Events

Abstract: Desert islands are the focus of intense geopolitical tensions in East Asia today, but they are also sites of nature conservation. In this global environmental history, Paul Kreitman shows how the politics of conservation have entangled with the politics of sovereignty since the emergence of the modern Japanese state in the mid-nineteenth century. Using case studies ranging from Hawai'i to the Bonin Islands to the Senkaku (Ch: Diaoyu) Isles to the South China Sea, he explores how bird islands on the distant margins of the Japanese archipelago and beyond transformed from sites of resource extraction to outposts of empire and from wartime battlegrounds to nature reserves. This study examines how interactions between birds, bird products, bureaucrats, speculators, sailors, soldiers, scientists and conservationists shaped ongoing claims to sovereignty over oceanic spaces. It considers what the history of desert islands shows us about imperial and post-imperial power, the web of political, economic and ecological connections between islands and oceans, and about the relationship between sovereignty, territory and environment in the modern world.

The Charles Babbage Institute is honored to once again present Aaron Marcus, a pioneer in computer graphics, and award-winning designer. For this lecture, Mr. Marcus reviews the function, form, and chronology of human-computer interfaces/user experiences over the past 60+ years as operating systems, windowing systems, computer/display platforms (mainframes, desktop, mobile, vehicle, etc.), user communities, professional methods, and social/cultural contexts evolved. He provides personal examples of his company’s involvement in design innovation since the 1980s.

This virtual event is free and open to the public.

Registration closes at 6 p.m. CST on Monday, January 27, 2025.

Register 

First Fridays: Matters of the Heart

Let’s talk about love! From love letters to break up letters, the course of true love never did run smooth. Join us for the 2024-2025 season of First Fridays as we share matters of the heart from collections across Archives and Special Collections. The February program features presentations from the Upper Midwest Jewish Archives and the Archives and Special Collections.

Register

Seeking NJB (Nice Jewish Boy)

Presented by Kate Dietrick, Archivist, Upper Midwest Jewish Archives

Making a match in the Jewish community has always been something worth singing about. From how to find that Nice Jewish Boy (or Girl) to professional matchmakers to debates over interfaith marriage, dating while Jewish is a spirited topic.

Unrequited Love: Looking at Love and Loss in the Archives

Presented by Rachel Weiher, Project Archivist, and Amy Gabbert, Project Assistant Archivist

Join us for a fascinating exploration of unrequited love through the University of Minnesota Archives and Special Collections. This presentation delves into a curated collection of poignant letters of rejection, heart-wrenching break-ups, and other personal correspondences that illuminate the complexities of unreciprocated affection. Discover the raw emotions and timeless themes captured in these historical documents, revealing the enduring impact of unfulfilled longing. This unique archive not only offers a window into the past but also prompts reflections on love’s universal struggles

About

First Fridays is a series of intellectually stimulating conversations from the Archives and Special Collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries. First Fridays is made possible by a generous gift from Governor Elmer L. Andersen and Mrs. Eleanor Andersen in honor of former University Librarian Dr. Edward B. Stanford.

Event details 

What:  First Fridays: Seeking NJB (Nice Jewish Boy) and Unrequited Love: Looking at Love and Loss in the Archives

When: Friday, Feb. 7, 2025 | Lunch at 11:30 a.m. | Presentations begin at noon 

Where: Elmer L. Andersen Library, room 120 and ONLINE | Parking and directions 

Notice of photography 

Photographs taken at the event may be used in University of Minnesota print and online publications, promotions, or shared with the Libraries community. If you prefer not to be photographed, please let the photographer know during the event! Thank you.

Abstract: Consider the toddler. Like kittens and puppies but unlike lobsters, fascists, and a host of other alien creatures, toddlers tend to induce positive affect from strangers and fierce devotion from familiars. This talk uses the attention and anxiety focused on kids and pets to open up a new history of science, capitalism, and the self in the modern United States. Some of the most popular methods by which Americans are trying to raise humans and non-humans today—from “clicker training” to attachment parenting—share a surprising origin: the radical behaviorism of B.F. Skinner. While Skinner’s approach is often dismissed for its failure, indeed refusal, to explain interiority or affect, his work undergirds much of the prolific (and profitable) advice literature we seek out to manage our most affectively potent relationships. This paper takes up that paradox by following the fading tracks of Skinnerian behaviorism from the dolphin tank and the psychiatric institution to the daycare and the dog park. In doing so, it offers a history of habit—both conscious and unconscious, internal and external, chosen and unchosen—as a means of linking our intimate interactions with loved ones to broader social and economic pressures of which we are often unaware. 

Abstract: Literature often casts soldiers and sailors as icons of fitness, yet few return from combat physically or mentally unscathed. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British literature is filled with impaired and disabled figures on the stage, in poetry, and in fiction. Taking account of ways in which European Enlightenment attitudes shaped conceptions of the body and human identity, this talk will trace representations of the British military through the lens of Critical Disability Studies. From Rochester to Austen, the myriad textual instantiations of deformity, illness, debility, and disability featured in eighteenth-century British literature shaped and reflected the experiences of disabled combatants in an era of global warfare. Marking the many military conflicts and the colonizing projects of Britain’s expanding empire in India, Africa, and the Americas, British writers marshaled the figure of the soldier again and again, using tropes of disability to interrogate British foreign and domestic policy, the Atlantic slave trade, class hierarchy, rural depopulation, and advancements in science, medicine, and industry. Viewing literary representations of the military from the perspective of disability, this talk will explore how images of British soldiers, sailors, and veterans shifted attitudes regarding health, technology, gender, race, patriotism, nationalism, and radicalism under the shadow of endless war and colonial exploitation.

First Fridays: Matters of the Heart

Let’s talk about love! From love letters to break up letters, the course of true love never did run smooth. Join us for the 2024-2025 season of First Fridays as we share matters of the heart from collections across Archives and Special Collections. The March program features presentations from the University of Minnesota Archives and the Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies.

Save the date! Event registration will open on Jan. 2.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart? A Brief History of Heart and Cardiovascular Research at the University of Minnesota

Presented by Erik Moore, University Archivist, University Archives
Heart disease became a leading cause of death in the 20th century. In response, researchers at the University of Minnesota contributed to combating the epidemic through physiological, surgical, and other methods..

An Underdog & A Good Friend: The Vivian Vance Memorial Card Collective and the Love of Queer Friendship

Presented by Aiden Bettine, Curator, Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies

About

First Fridays is a series of intellectually stimulating conversations from the Archives and Special Collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries. First Fridays is made possible by a generous gift from Governor Elmer L. Andersen and Mrs. Eleanor Andersen in honor of former University Librarian Dr. Edward B. Stanford.

Event details 

What:  First Fridays: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart? A Brief History of Heart and Cardiovascular Research at the University of Minnesota

When: Friday, March 7, 2025 | Lunch at 11:30 a.m. | Presentations begin at noon 

Where: Elmer L. Andersen Library, room 120 and ONLINE | Parking and directions 

Notice of photography 

Photographs taken at the event may be used in University of Minnesota print and online publications, promotions, or shared with the Libraries community. If you prefer not to be photographed, please let the photographer know during the event! Thank you.

First Fridays: Matters of the Heart

Let’s talk about love! From love letters to break up letters, the course of true love never did run smooth. Join us for the 2024-2025 season of First Fridays as we share matters of the heart from collections across Archives and Special Collections. The April program features presentations from the James Ford Bell Library and from Special Collections and Rare Books.

Save the date! Event registration will open on Feb. 3.

Heart-Shaped Worlds at the James Ford Bell Library

Presented by Anne Good, Assistant Curator, James Ford Bell Library
In the sixteenth century, as knowledge of the world grew and mapmakers developed new drafting methods, a handful of scholars experimented with an unusual way of seeing and describing the world. This peculiar, new cartographic description was the cordiform – or heart-shaped – map projection. In this presentation, we will examine some of the oldest maps in the splendid collection of James Ford Bell Library, considering their historical contexts, and asking: does love have anything to do with it?

A Fine Romance: A Celebration of Fine Press Books

Presented by Marguerite Ragnow, Curator, James Ford Bell Library; Interim Curator, Special Collections and Rare Books
Love abounds in the collection of Fine Press Books in Special Collections and Rare Books. These limited 20th-century editions emphasize typography and illustration. In the words of the romantic song by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, they are “lovely to look at, delightful to hold.” Join interim curator Marguerite Ragnow as she offers a glimpse of some of the volumes of love and romance that are part of this collection.

About

First Fridays is a series of intellectually stimulating conversations from the Archives and Special Collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries. First Fridays is made possible by a generous gift from Governor Elmer L. Andersen and Mrs. Eleanor Andersen in honor of former University Librarian Dr. Edward B. Stanford.

Event details 

What:  First Fridays: Heart-Shaped Worlds at the James Ford Bell Library and A Fine Romance: A Celebration of Fine Press Books

When: Friday, April 4, 2025 | Lunch at 11:30 a.m. | Presentations begin at noon 

Where: Elmer L. Andersen Library, room 120 and ONLINE | Parking and directions 

Notice of photography 

Photographs taken at the event may be used in University of Minnesota print and online publications, promotions, or shared with the Libraries community. If you prefer not to be photographed, please let the photographer know during the event! Thank you.

Abstract: In the late nineteenth century, naturalists anticipated the extinction of innumerable wild animals due to the global spread of Western civilization. Economic development, especially land-intensive practices like farming, logging, ranching, and urban sprawl, was destroying or degrading natural habitats worldwide. Yet development was an integral part of that quintessential Victorian virtue: progress. Victorian naturalists, then, viewed extinction as the inevitable, if regrettable, byproduct of humanity’s advance. The demise of species was a pity, many naturalists agreed, but the loss was a small price to pay to maintain the pace of progress. To mitigate the problem of the loss of scientific data through extinction, museum zoologists assumed the role of salvaging the remnants of these threatened species – while they could still be acquired – and preserving them as museum specimens for all time. The scientific rationale behind salvage zoology was obvious: certain animals were doomed to extinction by the unrelenting spread of Western civilization. Zoologists, therefore, were obligated to harvest their specimens and keep them in museum collections as a permanent record of disappearing nature. The practice of salvage zoology had its heyday in the 1890s, then eventually gave way to conservation in the early twentieth century, as more and more naturalists prioritized the saving of species over the taking of specimens.

First Fridays: Matters of the Heart

Let’s talk about love! From love letters to break up letters, the course of true love never did run smooth. Join us for the 2024-2025 season of First Fridays as we share matters of the heart from collections across Archives and Special Collections. The April program features presentations from the James Ford Bell Library and from Special Collections and Rare Books.

Save the date! Event registration will open on March 3.

Our High-Tech Love Affairs

Presented by Amanda Wick, Curator, Charles Babbage Institute Archives
High tech fascinates us. Its potential and limitations constantly inspiring humans to push further, do more, and dream bigger. From the evolution of online dating to the passion of the space race and patriotic fervor of the nuclear arms race, this presentation will examine ways in which computers fuel unexpected matters of the heart and soul.

Love and Belonging in Black Art and Politics

Presented by Davu Seru, Curator, Givens Collection of African American Literature and Life
There is Black Love in the archives. This presentation of materials from Givens Collection highlights how race leadership in the arts and politics have shaped a nearly 200-year romance with Black nationalism.

About

First Fridays is a series of intellectually stimulating conversations from the Archives and Special Collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries. First Fridays is made possible by a generous gift from Governor Elmer L. Andersen and Mrs. Eleanor Andersen in honor of former University Librarian Dr. Edward B. Stanford.

Event details 

What:  First Fridays: Our High-Tech Love Affairs & Love and Belonging in Black Art and Politics

When: Friday, May 2, 2025 | Lunch at 11:30 a.m. | Presentations begin at noon 

Where: Elmer L. Andersen Library, room 120 and ONLINE | Parking and directions 

Notice of photography 

Photographs taken at the event may be used in University of Minnesota print and online publications, promotions, or shared with the Libraries community. If you prefer not to be photographed, please let the photographer know during the event! Thank you.