To Strive, To Seek, To Find

Publicity Poster (Wikipedia)

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The Coe House, site of the Minnesota African American Museum, photo by Tim Kiser (Creative Commons)

I’ve typed the official description of the Internship Program below. Please contact me via campus email if you’d like contacts or more information.

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Museum founder Roxanne Givens. Photo by Robb Long

Students! Stop whatever you’re doing and pay attention right now! I’ve got BIG and EXCITING news.

Yesterday, I attended a meeting organized by Ms. Roxanne M. Givens, prominent Minneapolis businesswoman and cultural leader, about her vision to create a museum dedicated to the historic and cultural achievements of African Americans in Minnesota.

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“Would you like fries with that?” read more »

First Page of Beowulf

Often in literature courses, professors are trying to do the impossible: they’re teaching  literary analysis, specialized terminology, mechanics of formal structures, significant authors and works, a sense of genre, the evolving histories of those genres, academic writing conventions, and many other goals.

So it’s not surprising that the more technical side of the production and consumption of books as physical objects is sometimes overlooked. These factors are especially important when the book in question has qualities which are not easily reproduced in print. Think of a hand-produced medieval manuscript, for instance, lavishly illuminated and written on vellum. For scholars studying these incredible works of art, nothing can substitute for an in-person examination of the artifact.

Recent improvements to computer imaging and memory have, happily,  made fascimiles of these works available as never before.

As Professor Kevin Kiernan’s work with the Beowulf manuscript demonstrates, sometimes the data from a computer image can be manipulated and optimized to provide information about a text previously invisible to the naked eye. (See The Electronic Beowulf for more information.)

The technical examination of books is a fascinating subject. Greg Gephart, one of our own English Majors, once had the opportunity to work with fragments of a Shakespeare manuscript. He reports on his experience:

 My descriptions are deliberately vague because of non-disclosure agreements that must be honored.The Electronic Beowulf Project at the University of Kentucky is a great illustration of how modern technology can be used to analyze old manuscripts.  Dr. Kiernan’s work was able to salvage a lot of material thought to be lost.  

There is a lot of work being done to authenticate works of art and verify the age of old manuscripts.  Dr. Kiernan’s work reminded me of a job I worked on about a year ago.  

In my previous life I was a staff scientist in an analytical lab. A Shakespeare library wanted us to verify some work done previously that purported to establish the age of a Shakespeare document using a technique called Auger Electron Spectroscopy or AES. The claim was that using this technique to measure the width of specific ink lines on the paper could be used to determine the age of the document.  The hypothesis was, with age the ink will tend to spread out.  

Well, it doesn’t take much imagination to think up many different scenarios which can affect how much the ink may wick out on the paper.  We tried very hard to duplicate the earlier AES results but couldn’t.  But it was still a very interesting project.

 

Yes, he has magic bard dust on his fingers now….

A mermahautaur?!! See the larger version of cartoonist Jim Unwin and Dylan Unwin’s Venn diagram here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/preshaa/3847027500/sizes/l/

If you’re planning to graduate this semester with a December diploma, be sure to  fill out the Declaration of Intent to Graduate form. The deadline is this Friday, September 18, 2009.  The form itself has a link for submission, so you’ll know exactly where to send your completed form.

It’s a good idea to zip an email to your advisor when you’ve submitted the form – just an FYI to keep him or her in the loop.

• The Declaration of Intent to Graduate form available at: http://www.metrostate.edu/msweb/pathway/registration/forms.cfm

• Other information about 2009 Fall Graduation is available here: http://www.metrostate.edu/msweb/pathway/registration/graduation/index.html

And…..CONGRATULATIONS!

My husband, affectionately known as our Camp Director, always has something fun planned for our weekends. One of our favorite haunts is a wildlife refuge called Crex Meadows, just a 90-minute drive from the Twin Cities. read more »

Jane Austen by szlea (Creative Commons)

My last discussion of Student-Designed Independent Studies must make it seem as though it’s impossible to get your proposal approved. It’s not impossible, however, and I’ll cite some of my experiences to show you how it just might be done. read more »

Sky Blue Day

What a day for a fair! My family was among the 120,000 who showed up last Friday. Here’s a quick compilation of our Fair Do’s and Don’t’s. read more »