Vassar College Research Articles

Enduring Visions of Instruction in Academic Libraries: A Review of a Spirited Early Twentieth-Century Discussion

Some of the most enduring, and engaging, questions within academic librarianship are those about students and research skills. The vocabulary employed for discussion has evolved, but essential questions—what skills do students need to be taught, who should teach them, and how?—have persisted from the nineteenth century into the twenty-first. This article examines current and historical aspects of these questions, with special focus on an extended early twentieth-century debate between librarian John Cotton Dana and Vassar College history professor Lucy Maynard Salmon about who should provide library instruction: librarians or professors?

Recollections of activism: Hampton Institute and Vassar College, 1967–72

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, I taught American history at two quite different institutions of higher education: Hampton Institute (an African American college) and Vassar College (an overwhelmingly white, upper class women’s college). Despite their disparate social constituencies, however, both schools underwent a surge of social protest in which I was a central participant. This protest is described in my autobiography, Working for Peace and Justice: Memoirs of an Activist Intellectual (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2012), which has just been published by the University of Tennessee Press. What follows is a revised version of the account appearing in that book.

Maria Sibylla Merian: The Dawn of Field Ecology in the Forests of Suriname, 1699–1701

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgments I would like to express my thanks to the staff at the Mertz Library of the New York Botanical Gardens, in particular Mia D'Avanza, Marie Long, Emma Antobam, and Chris Pierce, without whose help the writing of this essay would not have been possible.Maria Sibylla Merian, n.d, by de Bâle. Additional informationNotes on contributorsLizabeth Paravisini-GebertLizabeth Paravisini-Gebert is Randolph Distinguished Professor in the Department of Hispanic Studies at Vassar College. Professor Paravisini is the author of numerous books, among them The Literature of the Caribbean (2008) and Displacements and Transformations in Caribbean Literature and Culture, co-edited with Ivette Romero Cesareo (2008). She is currently at work on José Martí: A Life

Focus on Authors

Focus on Authors

Note to McGlynn’s article “Native and invasive plant interactions in wetlands and the minimal role of invasiveness” in Biological Invasions (2009) 11:1929–1939

In the recent article, ‘‘Native and invasive plant interactions in wetlands and the minimal role of invasiveness’’ (McGlynn 2009), the author compared the effects of two invasive plants on native wetland communities in freshwater tidal wetlands in the Hudson River Valley in the United States (US). The author investigated whether Lythrum salicaria L. (purple loosestrife) and Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin ex Steudel (common reed) affect species richness, composition and abundance in native wetland communities dominated by Typha angustifolia L. (narrowleaf cattail) and Typha latifolia L. (broadleaf cattail). The author compared plots where the two invasive wetland plants occurred with plots where they did not occur to measure the effect of two invasive wetland species. Two aspects of this study raise particular concern: first, the erroneous assignment of native and invasive status to two plant species investigated in this study, and, second, the implications of this error for the conclusions drawn. In the methods section, the author claims that ‘‘P. australis (Family Poaceae) is a native of the US, but it is not native to the Hudson River Valley’’ (McGlynn 2009). In fact, two distinct subspecies of P. australis exist in the US: P. australis subspecies australis and P. australis subspecies americanus. P. australis subspecies australis is native to Eurasia and was introduced to the US, where it has aggressively invaded many wetlands in recent decades. P. australis subspecies americanus, on the other hand, is endemic to the US (Saltonstall 2002, 2003a, b, c; Saltonstall et al. 2004). Although no P. australis subspecies americanus populations are known to exist currently in the Hudson River Valley, records from the Vassar College Herbarium indicate that this subspecies was present there in the late 1800 s (B. Blossey, personal communication). Because of the different origins and invasive characteristics of the two subspecies of P. australis, it is essential to distinguish between these subspecies when working with P. australis in the US. Also in the methods section, the author claims that ‘‘T. angustifolia and T. latifolia (Typhaceae) are considered native to the Hudson Valley’’ (McGlynn 2009). It is correct that T. latifoila is native to the US (Grace and Harrison 1986; Shih and Finkelstein 2008; Smith 2004; USDA 2010). However, until recently, T. angustifolia was widely considered to be native to Europe and introduced to the US (Galatowitsch et al. 1999; Gleason and Cronquist 1995; Grace and Harrison 1986; Selbo and Snow 2004; Smith 2000, 2004; Stuckey and Salamon 1987; USDA 2010; Zedler and Kercher 2004). However, recent findings suggest that T. angustifolia also may have been in the US prior to European settlement, but this earlier US origin remains uncertain (Shih and Finkelstein 2008). F. B. Eichiner (&) Department of Natural Resources, Fernow Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA e-mail: fbe2@cornell.edu

Light and Darkness at the End of the Tunnel: Immigrants in the Aftermath of Obama’s Reelection

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsJoseph NevinsJoseph Nevins teaches geography at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. Among his books are Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid (City Lights, 2008); and Operation Gatekeeper and Beyond: The War on“Illegals” and the Remaking of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary (Routledge, 2010).

<i>Members of the Tribe: Native America in the Jewish Imagination</i> (review)

Journal Article Members of the Tribe: Native America in the Jewish Imagination. Rachel Rubinstein. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010. 264 pages. $27.95 paper. Get access Members of the Tribe: Native America in the Jewish Imagination. Rachel Rubinstein. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010. 264 pages. $27.95 paper. Peter Antelyes Peter Antelyes Vassar College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar MELUS, Volume 37, Issue 2, June 2012, Pages 220–223, https://doi.org/10.1353/mel.2012.0023 Published: 01 June 2012

Editorial introductions

Current Opinion in Otolaryngology & Head and Neck Surgery was launched in 1993. It is one of a successful series of review journals whose unique format is designed to provide a systematic and critical assessment of the literature as presented in the many primary journals. The fields of otolaryngology and head and neck surgery are divided into 11 sections that are reviewed once a year. Each section is assigned a Section Editor, a leading authority in the area, who identifies the most important topics at that time. Here we are pleased to introduce the Journal's Section Editors for this issue. Section Editors Peter C. BelafskyPeter C. BelafskyDr Belafsky grew up in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, USA. He graduated cum laude from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, USA. After Vassar he completed a joint MD/MPH program from The Tulane University Medical School and the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, USA. He then completed his otolaryngology residency at Tulane and received a PhD in epidemiology from the Tulane University Graduate School. After his residency, Dr Belafsky attended Wake Forest University, USA, for a fellowship in laryngology and bronchoesophagology. He is now Director of the Center for Voice and Swallowing of the University of California at Davis in Sacramento, USA. Lisa BuckmillerLisa BuckmillerDr Lisa Buckmiller is an Associate Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, USA. She is the Vice-Chief of Pediatric Otolaryngology at Arkansas Children's Hospital, USA. Dr Buckmiller completed her undergraduate training in molecular biology & biochemistry at the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA, and went on to do her medical training at the University of California, Irvine College of Medicine, USA, and her residency in otolaryngology at the University of California, Davis in Sacramento, USA. She then accomplished her fellowship training in pediatric otolaryngology at Arkansas Children's Hospital, and has continued on as faculty there since 2001. Dr Buckmiller is the director of two multidisciplinary teams, including the Cleft Lip & Palate Team as well as the Vascular Anomalies Team at Arkansas Children's Hospital. In 2005, she was awarded the Benjamin & Milton Endowed Chair in Pediatric Facial Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery for her work to better the lives of children with facial deformities. She also is dedicated to serving overseas on medical missions several times a year and performs surgeries for both cleft lip and palate as well as hemangiomas and vascular malformations on these trips. She is board certified and is an active member of the American Academy of Otolaryngology, International Society for the Study of Vascular Anomalies, American Cleft Palate Association, and the American Society of Pediatric Otolaryngology. Dr Buckmiller's research interests are in the areas of vascular anomalies as well as treatment of velopharyngeal insufficiency and primary rhinoplasty for cleft patients.

Seven reliability indices for high‐stakes decision making: Description, selection, and simple calculation

AbstractThe reliability of data is a critical issue in decision‐making for practitioners in the school. Percent Agreement and Cohen's kappa are the two most widely reported indices of inter‐rater reliability, however, a recent Monte Carlo study on the reliability of multi‐category scales found other indices to be more trustworthy given the type of data and number of categories. This manuscript presents defensible decision steps, methods, and rationale for selecting and calculating inter‐rater reliability for practitioners. In addition to using screen shots from readily available online programs for calculation such as Excel and Vassar College (Lowry, 2010), decision guides and a flow chart are presented in several figures and tables for easy reference. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Best Historical Materials

Each year, the RUSA/CODES History Section Historical Materials Committee selects an assortment of resources that reflect the best resources for historical research. The 2014 list follows. All resources received a final review on November 29, 2014.--Editor Europeana 1914-1918 www.europeana1914-1918.eu/en Europeana 1914-1918--Untold and Official Histories of WW1 offers substantial digital materials regarding the First World War. The site's news release claims it is the culmination of years of work by 20 European countries. Included are 400,000 rare documents, 660 hours of film, and 90,000 personal papers. The home page has three primary options: a search box, Add Your Story, and Browse. Add Your Story allows users to submit their own materials. Simply attach a digital version of the document you wish to submit and add any additional data, along with information on how you came across it. Browse allows navigation via Type (letters, diaries, photographs, etc.), Subject, and Fronts (Italian, Home, Eastern, and Western). Search results display thumbnails with title and source. Clicking on items provides an individual record showing title, alternate title, description, language, type, medium, linked subject terms, and places. The site's greatest asset is also its primary drawback--documents have been submitted from so many different countries that many are in foreign languages. An excellent, diverse collection of World War I materials, Europeana 1914-1918 offers significant content with the promise of continued growth.--Matthew J. Wayman, Penn State Schuylkill Mapping Gothic France http://mappinggothic.org The Mapping Gothic France project is a collaboration between the Media Center for Art History in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University, the Visual Resources Library at Vassar College, and the Columbia University Libraries. It attempts to depict Gothic space via an online, interactive 3D experience. Stated goals include establishing links between the architectural space of individual buildings, geo-political space, and the social space of the interaction (collaboration and conflict) between builders and users. The site developers want users to see the relationship of hundreds of Gothic buildings in terms of sameness and difference within a defined historical period of French history. The visuals are spectacular, as are the 360-degree rotational images. The three main tabs, Space, Time, and Narrative, offer ways into the site. Space leads to a map with sites in France and Great Brain, on which crosses identify churches. The Time button takes one to a dynamic map purporting to show the growth of Gothic France. Although available content only goes up to the year 1223 (the death of Philip Augustus), future development will build out the later Gothic. The link to Narrative leads to subsections or subchapters on individual essay themes. Future development will fill out all of the sections as well as that of the Kings of France. Across the top left are four small icons. The one with the S is Stories and Essays: a three part subdivision, one of which relinks to the Narrative section, and a second, Stories of France, contains some book excerpts of interpretations of how France became France. More development will flesh out the criteria for selection as well as the criteria for scholars of the Gothic. The Comparison icon leads to a fun little feature with varying sets of tiles that can be stacked or capered in many different ways. In sum, the site is lovely to look at, and the visuals give insight into the space and size of Gothic France.--Susan L. Malbin, American Jewish Historical Society 1914-1918 Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War www.1914-1918-online.net The second web site appearing during the one-hundredth anniversary of World War I's opening days, 1914-1918 Online is an English-language virtual reference work on the First World War. …

Bach's 325th birthday

2010 marked the 325th anniversary of the birth of J. S. Bach. The many recordings of Bach's organ music that have appeared in the past few years demonstrate the high degree to which the Cantor's music is prized centuries later. These feature historical instruments and fine new organs inspired by historical models, played by veterans of historical performance as well as by young emerging artists. The plethora of Bach recordings of such high artistic and sonic quality results from the combination of Bach scholarship, highly trained organists, organ restorations and the construction of new instruments based on historical models. The only recording here that identifies the 325th anniversary as its catalyst is Gail Archer's J. S. Bach—‘The Transcendent Genius’: The Great 18 Chorale Preludes BWV651–668 (Meyer Media MM10014, rec 2010, 80′), performed on the 2002 Fritts organ at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. This instrument is the...

Thomas Rowlandson: pleasures and pursuits in Georgian England

Acknowledgements Lenders to the Exhibition Foreword by James Mundy, the Anne Hendricks Bass Director, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College An Introduction by Patricia Phagan Rowlandson's London by Vic Gatrell Amoral Humor: Desire and Mockery in Rowlandson's Comic Art by Amelia Rauser Catalogue by Patricia Phagan High Society and Politics The Street Clubs and Taverns Outdoor Entertainments and Other Diversions Art, Theater, and Dance Sex and Romance.

Advancing Human Rights Education in Peacebuilding

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgments Tracey Holland is a visiting assistant professor in the Education Department at Vassar College. She holds a Ph.D. in International Education from New York University and a Masters degree from Teachers College, Columbia University. The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) funds her current research on human rights education's impact in post-conflict nations.

Redeemed by Fire: The Rise of Popular Christianity in Modern China by Lian Xi (review)

118 Journal of Chinese Religions category “belief” the base upon which so many descriptions of religiosity are built? While Early Chinese Religion does not answer these questions, it is nevertheless a superb collection of essays that will shape the field for years to come. MICHAEL J. WALSH, Vassar College Redeemed by Fire: The Rise of Popular Christianity in Modern China LIAN XI. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. xiii, 333 pages. ISBN 9780 -300-12339-5. US$45.00, £30.00, hardcover. Lian Xi 連曦 has written an unusual book in that it makes an academic study of popular Christianity in China. A number of church publications have described individual Chinese church leaders and revival movements, but hardly any comprehensive academic works have dealt with this topic. Lian contributes not only to Chinese church history with this book, he also adds new dimensions to modern and contemporary general Chinese history through his analysis of several important individuals and his description of indigenous movements with a large following. All too often religious factors in social change are played down in historical analysis, and this is generally also the case with regard to China. In the introductory chapter Lian defines the framework for his book and gives a brief historical overview, beginning with Catholic efforts at indigenization. He continues with a chapter on early 19th century developments such as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom 太平天國 and Hong Xiuquan 洪秀全, as well as “The Overcomer of Demons,” Xi Shengmo 席勝魔. Here Lian sets the tone for the whole book by linking Christian developments with the context of popular Chinese religion while also noting their disassociation from missionary Christianity. Subsequent chapters are arranged more or less chronologically and deal with the True Jesus Church 真耶穌教會 (Zhen Yesu jiaohui), the Jesus Family 耶穌家庭 (Yesu jiating), John Sung (Song Shangjie 宋尚節), Wang Mingdao 王明道 and Watchman Nee (Ni Tuosheng 倪柝聲), respectively. There are also separate chapters on larger revivals primarily during the 1920s and 1930s, the situation of the indigenous churches during the civil and external wars in 1930s and 1940s, and a final chapter on popular indigenous movements during the People’s Republic. (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 34. Book Reviews 119 Lian Xi has done meticulous research on the described individuals and movements, and even for an initiated reader the book presents a number of new facts and interesting details. He has used archival material in China and abroad, conducted many interviews and accessed the most current Chinese research on these topics. Lian tells full stories of these revivals and their leaders, also pointing out individual shortcomings and failures, including serious financial and sexual errors. The accounts of lesser known preachers and leaders such as True Jesus Church founder Wei Enbo 魏恩波, or Jing Dianying 敬奠瀛 of the Jesus Family, and the analysis of the influence of Witness Lee (Li Changshou 李常受) on Watchman Nee sets a high standard for research on Christianity in China. However, here and there Lian Xi seems to lose something of his objective historian’s gaze, falling into more subjective assessments and repeating accusations by others that the book would have fared better without. Both the chapter “The Smitten Land” and the chapter on Wang Mingdao give the reader some contrast to the fiery revivals and sweeping movements around charismatic leaders as described in other parts of the book. Here we meet some alternative figures such as the Norwegian woman missionary Marie Monsen, who led a revival in Shandong in the late 1920s and early 1930s, “the Christian General” Feng Yuxiang 馮玉祥, and also theologian and church leader Zhao Zichen 趙紫宸. Lian presents this wider context as an important backdrop to the popular movements, and shows how the urge for salvation of both people and country, focusing on indigenous expressions, would take quite different paths. The chapter on developments during the early years of the People’s Republic, the Cultural Revolution, and after mentions all the major revivals and movements of the period. As a historian, Lian’s focus is naturally not primarily on the contemporary scene, but considering his capacity for detail I would have liked to have seen more on very recent developments. As it is, this chapter gives inspiration for others to continue the work, but it would...

Imagined Orphans - Poor Families, Child Welfare, and Contested Citizenship in London

442 Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 21 No. 2 (Winter 2011) ISSN: 1546-2250 Imagined Orphans – Poor Families, Child Welfare, and Contested Citizenship in London Murdoch, Lydia (2006). New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press; 252 pages. $44.95. ISBN 9780813537221. As Victorian studies scholars are aware, the century between the early 1800s and the early 1900s was fraught with massive social, political, economic and geographic changes. In her academic treatise, Imagined Orphans, Lydia Murdoch examines a topic that touches on many of those issues. Her account of the underlying story of child welfare in 19th century London is a fascinating look at the complex array of societal issues that were at play during the Industrial Era. Murdoch, an historian on the faculty of Vassar College, writes of the various events and trends in child welfare by conducting a narrative and visual analysis of a wide-range of sources, both primary and secondary. She examines photographs, advocacy pamphlets, flyers, books, legislation, writings of child welfare activists, accounts of children who utilized the “poor law” system and philanthropic institutions, and accounts of parents of children who utilized those systems. The stories told by these sources help illuminate some of the history of our modern institutions of child welfare and protection. They also peel away many of the layers of mythology surrounding the experiences of poor children in London during the 19th century. According to Murdoch’s research, the commonly held belief that poor urban children in 19th century London’s child welfare systems were almost always orphaned or abandoned is inaccurate in many cases and purely fictional in others. She unearths examples of situations that were misrepresented by child welfare providers and activists, as well as examples of children who were presented as orphaned, when in actuality their parents had placed them in the poor law or philanthropic systems as a means of obtaining social 443 service aid when they most needed it. However, while Murdoch’s introduction to the text suggests that this is the main point of her findings, I would argue that the book is broader than that. Only two of the book’s six chapters directly deal with the issue of parental agency in the child welfare systems of Victorian London. In those two chapters, Murdoch makes a fine case for her argument that contrary to the mythologized views of London’s poor children being orphans and waifs with no adult guidance, parents and other guardians were actually very involved in their children’s welfare. Parents turned to the child welfare systems, both the government-controlled poor law system and private philanthropic organizations, in times of great economic and family hardship. However, this did not mean that they abandoned their offspring at the doors to the facilities. There is ample historic documentation to show that many parents remained active in their children’s lives and welfare even after the children were admitted to residential facilities for child welfare; this documentation gives a much fuller picture of the lives of the urban poor in London at that time. Beyond this, Murdoch’s main thesis, are four additional chapters that provide a chronicle of how the child welfare practices and discourse related to the larger issues of class, citizenship, religion, and gender. In the course of the book we learn that: the Victorian penchant for melodrama in literature leaked into the way poor children were portrayed by philanthropists and others working with them; the burgeoning middle-class values and expectations significantly impacted ideas about the appropriate physical environments for raising children and housing them in institutions; the trends in women’s rights included movements to give women more control over the nation’s child welfare system and practices; religion impacted the structure of philanthropic child welfare facilities; and training for citizenship and employment became a central driving force in the programming of child welfare institutions. These various descriptions and interrelationships are key to what I feel is actually the central theme of the book: the genesis of modern Western child welfare practices. It is amply clear from Murdoch’s work how many of our modern practices and 444 difficulties developed, and where we still struggle with certain issues over...

The Flame Photometer as Engine of Nephrology: A Biography

In the 1940s, the flame photometer made possible for the first time relatively simple and quick measurements of sodium and potassium in serum and urine. During World War II, it unexpectedly fell into the hands of John P. Peters of Yale University, who sought to understand water and electrolyte physiology and apply such knowledge to patient problems. Pupils and young associates of Peters would seed the early nephrology divisions and training programs in the United States; the flame photometer was essential to their work and that of their trainees, both Americans and international visitors. Hyponatremia and the syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone secretion became the "attribute" disorders of nephrologists. Invention of a microflame photometer fostered the revival of micropuncture and transport studies. In the 1960s, the flame photometer was linked to Leonard Skeggs' sequential automated analysis system, leading to enormous numbers of routine measurements of electrolytes. The growing number of nephrologists, then based mostly at teaching hospitals, thus found plentiful instances of sodium and potassium abnormalities to address. The autoanalyzer also catalyzed use of the anion gap, another emblem of nephrology in its early decades. Not only ideas and theories, but also the usually invisible machinery, enable the growth of a knowledge base and formation of a scientific discipline or medical specialty. Of course, the flame photometer did not itself shape the agenda of nephrology, but it allowed the most influential group of progenitors and their progeny to explore normal function and bring a strongly physiologic imperative to their daily work with patients.

Vassar College‐Bronx Institute acoustics workshop for low‐income, ethnic minority, urban high school students.

Recent studies continue to show that low percentages of women and members of underrepresented ethnic groups are pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and math fields. Acoustics is no exception to this trend. As national demographics change more rapidly, and globalization transforms the way we approach the scientific process, the need for diversity becomes even more essential. The inclusion of women and minorities not only changes the questions being asked but also changes how those questions are answered. For acoustics to grow as a discipline, barriers to participation and success of members from underrepresented groups must be eradicated, and we must address the leakage in the science pipeline for students and professionals at all stages in their careers. One key area of concern is the recruitment and retention of K‐12 students. This presentation will detail the joint efforts of the Vassar College Physics and Astronomy Department and the Bronx Institute at Lehman College to establish a hands‐on, inquiry based acoustic workshop series for urban, low‐income, underrepresented ethnic minority students from a collection of high schools in the Bronx borough in New York City.

Putting Class Back in the Women’s Studies Curriculum

For a conference on feminist pedagogies at the Graduate Center at CUNY in February 2006 (see Baiada and Jensen-Moulton), we organized a presentation on a course, Women and Class, we had taught at Vassar College. We explained that the broad aim of the course was to foreground class, the category that most often gets forgotten, despite being part of the holy trinity of gender, race, and class that defines the contemporary women’s studies curriculum. After an hour-long presentation in which the students who had taken Women and Class spoke eloquently and passionately about the insights the course gave them into their own positions as classed subjects, a group of graduate students stopped us in the corridor outside the conference room to make a suggestion. They offered what they described as a brilliant piece that we might wish to include in our syllabus: an article that detailed the organizing efforts of immigrant South Asian women who worked as cleaners in Canada. Although we have no doubt that this is a worthy essay, one that might well deserve a spot on any women’s studies syllabus, their suggestion made clear to us that our project had been misunderstood. We had developed the syllabus to expose the ways in which class marks all of us, not only working-class women of color scrubbing out toilets in Toronto. So strong, however, is the residue of Marxism that to raise the question of class leads many academics automatically to consider the deprivations suffered by (and thus the heroic achievements of) the working class: all other classes fade away. This paper documents our efforts over the last several years to move ourselves as well as our undergraduate women’s studies students beyond the constraints of the Marxist legacy, in which class immediately registers as working class. In the process of teaching Women and Class, we discovered that class was largely invisible to our middle-class students. In that regard, class is perhaps no different than the whiteness that was unseen by white college students twenty years ago, when Ruth Frankenberg’s work on the social construction of whiteness and Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” began to appear on every introductory women’s studies syllabus. Raising students’ consciousness around issues of class engenders many of the same

Thinking about the Theatre—and Theatre Critics: An Interview with Robert Brustein, Conducted by Bert Cardullo, New York City, July 2008

{ 220 } \ Thinking about the Theatre— and Theatre Critics An Interview with Robert Brustein, Conducted by Bert Cardullo, New York City, July 2008 Robert Brustein (b. 1927) is an Ameri­ can theatre critic, producer, and teacher. He was educated at Amherst College, where he received a B.A. in 1948, and Columbia University, where he received an M.A. in 1949 and a Ph.D. in 1957. After teaching at Cornell University, Vassar College, and Columbia, he became dean of the Yale School of Drama in 1966, serving in that position until 1979. It was during this period that he founded the Yale Repertory Theatre. In 1979, Bru­ stein left Yale for Harvard University, where he founded the Ameri­ can Repertory Theater and became a professor of English. He served for twenty years as director of the Loeb Drama Center at Harvard, where he also founded the Institute for Advanced Theater Training. He retired as artistic director of the Ameri­ can Repertory Theater in 2002 and now serves as founding director and creative consultant. As the artistic director of Yale Repertory Theatre from 1966 to 1979, and of Ameri­ can Repertory Theater from 1980 to 2002, Brustein supervised over two hundred productions, acting in eight and directing twelve. Robert Brustein has been the theatre critic for the New Republic since 1959, and he is the author of fifteen books—a number of them collections of his writings for that magazine. Twice winner of the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism—in 1962 for his reviews in Commentary, Partisan Review, Harpers, and the New Republic; and in 1987 for Who Needs Theatre: Dramatic Opinions—Brustein is the only person to have received this award more than once. He was elected to the Ameri­ can Academy of Arts and Letters in 1999 and in 2002 was inducted into the Ameri­ can Theatre Hall of Fame. { 221 } An Interview with Robert Brustein bert cardullo: Could we begin at the beginning, as it were, when you started out as a critic? robert brustein: Yes, of course. When I started writing criticism in the 1960s, I was part of a prominent community—Eric Bentley, Harold Clurman, Kenneth Tynan, Walter Kerr, Richard Gilman, Stanley Kauffmann, and Susan Sontag. It was an amazing group. Everybody wanted to write theatre criticism in those days. Eric Bentley had a profound influence on me when I was a young, evolving intellectual. He was one of the few in our time who took theatre seriously as a genuine art form and not simply entertainment, although it must be that, too, of course. I read his books religiously and scoured the New Republic for his reviews. He was my idol, as it were, and he stimulated me through his work to go into theatre criticism. I can certainly attest to the impact that Bentley’s Playwright as Thinker had on me. I had been a student at the Yale School of Drama for a year in 1948. I was appalled, actually, at the fact that we would end our experience of watching a play, and we’d talk about the acting, we’d talk about the directing, we’d talk about the technical work, we’d talk about the lighting, talk about the management , but we would never, ever, talk about the play. I found in Bentley’s book a testimony to this fact. When I got to Yale, we read plays in synopsized form, and the way we responded to the plays was to say how many characters, how many sets, where it’s placed, what the particular period is, but we never, ever talked about the play. To come upon this book, and to read what Bentley had to say about the intellectual content of plays,the artistic content of plays,the way that playwrights influenced each other, the various styles and contrary but nevertheless unified approaches to the theatre that one found from the nineteenth century to the present time, really had an untold influence on me, and this man’s name became magic to me. I also just recently thought, in preparing for this interview, that I would look back over the book, and came across some passages...

Jan van der Heyden's urban prose*

Jan van der Heyden's urban prose*