional forces that marginalized black Americans in the past also buried traces of their lives in the historical records that genealogists count on to fill out their family trees. Navigating the legacies of slavery, segregation, and discrimination is part of the process of finding one's African American ancestors. Your host for this episode is Keelin Burke, Fellowships Manager at the Newberry. --- Intro music: "Two Types of Awakenings" by Nheap
    41 min

About Shelf Life

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Shelf Life is a podcast from the Newberry Library about the humanities and the humans behind them. Each episode features a new conversation with librarians, curators, and researchers about anything…