New Digital Exhibit

Controlling Heredity: The American Eugenics Crusade, 1870-1940 has recently been mounted as a permanent exhibit on the website of the Special Collections and Rare Books department.  This virtual exhibit explores the intersections between ethics and the pseudo-science of eugenics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was originally mounted as part of Ethics and the Brain, the seventh annual symposium sponsored by the Life Sciences and Society Program at the University of Missouri in March 2011.

home Resources and Services Controlling Heredity: The American Eugenics Crusade, 1870-1940

Controlling Heredity: The American Eugenics Crusade, 1870-1940

Controlling Heredity: The American Eugenics Crusade, 1870-1940 has recently been mounted as a permanent exhibit on the website of the Special Collections and Rare Books department.  This virtual exhibit explores the intersections between ethics and the pseudo-science of eugenics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was originally mounted as part of Ethics and the Brain, the seventh annual symposium sponsored by the Life Sciences and Society Program at the University of Missouri in March 2011.

home Resources and Services Congratulations to the Class of 2012!

Congratulations to the Class of 2012!

After you graduate, the MU Libraries will still be here to serve you. To find out more about the resources available to alumni, visit Library Resources for Alumni.

All of us at the MU Libraries, wish you the very best in your future endeavors!

home Resources and Services Choose Privacy Week, May 1-7

Choose Privacy Week, May 1-7

Choose Privacy Week will take place May 1-7, 2011 and is an ongoing program of the American Library Association.

Choose Privacy Week is an initiative that invites library users into a national conversation about privacy rights in a digital age. The campaign gives libraries the tools they need to educate and engage users, and gives citizens the resources to think critically and make more informed choices about their privacy.

You can find out more information at http://www.privacyrevolution.org/index.php/privacy_week/.

At Ellis Library, we will have several posters and an exhibit on display to educate our users about privacy.

 

home Resources and Services Rescuing digital content: Notes from the Newspaper Archive Summit

Rescuing digital content: Notes from the Newspaper Archive Summit


On April 10-12 scholars, journalists, newspaper publishers, librarians, digital archivists and digital newspaper vendors gathered at RJI for for “The Newspaper Archive Summit: Rescuing orphaned and digital content.”

Read more at the Reynolds Journalism Institute blog: Rescuing digital content: Notes from the Newspaper Archive Summit

home Resources and Services Follow MU Libraries on Twitter

Follow MU Libraries on Twitter

home Resources and Services Paper Presentations From the 1st Annual MU Libraries Undergraduate Research Paper Contest

Paper Presentations From the 1st Annual MU Libraries Undergraduate Research Paper Contest

Tuesday, 26 April, 2011
4:00-5:00pm
Ellis Library Colonnade


1st Place:

Alexandrina Dimitrova

Svatbarska muzika and Chalga: The Fusion of Music Genres that Contributes to a Social Change

Written for English 1000

Teacher: John Nieves

 

2nd Place:

David Lamble

The Patriarchal Gentleman: American Gender Roles of Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century Women Through the Mind of Thomas Jefferson

Written for History 4972.

Teacher:  Dr. Wilma King

 

home Resources and Services MU Libraries Faculty Lecture Series Presents Dr. Betty Winfield

MU Libraries Faculty Lecture Series Presents Dr. Betty Winfield

“Send me a paper, I do not know what is going on:” Civil War Soldiers’ Media Dependency
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
2-3 p.m.
Ellis Library, Colonnade

When the Civil War distanced combatants from familiar surroundings and put them in a bloody war, their letters home often referred to the different ways they depended on newspapers and magazines. Through their reliance on the mass media of their day, Civil war soldiers demonstrated different kinds of mass media dependency during war. This lecture will include letters from Missourians and soldiers stationed in  Missouri from 1861-1865.

This event is sponsored by the MU Libraries’ Faculty Lecture Series.

home Resources and Services NIH Public Access Policy Turns Three

NIH Public Access Policy Turns Three

April 7th, 2011, marks the 3rd anniversary of the NIH Public Access Policy. See our newly updated guide at: http://guides.library.muhealth.org/nihpublicaccess.

Did you know that PubMed Central now contains more than 2 million full text articles reporting on the latest NIH-funded research? Did you know that nearly a *half a million* individuals access these articles each day?

Questions about the NIH Public Access Policy? Contact Kate Anderson.

home Resources and Services, Special Collections and Archives April Fools! The Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus.

April Fools! The Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus.

This April Fool’s Day we thought we’d share several editions of Moriae Encomium by Desiderius Erasmus, which, in addition to being a definitive resource on fools and foolishness, has a great Latin pun for a title.

Holbein frontispieceFrontispiece portrait of Erasmus, engraving after Hans Holbein (London, 1709).

Erasmus, More, and Holbein portrait frontispieceFrontispiece and engraved title page featuring Erasmus, More, Holbein, and Folly as a goddess (Leiden, 1715).

Holbein illustrationsThe folly of scholarship, engravings after Hans Holbein (Paris, 1715).

Eisen frontispieceFrontispiece illustration of Folly as a goddess, illustration after Charles Eisen (Paris, 1757).

Eisen illustrationThe folly of drunkenness, engraving after Charles Eisen (Paris, 1757).

Chodowiecki illustrationsVarious types of folly, engravings after Daniel Chodowiecki (Berlin, 1781).

Ward illustrationThe folly of pedagogues, mezzotint by Lynd Ward (New York, 1953).

Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) isn’t the figure one would suppose to be an authority on foolishness.  Ordained as a priest and consecrated as a monk, Erasmus spent his life as a classical scholar, humanist, and theologian.  Although he is best known for theological work, he was also a prolific and engaging author whose works ranged from popular handbooks on children’s table manners to bitter mockeries of Church and state officials.

The Praise of…  More?

Around 1498, Erasmus moved to England, where he met Sir Thomas More, the author of Utopia.  The two men worked together on a translation of the works of Lucian and became close friends. Erasmus moved to Italy to pursue a doctorate in divinity in 1500, but he and More continued to write to each other regularly.

In 1509, Erasmus returned to England and wrote Moriae Encomium during his journey, dedicating it to More.  The title of the work makes an affectionate joke of More’s last name – Moriae Encomium can be translated as either The Praise of Folly or The Praise of More.  Erasmus continued the wordplay throughout the text, parodying the elaborate literary style both he and More would have encountered in their classical studies.

Erasmus considered Moriae Encomium a minor work and was surprised and dismayed at its popularity upon its first publication in 1511.  The work went through multiple editions and translations in his lifetime, and it touched off an entirely new literary genre – the spoof encomium, which became popular among learned Elizabethans.

Picturing Folly

Moriae Encomium also gave rise to an artistic tradition.  The artist Hans Holbein, a mutual friend of Erasmus and More, decorated Erasmus’ own copy of the book with marginal drawings.  Holbein’s humorous doodles were adapted as engravings in a later edition, and they were copied for the next two hundred years.  They have served as an inspiration – or a point of departure – for the generations of artists who have illustrated this text.

The Division of Special Collections, Archives, and Rare Books has editions of Moriae Encomium ranging from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries, and many are illustrated.  In addition to Holbein, illustrators include Charles Eisen, Daniel Chodowiecki, and Lynd Ward.  The images above are just a sampling from our collection.  Enjoy!

Sources

  1. L’Eloge de la Folie composé en forme de declamation… , illustrated with engravings after the designs of Hans Holbein (Leiden, P. vander Aa, 1715).  RARE PA8514 .F8 1715
  2. L’Eloge de la Folie, illustrated by Charles Eisen (Paris, n.p., 1757).  RARE PA8514 .F8 1757
  3. Moriae Encomium: or, A Panegyrick Upon Folly, illustrated with engravings after the designs of Hans Holbein (London, Printed, and sold by J. Woodward, in Threadneedle street, 1709).  RARE PA8514.E5 1709
  4. L’Eloge de la Folie, illustrated by Charles Eisen (Paris, n.p., 1757).  RARE PA8514 .F8 1757
  5. Moriae Encomium: or, The Praise of Folly, illustrated by Lynd Ward (New York: Limited Editions Club, 1943).  RARE PA8514 .E5 1943
  6. L’Eloge de la Folie composé en forme de declamation… , illustrated with engravings after the designs of Hans Holbein (Leiden, P. vander Aa, 1715).  RARE PA8514 .F8 1715
  7. Das Lob der Narrheit aus dem Lateinischen, illustrated by Daniel Chodowiecki (Berlin: G.J. Decker, 1781).  RARE PA8514 .G3 1781