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Archive: 2022 (23 Posts)

Image shows the Join In exhibit at the Library of Congress, featuring a model barn raising

Joining In at the Kluge Center

Posted by: Andrew Breiner

This is a post by Kevin Butterfield, Director of the John W. Kluge Center.  One of the more remarkable coincidences of my professional life happened on September 12, 2022, when I arrived for my first day of work at the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress as the new Director of the John W. …

Sweeping view from the floor of a great room, looking upwards past marble columns and arches to a grand golden-colored dome

Deepak Nayyar Joins Kluge Center as Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South

Posted by: Sophia Zahner

The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress is pleased to announce the appointment of Deepak Nayyar as Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South. Nayyar began his time at the Kluge Center this September. Deepak Nayyar is Emeritus Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and an Honorary …

Image of Kevin Butterfield

Kluge Center Welcomes New Director Kevin Butterfield

Posted by: Andrew Breiner

Kevin Butterfield, noted historian of American history and most recently executive director of the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon, has joined the Library of Congress as Director of the John W. Kluge Center. Butterfield succeeds Brent Yacobucci, who has returned to managing the energy and materials …

Image of Stephanie Wood

Stephanie Wood Joins Kluge Center as Jay I. Kislak Chair for the Study of the History and Cultures of the Early Americas

Posted by: Sophia Zahner

The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress is pleased to announce the appointment of Stephanie Wood as Jay I. Kislak Chair for the Study of the History and Cultures of the Early Americas. Wood will begin her time at the Kluge Center this October. Wood is the Director and Research Associate at …

Image of Answering Machine

How the Lowly Answering Machine Contributed to our Culture of Continuous Communication

Posted by: Janna Deitz

Josh Lauer is a 2019 Digital Studies Fellow at the John W. Kluge Center as well as Associate Professor of Communication at the University of New Hampshire. His research interests include the history of communication technologies as well as consumer credit reporting, the topic of his 2017 book “Creditworthy: A History of Consumer Surveillance and …

Sweeping view from the floor of a great room, looking upwards past marble columns and arches to a grand golden-colored dome

The Study of Mystical Traditions is Opening a Path Toward New Forms of Religious Thought and Practice

Posted by: Andrew Breiner

This is a guest post by Carrie Rosefsky Wickham. Wickham is the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South at the Library of Congress and Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Emory University. Can one be both a religious person and a humanist? If so, what kind of worldview might this entail? Together …

Image of Steve Swayne holding a record

Three Objects, Three Composers

Posted by: Sophia Zahner

Steve Swayne’s lecture, titled “Three Objects, Three Composers,” is now available on the Library’s YouTube Channel. In a public event hosted on June 9, Swayne, the 2022 Kluge Chair in Modern Culture, discussed the lives of three composers he has studied at the Library, both currently and during his visits over the last twenty years: …

A 16th Century Codex Tells a Story of Resistance to Colonial Rule

Posted by: Sophia Zahner

Jay I. Kislak Chair Barbara E. Mundy is an art historian whose scholarship explores zones of contact between Native peoples and settler colonists as they forged new visual cultures in the Americas. She is Donald and Martha Robertson Chair in Latin American Art History at Tulane University, Senior Fellow of Pre-Columbian Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, …