“Flight of five” locks, in Lockport. (Image from the New York State Archives)
In 1817 (two hundred years ago!), construction of the Erie Canal began. Milne Library is celebrating this anniversary by hosting a traveling exhibit, “Two Hundred Years on the Erie Canal, 1817-2017,” throughout November on the main floor of the library near the main staircase.
Dr. Walter Harding (1917-1996)
Library Intern Demi Monachino and Milne Library’s Special Collections Librarian, Liz Argentieri, are currently hard at work creating an exhibit dedicated to one of the college’s most distinguished and influential professors, Dr. Walter Harding, who was on the Geneseo faculty from 1956 to 1983. Dr. Harding was one of the world’s leading Thoreau scholars, and we find ourselves up to our elbows in the many essays, articles, and tributes he wrote centering on Henry David Thoreau (an original Transcendentalist and the author of Walden). Among all of these scholarly documents on Thoreau, however, we are also finding some truly amazing information on Dr. Harding himself.
This man, who accomplished so much in a lifetime and amassed one of the world’s largest collection of Thoreauviana, was a large influence on not just the Geneseo community, but the world. It is somewhat hard to believe that a professor from our small college town in western New York was sent to Japan by the State Department to teach Thoreau there, and received letters from the likes of President Jimmy Carter, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Albert Einstein, just to name a few. For us, Dr. Harding is truly starting to come alive once again through these testimonials and remnants of his legacy, found in our own Milne Library and in the Thoreau Society’s Walter Harding Collection at Walden Woods, where we’ll be visiting later this spring.
Walter Harding wrote the definitive biography of Henry David Thoreau
Image courtesy of the Thoreau Society
The goal of the exhibit, which will be on display in Milne during the weeks surrounding the annual Walter Harding Lecture this fall, is to share with current Geneseo students and faculty the kind of awe and pride Dr. Harding’s life and work has inspired in us. We want to reintroduce to the community this remarkable man and scholar that many have never had the pleasure to meet (and some may have never heard of), and to open their eyes to a man who, despite having such a large global impact, always remained humble. In this presentation of Dr. Harding’s knowledge, wit, and accomplishment, we only hope that we do justice to his legacy.
~ Article written by Demi Monachino
JOIN US for a Yin Yoga session (bring your own mat!), and
stay for Liza’s talk about her journey to self acceptance and the
creation of this community project.
5:00 p.m. Yin Yoga** with Liza Savage-Katz
7:00 p.m. Accepting the Self; A Journey.. featuring Liza Savage-Katz
Wednesday, March 23rd
Milne Library, Room 213
Milne Library is currently exhibiting “Embrace Every Angle,” a
collection of over 50 photographs by 12 local photographers/artists.
The mission was to create fine art photographs and paintings
celebrating yoga as a holistic approach to expression, creativity and
existence, as well as to raise awareness of the beauty and artistry
abundant in Rochester. In demonstrating that artistic expression and individual and community well-being go hand in hand, Liza and friends brought together the fitness and arts industry to create a project for the betterment of both our local, as well as our global community. After years of struggling with an eating disorder and Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), this project has also been journey of body acceptance
and self-love for Liza.
**YIN YOGA is a practice designed to help you sit longer, and more
comfortably, in meditation by stretching connective tissue around the
joints (mainly the knees, pelvis, sacrum, and spine). A passive
practice, Yin Yoga involves variations of seated and supine poses
typically held for 3 to 5 minutes, accessing deeper layers of fascia.
About the Exhibit: Embrace Every Angle
Local business owner, yoga and fitness instructor, producer and
artist, Liza Savage-Katz, has collaborated with 12 different
photographers/artists and with tremendous support from many local
businesses, has created the Embrace Every Angle project. This
includes photographic prints of over 50 ‘Embrace Every Angle’ poses,
shot throughout Rochester and surrounding areas (including here on
campus!).
You can see more about the project here on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/
Milne Library is bringing in a new exhibit to bring awareness to issues of health, wellness, and body image in conjunction with National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, which begins on February 22, 2016.
We invite you to attend:
Embrace Every Angle
Art Exhibit Opening
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
5:00 – 8:00 pm
Milne Library Gallery, SUNY Geneseo
Reception in Milne 208
Creating the ExhibitLocal business owner, yoga and fitness instructor, producer and artist, Liza Savage-Katz, has collaborated with 12 different photographers/artists and with tremendous support from many local businesses, has created the Embrace Every Angle project. This includes photographic prints of over 50 ‘Embrace Every Angle’ poses, shot throughout Rochester and surrounding areas (including here on campus!).
On March 23rd, join us again when Liza will offer a Yin Yoga Practice at 5 pm followed by a talk on Self Acceptance at 7 pm in Milne 213. Stay tuned for further information!
The mission was to create fine art photographs and paintings celebrating yoga as a holistic approach to expression, creativity and existence, as well as to raise awareness of the beauty and artistry abundant in Rochester. In demonstrating that artistic expression and individual and community well-being go hand in hand, Liza and friends brought together the fitness and arts industry to create a project for the betterment of both our local, as well as our global community. After years of struggling with an eating disorder and Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), this project has also been journey of body acceptance and self-love for Liza.
The images are available for purchase ,with a percentage of proceeds benefitting a several local and global charities. Twenty five percent (25%) of proceeds of the photographs from the exhibition will go to support a variety of charities – selected by the individual artists – including Verona Street Animal Shelter, The Friends Project, Moonshadows Spirit, Living Water, Pachamama Alliance, ARC of Monroe, Heal the Bay, Rochester Community Rowing, Women’s Foundation of Genesee Valley, Breast Cancer Coalition of Rochester, and Synthesis Collaborative.
Check out EEA on Instagram!
The photographers/artists exhibiting are Kris Dreessen (SUNY Genese0’s Manager of Editorial Services for College Communications), Jasna Bogdanovska, Vashon Jamal Broyld Sr, Tracy Grier, Teri Fiske, Lindsay Kathryn Jewett, Bailey Johnson, Darren Miller, Nitin Sampat, Janine Susz, and Amy Vena.
Each artist collaborated with Liza in creating approximately 3-5 yoga images to showcase. Within the images, unique, distinctive and beautiful aspects of Rochester and its surrounding areas are highlighted.
Liza Savage-Katz, a native Rochesterian, lived in London for 5 years as a Senior Art Director in advertising and after traveling for a year, settled in Los Angeles. There she taught yoga and fitness, as well as incorporated her commercial modeling, art and design skills background in helping to launch Move with Me Yoga Adventures, the Kids Get Movin’ DVD for the Center for Movement Education and Research, as well a the Kidtribe, Animal Yoga and Phresh Kids programs. About three years ago, Liza moved back to Rochester with her son, Zuma. She has been teaching yoga and fitness as well as coaching crew and being a wellness coach throughout Rochester. She recently started a productions company that creates fitness and educational programming.
On Friday, March 5th, the exhibit concurrently opens at Editions Printing from 7-9pm in Rochester, NY. A 6-foot painting, “Filling the Void”, 22 years in its creation will be exhibited here. This one of a kind painting was started by Liza and finished together with the support of local artist and friend, Jen Facteau. 100% of the sale of “Filling the Void” goes to finance a documentary and fundrasier for the Lost Boys of South Sudan. The artwork will be shown through month of April and appointments can be made for viewing with Liza Savage-Katz.
Look for a more detailed article on the Embrace Every Angle Project in the December issue of Rochester Women’s Magazine online. Or visit WHAM Channel 13’s bright spot.
“3 minutes could save a life”
As you walk into Milne this week, you will find a small display with a tinfoil person and a sign that says, “3 minutes could save a life.”
I know everyone is busy and headed in various directions, but take a minute to figure out why that figure is there. What do those notes say? To the average reader, they are positive notes about why people around campus are proud to be who they are, but to me, they are hope.
They are hope that a positive message will reach someone in need and that this sign will encourage someone who is struggling to take a preliminary assessment regarding his or her risk for an eating disorder.
I’ll get right to the point: eating disorders suck. They come in all forms and they do not discriminate. They are an all-consuming loud voice that takes over, forcing you to forget all else, and they are the thing that takes your loved one away for a short time, or forever. The National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) is fighting back against the ED, using the slogan “3 minutes can save a life,” because it is important for those suffering to receive treatment as soon as possible. The slogan is a part of this years’ National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, which is February 21st-February 27th and aims to support all people impacted by eating disorders. The voice that promotes our negative body image and feeds the eating disorder will only get louder in secrecy- this display and other events during the National Eating Disorder Awareness week intend to promote self-love and encourage those who need help to reach out and get it.
Jane Skinner.
Personally, my inspiration comes from my younger sister, who has been battling an eating disorder – and kicking butt- for about six years. She has fought endlessly and been through many periods of great recovery, but for now, it seems like a never-ending struggle for her and for those who love her. It is important to me to reach people like my sister with this campaign, to let them know that even when we don’t know what to say, we do love them and wish to support them.
The display in Milne is to raise awareness on our campus and to promote the Proud2BMe campaign, which encourages positive body image and asks people to consider why they are proud to be who they are. Our hope is to bring a more permanent awareness to campus through a newly formed student group, also named Proud 2B Me. Sisters Making A Change (SMAC) has kindly supported my efforts, funded by IRC and SA, because SMAC is an amazing group of women who know that this issue is incredibly important to me and to this campus. I hope that everyone who looks at the display will take a moment to think about its purpose. The display is partially intended as a “coming soon,” for the awareness week, but also for the SMAC, IRC, and SA sponsored event, Mirrorless Monday.
I also hope to reach people who love someone that is struggling and do not know what to do. I am not a therapist or a doctor, I cannot “cure” eating disorders, but I can advocate for those who are lost in the voice of their eating disorders, so that is what I will do. This display in Milne Library, Mirrorless Monday, and the forming Proud2BMe club will focus on speaking out against eating disorders, 
supporting positive body image, and discussing current legislative and media events on the topic.
On February 22nd, students should look for covered mirrors in all academic buildings and the dining hall bathrooms. Everyone is encouraged to write positive messages on the paper, which will include an explanation for what and why this is occurring, along with a note for an interest meeting to learn more about the National Eating Disorder Association and its’ Proud2BMe campaign.
~ Jane Skinner, SMAC
And while you’re in Milne, be sure to check out the coming exhibit about body image, art, fashion, yoga, and health: “Embrace Every Angle.”
Please join us at the opening of an exhibit featuring the remarkable, often beautiful and historically important photographs of Martha Blow Wadsworth (1864-1934) from Milne Library’s Special Collections. The event will take place in Milne Library on Tuesday, Nov. 4, from 6-7 p.m., and light refreshments will be served.
“A Camera in 1888: Martha Blow Wadsworth, Chronicler of American Moments” highlights photographs taken during her travels to Alaska with an Army surveying party, to Panama while the canal was being built, and to the American west and southwest (again with an Army surveying party ) — all in the early 20th-century. Through the talented eye of one local amateur, the exhibit illustrates what the consumer camera, introduced in 1888 by Kodak, made possible. It will be on view through December in the lobby of Milne Library.
Ms. Wadsworth was a native of St. Louis who lived in Avon, N.Y. with her husband, Herbert Wadsworth (of the prominent Geneseo family). An avid horsewoman and amateur photographer, she has been described as vivacious, energetic, and adventurous. Thirty-three of her albums, as well as hundreds of glass slides, from which the photographs have been selected were donated to Milne Library in 1976 by nephew-in-law Michael Moukhanoff and are housed with the larger Wadsworth Family Papers collection.
“A Camera in 1888” was curated by Special Collections Librarian Liz Argentieri and Regina Carra ’15, with assistance from Jack Scott ’06. It is part of the larger campus-wide program, 1888 in America: William Trost Richards’ Seascape Contextualized, which opened Oct. 24 and runs through the end of the semester.
by Thomas Mccarthy
LGBTQ Display near the stairs on Milne’s main level
Geneseo’s SA sponsored LGBTQ group on campus is the Pride Alliance. The organization serves a variety of roles from providing a weekly safe space for members of the community to outreach onand outside the scope of campus. Pride focuses, like other cultural clubs, on building a local community within Geneseo. A subgroup of Pride, Advocacy, was formed to specialize in activism and outreach projects at Geneseo and to the surrounding community. Projects in the past that Advocacy formed range from combating the “Ban on Gay Blood” during blood drives to contacting local high schools organizations similar to Pride and sharing resources/ having dialogues with them.
This semester Advocacy formally reconvened after a brief hiatus, and some of the first projects the group decided to pursue was establishing a LGBTQ display in Milne Library and acquiring and maintaining a communal book shelf outside the Pride office. Both projects had similar goals: to not only increase visibility and awareness outside the Pride community about LGBTQ history, politics, and modern issues, but also to help those inside the community find resources when often they can be fragmented.
Both projects sought to introduce students to materials they otherwise might have not known
about or familiar. Most educational experiences, to my understanding talking to people inside and outside of Pride, do not cover or educate about any LGBTQ topics. Various education systems fail students when they do not recognize history and lived experiences of any group of people. LGBTQ students have much higher risks for mental health problems and suicide, so the necessity of acknowledging and giving space for these students to discover themselves and for others to begin to understand them is essential.
Teachers and Educators should be made aware of ongoing issues and concerns for LGBTQ students, and be conscious and sensitive to the difficulties and potential marginalization and abuse these students can face. The sharing and studying of these texts takes these experiences and people out of the “taboo” area which only perpetuates the harms towards these students even more. By sharing these texts or even making people aware of them, we hoped to articulate and shed light on the histories, literature, and figures in the LGBTQ timeline that are relegated, consciously or not, in pre-collegiate education systems.
The direct benefit of teaching and educating about LGBTQ issues and texts is that students can begin to view these people as legitimate and common rather than taboo and deviant. By normalizing these discussions and communications, especially by studying and being made aware of the texts, not only can LGBTQ students feel more comfortable and more receptive in educational settings, but teachers can begin to respond to and intervene on behalf of these students in environments that may feel hostile or unsafe for LGBTQ students.
Many texts also work as tools to help LGBTQ students even if they do not initially appear to be LGBTQ related. Tons of our canonized authors from Greek poets to Shakespeare to Thoreau are thought or known to have been what today is classified under the LGBTQ umbrella. Although their experiences are different, acknowledging these authors, and not rewriting them as heterosexual, supports and validates the students struggling with these issues. Many of the texts that are displayed in Milne are historical texts that are highlight facts about previous societies and peoples that had spaces and recognition for LGBTQ and same sex relationships.
Stories are our fundamentally way of situating ourselves to those around us. So often the stories of LGBTQ people are not shared or ignored. The goal of this project is to help others become aware of these experiences that support and validate LGBTQ students and to also to make others outside those identities aware of the value of those people around them today and the richness and meaning that can be learned and taught from experiences of LGBTQ people.
Be sure to check out the LGBTQ education display near the staircase on the main level!
To find out more or to get involved, attend a weekly Pride and Advocacy meeting on Thursdays at 8 pm in the College Union’s Hunt Room (Rm. 135).
For research help on LGBTQ issues, check out Milne’s LGBTQ Studies library Guide.
Artist|Professor Ren Vasiliev and Milne Library invite you to attend the official opening of her art exhibit,
Please join us to meet with the artist, and take the opportunity for questions and answers. Light refreshments will be served.
“The sublime: the fading of the sensible, or the sense you get when you realize you’re unable to make sense of something.” ~ Trevor Paglen, geographer, writer, photographer
“The ordinary: with no special or distinctive features; what is commonplace or standard.” ~ The New Oxford American Dictionary, 2005
Don’t miss out on the Lamron’s story of Dr. Vasiliev, “Geneseo’s Unexpected Artists.” The exhibit, a collection of photos and collages, will be displayed in Milne’s Gallery until October 31, 2013.
Members of the Womyn’s Action Coalition show their pride
Check out the Women’s Studies 40th Anniversary display in Milne library, through March 1st.
See photos and statements by alumni on how Women’s Studies is important to them; timelines, posters, and documents on the history of our program; faculty publications, and interactive displays about our activity and history here on Geneseo’s campus.
The Women’s Studies program is governed by a coordinator and an Advisory Committee of faculty across many disciplines and students representing the academic program and co-curricular programs like Womyn’s Action Coalition (WAC), Voices for Planned Parenthood (VOX), and Pride.
For up-to-date information on upcoming events related to women and gender studies, “like” their Facebook Page.
Do you have further questions? For answers, or to declare a minor or concentration in Women’s Studies, please see Melanie Blood, Coordinator, in Welles 217A.
First edition of The Hobbit
In the mid-1930s, a British professor was marking exams when he found that a student had left a blank page in his examination book. A sentence popped into his mind & he scrawled it on the empty sheet: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” The professor was John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, and thus was born The Hobbit.
The Hobbit was only the first published work to be set in Middle-earth; it was followed in 1954–55 by The Lord of the Rings. After Tolkien’s death in 1973 his youngest son, Christopher, took on the role of editor of his father’s unpublished texts. The Silmarillion, with the help of a young Canadian lawyer who later became a renowned fantasy author in his own right (Guy Gavriel Kay), was published in 1977. Other books have followed over the last 25 years, including the 12-volume series History of Middle-earth, which shows the evolution of Tolkien’s books over the course of decades. While The Hobbit was the first published work, Tolkien had been working on what he called his “Middle-earth legendarium” since 1917, while invalided home from the front in World War I.
Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings cycle
Reams of text have been written about Tolkien & Middle-earth, from annotated versions of the books to analysis of the themes to in-depth character explorations of both major & minor characters. Milne Library has a number of books in these categories.
In the nearly 70 years since the publication of The Hobbit in 1937, millions of people worldwide have been enthralled with Tolkien’s creation of an entire world, complete with a variety of distinct peoples, languages, & its own mythology. I became one of them when I first read The Lord of the Rings as a teen…although I actually almost never read the books at all. My younger brother & I had both been given boxed sets of The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings as Christmas gifts, & he immediately read & loved his. As the superior older sister, I loftily looked down my nose at his enthusiasm. It wasn’t until the following October, when there was nothing else to read at home & I was completely bored, that I decided to fill my time with a little bit of the books. Well…I read nonstop for the next few days, & as soon as I finished devouring the books I immediately went back to the beginning & read them again. My brother still likes to remind me what a “Fool of a Took!” I was.
[Left] Witch-King from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films, [Right] Librarian Sherry Rhodes stands in New Zealand with Chris Cavallero, who portrayed the Witch-King
[Left] Librarian Sherry Rhodes’ daughter, Kit, catches a ride as Pippin on the back of Derek Carver as an orc re-enacting the scene of Merry & Pippin’s abduction in New Zealand [Right] Gandalf body doubles with Sir Ian McKellan
Do you have a story about how you discovered The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit? We’d love to hear it! And for a little fun… try the Elvish and Hobbit name generators!
Written by Sherry Rhodes, Reference/Instruction Librarian ([email protected])
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