Exhibit: October 5 (Thursday) - December 15 (Friday) at Schaffer Library, Lally Reading Room, Union College. "Reformation, Restoration, and Romeyn: Faith and the Founding of Union College".
* Exhibit opening reception (October 5th, 12:50-1:50 p.m.) includes 1:00 p.m. recital on the pedal harpsichord by Stefan Kiebling.
In 1517, Martin Luther, a scholar and theologian at Wittenberg University in Germany, posted his “Ninety-five Theses,” essentially challenging some of the practices of the Catholic Church and paving the way for the Protestant Reformation. The ripple effect of that act of rebellion is reflected in notable objects from the Special Collections and Archives at Union College. Indeed, the Reformation in many ways influenced the creation of Union College in 1795.
John S. Apperson Jr.
(1878-1963)
A Virginia native and college dropout, John “Appy” Apperson relocated to Schenectady in 1899, eventually landing a job as an electrical engineer at General Electric, where he worked for 47 years.
Paul A. Schaefer
(1908-1996)
Grassroots Activism and the American Wilderness: Pioneers in the 20th Century Adirondack Park Conservation Movement” highlights the remarkable careers of John Apperson and Paul Schaefer, two citizen activists who were dedicated to preserving the Adirondacks and New York’s Forest Preserve. This
exhibit focuses on their early forays into political activism. Indefatigable, determined, and politically astute, Apperson and Schaefer prompted a national dialogue around preserving wilderness for future generations. They are now remembered as giants of the conservation movement.
Recommended Reading:
Anthologies and Collected Essays:
Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, Ytasha Womack
Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness, Reynaldo Anderson & Charles E. Jones, [eds.]
Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, Sheree R. Thomas, [ed.]
So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy, Nalo Hopkinson & Uppinder Mehan, [eds.]
Afrofuture Females, Marleen S. Barr, [ed.];
Afrofuturism: A Special Issue of Social Text, Alondra Nelson, [ed.]
The Black Imagination: Science Fiction, Futurism, and the Speculative, Sandra Jackson & Julie E. Moddy-Freeman, [eds.]
Authors:
Steven Barnes, Octavia Butler, Samuel Delany, Tananarive Due, Kodwo Eshun, Jewelle Gomez, Andrea Hairston, Nalo Hopkinson, Walter Mosley, Nnedi Okorafor, Rasheedah Phillips, Charles R. Saunders
Nisi Shawl, Alexander Weheliye, And, many more...
Union College President Eliphalet Nott demonstrated his characteristic progressive nature when he purchased a complete set of the four-volume, double-elephant-folio, The Birds of America, from Audubon in the summer of 1844. The artist was visiting the campus to tour fellow naturalist and Union professor, Captian Issac Jackson's garden.
In his seminal 1994 essay, Black to the Future, Mark Dery coined the term "Afrofuturism." In interviews with a triad of African American writers, Dery posited that mainstream speculative fiction failed to include people of color in its narratives. Working from an overlooked fact that a body of speculative works created by diasporic artists has existed for years, we could call the stories that address African American cultural themes, replete with ubiquitous technology, in a science fiction setting, Afrofuturism. Afrofuturism could thus be seen as giving a voice to the people whose past had once been told for them or who historically had been excluded from the mainstream SF future.
A genre dominated by the white male voice, early Science Fiction (SF) focused on alien encounters and "future-war stories" as a metaphor for The Cold War, rapidly advancing technology, and post-WWII social upheaval. Socially progressive stories at the time often employed "alien other" tropes to depict marginalized groups in an attempt to confront race and racism in contemporary society. More conservative SF used the trope to caution against the perceived danger posed by immigrants and racial minorities. "Most race-related SF stories, such as William D. Hay's Three Hundred Years Hence, were racist and focused on black/white relations mainly, with an occasional nod to anti-Semitism and equally bigoted "yellow peril" themes."
Imagine a future in which the diverse fabric of humanity, with its multicolored threads, is shaped to create tightly woven tales of heroic galactic adventures and tragic post-apocalyptic dystopias. It can be found in Afrofuturism. With this description “speculative fiction that treats African-American themes and addresses African-American concerns in the context of twentieth century technoculture –and, more generally, African-American signification that appropriates images of technology and a prosthetically enhanced future,” Mark Dery defined what would eventually become a burgeoning field of study and a social movement of African Diasporic artists, scholars, and activists, who set out to challenge the representation of black bodies by non-black writers, to explore blackness by dismantling prescriptive notions of black identity, and to project black narratives into a future space, a Black Space.
Display presented in conjunction with LGBT: A Union Perspective, Wikoff Student Gallery, Nott Memorial. This exhibit features print, audio, video, and online resources related to lesbian, gay, transgender, and bisexual issues, on the Union College campus and beyond. It includes materials from the Schaffer Library general collections and archives, and addresses the history of LGBT life at Union, as well as LGBT perspectives in art, music, film, and fiction. Government documents, college news, case studies, and personal accounts enhance this exploration of LGBT culture.
"It is a bold thing for a human being who lives on the earth for just a few score years at the most to presume upon the Eternal and covet perpetuity for any of his undertakings." - Howard Zahniser
According to The Encyclopedia of Union College History, Union College’s first vegetable garden may have been that of Professor Thomas McAuley (1805-1822). While at Union, McAuley lived at the north end of North College in what is now Bronner House, and the later, undated photograph seen here shows a view of where the garden may have originally stood. Isaac Jackson (Professor, 1831-1877) moved the plot in the early 1830s to make space for his flower and shrub garden, though his personal diaries provide evidence of continued vegetable plantings. Also shown here are pictures of a greenhouse that was once located in the North Colonnade courtyard, sheep grazing on “West Beach,” and “Cap’n Jackson” with his dog and horse, Cosine. Today’s vegetable garden, the Octopus’s Garden organic plot, is maintained by students, faculty and staff. Produce is donated to local soup kitchens, and is also used by Dining Services (the project’s sponsor) in the organic and local food eateries on campus, Ozone Café and Ozone Marketplace.
This exhibit features rare editions from the Schaffer Library collections of two centuries of literary works from England, Scotland, Ireland and the United States, including Union’s first editions of “Pride and Prejudice” and Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.”
This exhibit features works hand selected by Schaffer's previous head of the Special Collections department, Ellen Fladger, who retired in January of 2014.