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Category: History

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A Brief Survey of “Elections that Echo”

Posted by: Andrew Breiner

The following is a guest post by L. Marvin Overby, a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Missouri and 2018-2019 Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the John W. Kluge Center. During my fellowship at the Kluge Center I am researching a book with my University of Missouri colleague James Endersby. Tentatively …

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

Introducing African-American Passages: Black Lives in the 19th Century

Posted by: Andrew Breiner

During his time as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar here at the John W. Kluge Center, Georgetown University history professor Adam Rothman recorded an extraordinary series of podcasts. In the podcasts, Rothman examines documents from the Library of Congress’ manuscript collection relating to the lives of African-Americans in the 19th century. He found a number of …

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

“My Dear Master”: An Enslaved Blacksmith’s Letters to a President

Posted by: Adam Rothman

An unusual letter arrived in the mail for the Tennessee planter James K. Polk shortly after he won the 1844 presidential election. Written from Carrollton, Mississippi, and dated November 28, 1844, the letter began “My Dear Master” and was signed by “Blacksmith Harry.” Here’s what Harry wrote: Suffer your faithful survant Harry to say a …

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Adam Rothman on Working With the Library’s Unique Omar Ibn Said Collection

Posted by: Andrew Breiner

While Adam Rothman, Georgetown University history professor and former Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Kluge Center, was at the Library, he had the opportunity to work on transcribing the Library of Congress’ Omar Ibn Said Collection, which was just released online. Ibn Said was an educated, wealthy man living in West Africa until he was …

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

The Oldest Idea in the World?

Posted by: Stephen Houston

The association of directions with colors may be the oldest known set of philosophical ideas in the world, transmitted from ancient Asia to the Americas over 10,000 years ago. Obvious Concepts Some concepts come naturally to humans. In several ancient societies, the moon relates to a goddess, and logically so, for menstruation and lunar cycles …

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Can Big Data Save Us from Ourselves? A Conversation About Information, Democracy, and Dystopia

Posted by: Dan Turello

On a rainy day in late spring, a pan-Asian noodle restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue offered the perfect nook for a spirited conversation about big data, algorithms, and the construction of our legal and social realities. Among those at the table with me were Martin Hilbert, who was a Kluge Distinguished Visiting Scholar and is Associate …

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

Exploring African Law and Ancient Egypt

Posted by: Travis Hensley

The following is a guest post by Alexandre Loktionov, PhD candidate in the Department of Archaeology & Anthropology at the University of Cambridge and a 2016 AHRC Fellow at The John W. Kluge Center. I am an Egyptologist happily working as a fellow at the Kluge Center of the Library of Congress. To some, I recognize that …

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

At the Crossroads of Health and Spirituality: An Interview with Joanne Braxton

Posted by: Travis Hensley

The following is a guest post by Samira Mehta, Assistant Professor at Albright College and the 2015 David B. Larson Fellow in Health and Spirituality at The John W. Kluge Center. This is the first post of a two-part interview by two of our Larson Fellows. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and Yale University, …