International & Area Studies

Leonardo Padura: the luminary Cuban writer at UC Berkeley!

Posted on October 22, 2018October 22, 2018 by Liladhar

Padura at UNAM about the barrio speaking about where he grew up and about his life.

For his books in our catalog, please see below:

Maps of the Southern Border Pop-Up Exhibit

Posted on October 19, 2018 by cpotts

Maps of the Southern Border

Please join us next Friday for a public pop-up exhibit featuring maps of the US/Mexico border:

Maps of the Southern Border

Friday, October 26 | 1 – 3 PM

Earth Sciences & Map Library

50 McCone Hall

Presented in conjunction with Geography 159AC: The Southern Border.

[Database Trial] Cuban Culture and Cultural Relations, 1959-, Part 2: Writers

Posted on October 17, 2018October 17, 2018 by Liladhar

The UC Berkeley Library had purchased the part 1 of Cuban Culture and Cultural Relations from Brill in 2017. Now, we are having a trial of part 2 of the same database- Cuban Culture and Cultural Relations, 1959 that deals with the writers. The trial will go through November 15th, 2018.

The trial can be accessed here: https://primarysources.brillonline.com/browse/cuban-culture-and-cultural-relations-part-2

More than 63,800 digital files

Records on 1,046 writers and artists
Full-text search functionality
Including MARC21 catalog records

Background and Resource Description

Founded in Havana in 1959, only a few months after the Revolution, Casa de las Américas quickly developed into one of the most prestigious cultural centers in Latin America and the Caribbean. To a large extent its success and survival are the result of its capacity to establish a remarkable intellectual network around a common vision. When during the early years of the Revolution many foreign embassies closed their doors, Casa de las Américas offered a space for progressive minds to exchange information and discuss new ideas. Here, writers and artists from Latin America, the Caribbean and other parts of the world met and gave lectures, organized concerts and exhibitions, staged theater shows, conducted research, and found a place to publish their writings. The record of their activities, which continue to this day, are preserved in Casa de las Américas’ archive, presented here in digital format for the first time.

The Vertical Archive

Casa de las Américas is home to a large library specializing in Latin American and Caribbean humanities and social sciences. Throughout its almost six decades of existence, this library has amassed and preserved an unparalleled archival collection known as “the Vertical Archive.” Organized in five parts, the present part, Writers, offers a unique insight into the activities of the more than a thousand writers and artists who visited La Casa. The archive consists of unpublished manuscripts, letters as well as authorial notes and redactions.

Writers

Famous writers from the twentieth century form the core of the collection. Here one encounters such luminaries as Jorge Amado, Mario Benedetti, Roberto Bolaño, María Luisa Bombal, Jorge Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, Aimé Césaire, Julio Cortázar, Roque Dalton and Gabriel García Márquez, to name but a few. Some of the leading writers from the nineteenth century are also represented, including José Martí and the pioneer Brazilian novelist Machado de Assis. These world-renowned figures are accompanied by hundreds of their arguably less illustrious peers, who are nevertheless equally essential to illustrate the cultural climate and history of the era.

Artists

In addition to writers, the archive includes files on painters, such as Roberto Matta and David Alfaro Siqueiros, filmmakers, such as Santiago Álvarez and Glauber Rocha, and musicians, such as Chilean singer-songwriter and political activist Víctor Jara.

Files means simply documentation: it could be an article from a local newspaper or magazine or a cable. The Casa de las Américas collected all sorts of documents over the past 60 years. Sometimes material they produced themselves, but also a lot of press clippings that were sent to them by other institutions across Latin America and the Caribbean. They did this partly to keep the Casa informed about how the Revolution and its culture was perceived abroad. This was especially important because a host of countries cut diplomatic ties with Cuba, turning the Casa de las Américas effectively in some sort of embassy.

Escritura, Trama Y Deseo with Diamela Eltit

Posted on October 11, 2018October 12, 2018 by Liladhar

Escritura, Trama Y Deseo (Writing, Plot And Desire)
Diamela Eltit in conversation with Natalia Brizuela and Francine Masiello
Thursday, October 11, 2018
5:30-7:30pm
Geballe Room, Townsend Center for the Humanities

Please note: this event will be held in Spanish. Simultaneous English translation will be provided for those who need it.

Co-sponsored by the Arts Research Center and the University of California Humanities Research Institute, and the Center for Latin American Studies

Una aproximación a las vueltas y revueltas del imaginario literario y su conexión con el universo social. (An approach to the revolutions and revolts of the literary imaginary and its connection with the social universe.)

Diamela Eltit is one of Latin America’s most daring writers and is highly regarded for her avant-garde initiatives in the world of letters. Eltit began her engagement with literature in her native Chile during the years of the Pinochet dictatorship when she participated in the collective CADA, staging art actions against the dictatorship, and published her first novels, Lumpérica (1983) and Por la patria (1986), to universal acclaim. Since then she has published, among others, El Cuarto Mundo (1988), El padre mío (1989), Vaca sagrada (1991), Los vigilantes (1994), Los trabajadores de la muerte (1998), Mano de obra (2002), Jamás el fuego nunca (2007), and Impuesto a la carne (2010). She has been honored repeatedly by international organizations, among them the Modern Language Association in the United States and Casa de las Americas in Havana, and has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Fondo Nacional de Investigaciones, the Social Science Research Council, CONICYT, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Eltit has also held positions as writer-in-residence at Brown University, Washington University in St. Louis, Columbia University, UC/Berkeley the University of Virginia, Stanford University, and Johns Hopkins University. She is currently the Distinguished Global Professor of Creative Writing in Spanish at NYU.

ARC’s 2018-19 program is a collaboration between ARC Interim Director Natalia Brizuela (Film & Media and Spanish & Portuguese), Tarek Elhaik (Anthropology, UC Davis), Anneka Lenssen (History of Art), Leigh Raiford (African American Studies), and Poulomi Saha (English), supported by a generous grant from The University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI).

The year’s investigations on art and critique from/in the Global South will take off with a Workshop in Mexico City (September 6-8), co-convened by Natalia Brizuela and Elena Tzelepis (University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece), organized through the International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs (ICCTP) with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Mexico City workshop will take place at the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC) at the UNAM. More details on the Mexico City workshop can be found here.

Thérèse Bonney: Art Collector, Photojournalist, Francophile, Cheese Lover

Posted on October 3, 2018October 10, 2018 by Marjorie Bryer

Thérèse Bonney aboard the S.S. Siboney, en route to Portugal, 1941. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 3, NNEG box 49, item 19

Pioneering war correspondent and Cal grad Mabel Thérèse Bonney (1894-1978) was decorated with the Croix de Guerre and the Legion d’Honneur by the French government, and the Order of the White Rose of Finland for her work during World War II. Her photographs were exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Library of Congress, and Carnegie Hall during her lifetime. Her work on children displaced by war spurred the United Nations to create their international children’s emergency fund, UNICEF, in 1946, and inspired the Academy Award-winning film The Search in 1948. Yet in the canon of female war photographers that includes contemporaries such as Lee Miller, Margaret Bourke-White, and Toni Frissell, Bonney rarely receives mention. Bonney was a renaissance woman whose life deserves further study, and her collections at the Bancroft Library are ripe for discovery. Manuscript Archivist Marjorie Bryer has processed The Thérèse Bonney papers, and Pictorial Archivist Sara Ferguson has digitized over 2,500 previously inaccessible nitrate negatives from the Thérèse Bonney Photograph Collection.

ART CONNOISSEUR

While living in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, Bonney modeled for fashion designers like Sonia Delaunay and Madeleine Vionnet, and became friends with many of the most famous artists and writers of her day, including Raoul Dufy, Gertrude Stein, and George Bernard Shaw. In 1924 Bonney founded an international photo service that licensed images acquired in France for publication in the U.S. She was often dissatisfied with the images she distributed, and this inspired her to take up photography herself. Bonney wrote about, and took photographs of, many of the artists and writers in her life throughout the twenties, thirties, and forties.

Fernand Leger with his painting Three Women. — Fernand Leger with his painting Three Women, 1926. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 16. Leger, Fernand–POR 15

Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson looking at a musical score. — Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson looking at a musical score circa 1945. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 16. Stein, Gertrude–POR 14

Portrait of Joan Miro with three paintings in his Paris studio. Circa 1930. — Portrait of Joan Miro with three paintings in his Paris studio circa 1930. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 16. Miro, Joan–POR 03

PHOTOJOURNALISM AND WAR RELIEF EFFORTS

Bonney photographed throughout Europe during World War II, focusing on the effects of war on the civilian population. Her photographs of children were particularly moving and resulted in her most famous work, the exhibit and book, Europe’s Children. Bonney was actively involved with relief efforts after the war, particularly in the Alsace region of France. She also founded a number of organizations dedicated to promoting friendship between citizens of France and the United States, and improving Franco-American political relations. One effort, the Chain d’Amite, encouraged French families to open their homes to American G.I.s; another, Project Patriotism, inspired airmen who were shot down in France to help the families that had rescued them. Project Patriotism eventually spread to other European countries, including the Netherlands. Marjorie’s father-in-law, Peter, was a teenager when Germany invaded the Netherlands during the war. He was sent to live with relatives in the Dutch countryside so he wouldn’t be conscripted. One of Peter’s most moving stories was about the American pilot his family hid when his plane crashed on the family farm. Bonney’s papers include many poignant letters from U.S. soldiers and, while processing the collection, Marjorie wondered what this airman from Brooklyn might have written about his experiences with his Dutch “family.”

Oropesa, Spain circa 1941. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 3, NNEG box 50, item 226

Children at the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) Children's Center, Aglasterhausen, Germany. — United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) Children’s Center, Aglasterhausen, Germany circa 1945. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 6, NNEG box 92, item 6

The Croix Rouge, France circa 1941. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 3, NNEG box 56, item 1008

Badajoz, Spain circa 1941. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 3, NNEG box 50, item 168

Bonney gives a young girl a doll during relief efforts in Ammerschwihr, France. — Bonney assisting in relief efforts in Ammerschwihr, France circa 1945. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 6, NNEG box 91, item 9727

Children at Easter dinner. — Children at Easter dinner circa 1945. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 6, NNEG box 91, item 1212

LOVER OF CHEESE

Bonney’s many interests included food and cooking. She and her sister, Louise, wrote a guide to Paris restaurants and a cookbook, French cooking for American kitchens. Her papers include her research on cheese, which she referred to as “Project Fromage.” Series 7 of Bonney’s papers include meticulous notes on various cheeses from France and the Netherlands, “technical” correspondence about cheese, and materials related to tyrosemiophilia — the hobby of collecting cheese labels.

Wooden box containing some of Bonney's notecards on cheese. — Wooden box containing some of Bonney’s notecards on cheese. BANC MSS 83/111 z, Series 7, Carton 14

Cheese files in the manuscript collection. The blue folder contains “cheese correspondence.” BANC MSS 83/111 z, Series 7, Carton 14, Folder 5

Bonney was a tyrosemiophiliac, a collector of cheese labels. BANC MSS 83/111 z, Series 7, Carton 14, folders 15-16

Gathering milk for cheese making. Saint-Clément, France circa 1941. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 3, NNEG box 58, item 1213

French cheese circa 1942. — Cheese. France, circa 1942. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 3, NNEG box 55, item 913

French cheesemaker circa 1942. — A cheesemaker with her cheese. France, circa 1942. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 3, NNEG box 55, item 911

EVERYDAY PEOPLE AND LIFE DURING WARTIME

Bonney documented daily life during wartime across Europe. She recorded entire communities — their families, customs, and industries, their artists and politicians, their schools, and their churches. Her papers and photographs show not only the horrors of war but the hope and perseverance of those who lived through it.

Escoutoux, France circa 1942. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 3, NNEG box 56, item 952

Women working at Anchois Desclaux, an anchovy cannery in Collioure, France. — Sewing nets at Anchois Desclaux, an anchovy cannery in Collioure, France circa 1945. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 6, NNEG box 95, item 77

Leica factory, Germany circa 1945. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 6, NNEG box 93, item 32

Barrel maker in Cognac, France circa 1945. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 6, NNEG box 93, item 127

Alsatian girls in traditional dresses. Ammerschwihr, France. — Alsatian girls in traditional dresses. Ammerschwihr, Alsace. France circa 1945. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 6, NNEG box 87, item 648

Casino Estoril, Portugal circa 1942. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 3, NNEG box 49, item 50

Flower market Lisbon, Portugal circa 1942. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 3, NNEG box 49, item 36

Grape harvest in Ammerschwihr, France. — Grape harvest in Ammerschwihr, Alsace. France circa 1945. BANC PIC 1982.111 series 6, NNEG box 97, item 42

NOW AVAILABLE AT THE BANCROFT LIBRARY!

Newly digitized portions of the pictorial collection include Series 6: France, Germany 1944-1946. This series includes photographs of concentration camps Vaihingen, Buchenwald, and Dachau; Displaced Person camps; Neuschwanstein Castle; and Hermann Göring’s Collection of art looted by the Nazi’s. It also includes many images of the heavily bombarded town of Ammerschwihr in Alsace, France and war relief efforts there. Future digitization efforts will focus on Series 3, Carnegie Corporation Trip: Portugal, Spain, France 1941-1942. This series consists of images taken while on a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to document the effects of war on civilian populations. It includes images of military personnel, civilian industries, and Red Cross operations. Famous personalities pictured in this series include Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, Georges Roualt, Gertrude Stein, Philippe Petain, Raoul Dufy, and Aristide Maillol.

Bonney’s papers help contextualize her photographs. They include correspondence; personal materials; her writings (autobiographical and articles about others); and her files on World War II, Franco-American relations, art, fashion, photography, and cheese.

Both collections are open for research:

Finding Aid to the Thérèse Bonney Photograph Collection, circa 1850-circa 1955 (bulk 1930-1945)

Finding Aid to the Thérèse Bonney Papers

— Marjorie Bryer and Sara Ferguson

New Portal for Digital Collections of UC Berkeley’s Japanese Special Collections

Posted on September 24, 2018September 25, 2018 by cpotts

Tsuchiya, Ayako 土屋斐子 b. 1759 . Izumi nikki 和泉日記 [Diary in Izumi Province].
Hand-written manuscript, after 1809. From Japanese Manuscripts Collection.

Since 2006, the Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan University (Kyoto, Japan) and the C. V. Starr East Asian Library have been engaged in collaboration to digitize parts of the Library’s Japanese special collections. Today we are pleased to introduce a portal website for these digital collections, which provides free access to digital surrogates of the following UC Berkeley’s rare and historical sources related to Japan for research, teaching, and exploration. In addition, the portal also provides access to digital images provided by other research institutions (see Berkeley Joint Project, Rare Book Database, which includes over 90,000 titles of Japanese rare books).

Old and Rare Books 古典籍: A small selection from the Library’s Edo printed books and manuscripts collections, mostly from the Mitsui collection acquired in 1950. The collection includes the links to digital images of 760 titles in the Database of Pre-Modern Japanese Works provided by the National Institute’s Japanese Literature.

Copperplate Prints 銅版画: Consists of ca. 2,400 individual prints produced in Japan between 1855 and 1920, distributed in various formats. The collection originally owned by Mitsui Takakata (1867-1945).

Sugoroku Sheets 双六: Consists of ca. 150 sugoroku sheets produced in Japan in the Edo through the Taisho periods. The collection originally owned by Mitsui Takakata (1867-1945).

Fine Art Auction Catalogs 美術品入札目録: A small selection from the Library’s art auction catalog collection printed during the Meiji through the Showa periods, mostly from the Mitsui collection.

To browse all the digital surrogates, click “search” or “検索” button in any of the above mentioned databases. New materials are added periodically.

For any questions, contact Toshie Marra at tmarra@library.berkeley.edu.

Trial: Caribbean Literature (Digital Collection)

Posted on September 21, 2018 by Liladhar

The Library has a trial to the Caribbean Literature digital collection from Alexander Street Press. The trial will run through October 31st, 2018. If the collection is of interest to you, the Library wants to hear from you! Please send your comments and feedback to sreardon@berkeley.edu.

What You’ll Find:

Full-text, digitalized poetry, and fiction produced in the Caribbean region, including Barbados, Guyana, Belize, Cuba, Suriname, French Guiana, Haiti, and Jamaica, during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Interviews, photographs, unpublished manuscripts, and archival materials from archives, rare book libraries, local publishing houses, and authors.
Texts in English, Spanish, French, Dutch and local languages and dialects, including Papiamento, French Creole, Jamaican Creole, Belizean Kriol, Singlish, and Sranam Tongo. Dictionaries and major reference materials are also available.
Authors such as Kwane Dawes (Ghana-Jamaica), George Lamming (Barbados), V. S. Naipaul (Trinidad), Ismith Khan (Trinidad), Jan Carew (Guyana), Alejo Carpentier (Cuba), Guillermo Cabrera Infante (Cuba), Roger Mais (Jamaica), Derek Walcott (St. Lucia), Edgar Mittelholzer (Guyana), Leon Gontran Damas (French Guiana), René Depestre (Haiti), Edgar Cairo (Suriname), Dionne Brand (Trinidad), Jean Rhys (Dominica), Denis Henriquez (Aruba), E. Kamau Brathwaite (Barbados), and Hugo Pos (Suriname).

The UC Berkeley Library also has temporary trials until October 31, 2018, for the following digital collections from Alexander Street:

New Instagram feed for Romance Language Collections

Posted on September 13, 2018September 13, 2018 by cpotts

The new Romance Language Collections Instagram feed brings forth little known and new resources and services in the UC Berkeley Library. Once you start following you’ll instantly receive early notices of new books, e-resources, exhibits, readings and more through your smartphone.

The news from CRL

Posted on September 13, 2018September 13, 2018 by Liladhar

As the member of the CRL, at UC Berkeley Library, we often use the resources that are loanable through the ILL or the digital resources that are available to us through CRL. I am glad to announce that we now have access to the following two important digital resources. One can authenticate using the VPN or EZ proxy to access these from an off-campus location.

I am pleased to report that the CRL has released of a new digital collection, the Mexican Intelligence Digital Archives (MIDAS). The collection will be hosted in cooperation with Northwestern University, El Colegio de México, and Artículo 19. MIDAS is an open-access online database of historical documents drawn from Mexican intelligence agencies. And the second is that of the digital version of the El Libertador: órgano del Frente Popular Libertador from Guatemala.

One can access the Mexican Intelligence Digital Archives (MIDAS) by clicking on the icon below provided one has authenticated using the UC Berkeley’s Proxy or VPN if accessing from a off-campus location.

Graphic Novels from Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain

Posted on August 6, 2018August 7, 2018 by cpotts

Jacques Prévert n'est pas un poète — *Jacques Prévert n’est pas un poète by Bourhis Cailleaux. Marcinelle : Dupuis, 2017.*

Here’s a fairly complete list of most of the graphic novels acquired by the Library in the romance languages from southern Europe over the past two years. Some are critical or reference works, and a few English translations have been included as well.