The Library Cafe

William Noel

2008-05-22T13:05:00.017-05:00

SEASON FINALE
May 27, 2008.

William Noel, Curator of Manuscripts and Rare Books at the Walters Art Museum, talks about the book he co-authored with Reviel Netz entitled: The Archimedes Codex: How a Medieval Prayer Book is Revealing the true Genius of Antiquity's Greatest Scientist, and his ten-year project to uncover one of the most important documents in the history of science, the Archimedes Palimpsest.

39:24 min.

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Kathleen Hart

2008-05-15T12:06:00.009-05:00

May 20, 2008.

Kathleen Hart, professor of French and Chair of the Department of French and Francophone Studies at Vassar College, talks about Flora Tristan, George Sand, Louise Michel, and her book: Revolution and Women's Autobiography in Nineteenth-century France, published by Rodopi.

51:09 min.

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Jennifer Phegley

2008-05-06T11:28:00.007-05:00

May 13, 2008.

Jennifer Phegley, literary historian and professor of English at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, discusses her book: Educating the Proper Woman Reader: Victorian Family Literary Magazines and the Cultural Health of the Nation, published by the Ohio State University Press.

43:35 min.

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Peter Drummey

2008-04-10T12:55:00.012-05:00

April 15, 2008.

Peter Drummey, Stephen T. Riley Librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society, talks about the Society, the keeping of historical archives and manuscripts in the age of the Internet, and the exhibit: My Dearest Friend, Letters of Abigail and John Adams from the Collections of the MHS, on view through April 30, 2008 in the Archives and Special Collections Library of the Frederick Ferris Thompson Memorial Library at Vassar College.

64 min.

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Alex Byrne

2008-04-06T17:01:00.013-05:00

April 8, 2008.

Alex Byrne, University Librarian at the University of Technology, Sydney, and 2005-2007 President of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), discusses intellectual freedom advocacy, libraries, internationalism, and his book: The Politics of Promoting Freedom of Information and Expression in International Librarianship, published by Scarecrow.

49:48 min.

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David Weinberger

2008-04-01T23:10:00.009-05:00

April 1, 2008.

David Weinberger, philosopher, author, commentator, and Fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for the Internet & Society discusses his latest book: Everything is Miscellaneous: the Power of the New Digital Disorder, published by Times Books.

49:44 min.

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K. David Harrison

2008-03-19T15:00:00.012-05:00

March 25, 2008.

K. David Harrison, professor of Linguistics at Swarthmore College and Director of Research for the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, discusses his book, When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge, published by Oxford University Press.

60:00 min.

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Nancy Bisaha

2008-03-01T23:12:00.017-05:00

March 4, 2008.

Nancy Bisaha, professor of history at Vassar College, talks about her book, Creating East and West: Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks, which "underscores the importance of this period for the evolution of concepts such as East and West, Europe and Asia, and suggests how these Renaissance views ... may still inform the modern discourse on Islam and the West." - RQ

50:10 min.

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Jamshed Bharucha

2008-02-19T09:17:00.017-05:00

February 26, 2008.

Biopsychologist and Tufts University Provost Jamshed Bharucha talks about exciting new research on the cognitive and neural basis of music perception and what it tells us about human thought, communication and development.

42:45 min.

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Joel Smith

2008-02-12T09:09:00.004-05:00

February 12, 2008.

Joel Smith, Curator of Photography at the Princeton University Art Museum, discusses his exhibition Saul Steinberg: Illuminations, on View at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar, November 2, 2007 through February 24, 2008.

38:44 min.

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Geoffrey C. Bowker

2008-02-05T16:01:00.002-05:00

February 5, 2008.

Geoffrey C. Bowker, Regis and Dianne McKenna Professor and Executive Director of the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Santa Clara University, discusses his book, Memory Practices in the Sciences, winner of the 2007 Ludwig Fleck Prize of the Society for Social Studies and Science, and named the "Best Information Book of 2006" by the American Society for Information Science & Technology, published by MIT.

53:35 min.
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Mark C. Amodio

2007-12-05T13:45:00.004-05:00

December 11, 2007.

Mark Amodio, Professor of English at Vassar College, talks about his book: Writing the Oral Tradition: Poetics and Literate Culture in Medieval England, published by the University of Notre Dame Press. Hailed as "a major revision of oral theory" and "destined to reshape critical thinking about medieval poetry in English," Writing the Oral Tradition was selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Book for 2005.

60:01 min.
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Peace in a Time of War

2007-11-24T23:07:00.002-05:00

November 27, 2007

A program of recordings from the Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries collection featuring music and poetry by Wolf Biermann, Hanns Eisler, Eric Bentley and Bertolt Brecht, as well as literature and statements read at a Read-in for Peace in Vietnam that took place at Town Hall in New York in 1966, featuring readings by Stanley Kauffman, Susan Sontag, Lenore Marshall, Arthur Miller, William Gibson, Jules Feiffer, and Walter Lowenfels.

59:47 min.
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James Karl Fischer

2007-11-20T08:53:00.001-05:00

November 20, 2007

Architect and architectural historian James Fischer, AIA, RIBA, talks about pathologies of professionalism and his exhibition: The Suspension of Disbelief: Advertising and Architectural Ethics, now on view in the Vassar College Art Library October 9-December 21, 2007.

60:20 min.

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Joshua Harmon

2007-11-06T22:57:00.000-05:00

November 6, 2007

Vassar author Joshua Harmon talks about his first novel, Quinnehtukqut, described as a "magical postmodern epic [that] ranges across time, threading fragments of oral history, diaries, and news accounts into parallel tales of mystery, wonder, and tragedy."

60:26 min.

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John Willinsky

2007-10-10T23:38:00.001-05:00

October 23, 2007

Public knowledge advocate John Willinsky discusses his book The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship, winner of the American Library Association's 2006 Blackwell Scholarship Award, published by MIT Press.

47:53 min.

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Michael V. Pisani

2007-10-02T12:54:00.001-05:00

October 2, 2007

Michael Pisani, music historian and professor of music at Vassar College, talks about his book Imagining Native America in Music, published by Yale University Press.

60:27 min.

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Joe Louis Walker

2007-09-23T23:48:00.000-05:00

September 25, 2007

Guest host Patricia Célérier talks with the famed blues artist Joe Louis Walker about his life and music.

49:56 min.

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Nicholas Adams

2007-09-13T14:00:00.000-05:00

SEASON OPENER:
September 18, 2007

Nicholas Adams, architectural historian and Professor of Art at Vassar College, discusses his landmark survey and history of the Twentieth Century's most prolific architectural collaborative: Skidmore, Owings and Merrill: SOM Since 1936.

57:33 min.

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Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert

2007-05-18T07:43:00.000-05:00

SEASON FINALE:
May 22 & 29, 2007

Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, Professor of Hispanic Studies at Vassar College, talks about the book she co-authored with Margarite Fernandez Olmos entitled: Creole Religions of the Caribbean: An Introduction from Vodou and Santería to Obeah and Espiritismo, in a two-part interview to be aired May 22nd and May 29th.

Listen: Part 1 (61:11 min.) Part 2 (54:50 min.)

Eve D'Ambra

2007-05-10T21:08:00.001-05:00

May 15, 2007

Eve D'Ambra, art historian and Professor of Art at Vassar College, talks about the subject of her new book, Roman Women, published this year by Cambridge University Press.

55:57 min.

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Buckminster Fuller on Education

2007-05-07T15:14:00.001-05:00

May 8, 2007

A program of recordings about libraries, reading, and education including music and poetry by George Abbe, Alasdair Clayre, Earl Robinson, Caetano Veloso, Calypso artist Walter Gavitt, and featuring a 1960's recorded interview (23 minutes) with R. Buckminster Fuller entitled, "The Educational Mind," from Folkways recordings in the Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries collections.

61:03 min.

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Henri Alleg

2007-04-19T11:49:00.000-05:00

April 24, 2007

Renowned Franco-Algerian intellectual and journalist Henri Alleg talks with Patricia-Pia Célérier about politics, state-sponsored torture, censorship, and the Algerian War of Independence, on the occasion of a new English translation of his regime-shaking book, La Question, published by Nebraska University Press. Written from his prison cell and smuggled out for publication in 1958, The Question is the book that opened the torture debate in France during the brutal period of France's "War Without a Name," and was the first book since the eighteenth century to be banned by the French government for political reasons.
57:25 min.

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Perry Willett

2007-04-05T19:24:00.000-05:00

April 17, 2007

Perry Willett, Head of the Digital Library Production Service of the University of Michigan Libraries, discusses the U of M's role in the Google Books Library Project and Google's endeavor to translate the book holdings of the world's major research libraries into digital form for universal access via Google Book Search.
28:52 min.

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Emily Sheketoff

2007-04-03T14:10:00.001-05:00

April 3, 2007

Emily Sheketoff, Associate Executive Director of the American Library Association and head of the Washington Office of the ALA, talks about the important public policy issue of Network Neutrality and the threat that AT&T, Verizon, and other corporate media giants pose to equal access to information on the Internet.

27:17 min.

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