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New Scholars at the Kluge Center – May 2015

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May has been one of the busiest months I can remember at the Center. Preparations for the Kluge Center’s 15th anniversary celebration, #ScholarFest, are nearing completion. Summer lectures are being planned, meetings are being arranged, and the Center is “sprucing-up” its environs as we prepare to welcome hundreds of summer visitors. During all of this activity two new scholars arrived and two familiar faces returned.

Ester Lo Biundo is a British Research Council Fellow based at the University of Reading. During her residency, Ester will be working on her research project titled, “Allied Radio Propaganda to Italy during the Resistance, 1943-1945.” Her research focuses on BBC broadcasts in Italy during the Anglo-American conquest of the mainland and the partisan resistance to the Nazi occupiers in the north of the country. Ester aims to examine the cultural aspects of British and American radio propaganda to find out what strategies and arguments were adopted to engage with the Italian population. She is also investigating the relationships between the British Foreign Office and the BBC, as well as the role played by the Italian anti-fascist exiles working for Radio London. The sources of prime importance to her that are held by the Library of Congress include the Voice of America archives, BBC and World War II sound collections.

Ilya Dines is a newly arrived Kluge Fellow based at Ben-Gurion University in Israel. During his eleventh month residency at the Kluge Center, Ilya will work on a project entitled, “A Hand List of the Uncatalogued Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts Preserved in the Library of Congress.” Ilya will compile a detailed hand list of the rich and previously uncatalogued Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts currently preserved in the Library of Congress. More than half of the collection, approximately 110 manuscripts written in various languages and representing different periods and countries, have not been properly described or catalogued, and as a result have not received full scholarly attention. The hand list Ilya proposes will not only offer insights into the manuscripts, their iconography, and their roles in the transmission of texts, but will also bring the manuscripts to the attention of medievalists around the world. This unique project will not only aide the field but will also benefit the Library as a whole.

Additionally, two scholars returned this month to complete their fellowships:

  • Wendy Fok
    Kluge Fellow in Digital Studies, Harvard University, “Whose Digital Property.”
  • Peter Zilahy
    Black Mountain Institute-Kluge Fellow, Independent Scholar, “Mapping the Hero’s Quest.”

Check back next month for scholars arriving in the month of June. Click here for the full list of scholars currently in residence at the Kluge Center.

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