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Category: History

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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, …

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

Life as it Could Be: A Conversation with Luis Campos

Posted by: Dan Turello

Fourth Astrobiology Chair Luis Campos began his tenure at the Kluge Center on October 3. A historian of science, his most recent book is “Radium and the Secret of Life” (University of Chicago Press, 2015). He will spend his fellowship year at the Kluge Center studying the history of synthetic biology and its overlap with astrobiology …

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

Africa, Past and Future: A Conversation with Toyin Falola

Posted by: Dan Turello

Members of the Scholars Council are appointed by the Librarian of Congress to advise on matters related to scholarship at the Library, with special attention to the Kluge Center and the Kluge Prize. The Council includes distinguished scholars, writers, researchers and scientists. “Insights” is featuring some of the work of this highly-accomplished group of thinkers. …

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

Medieval Manuscripts at the Library of Congress

Posted by: Jason Steinhauer

“The possibility of [the] destruction of manuscripts makes accurate and thorough catalog description mandatory.” -Ilya Dines In his lecture “Medieval Manuscripts at the Library of Congress,” Kluge Fellow Ilya Dines discussed his experience cataloging medieval manuscripts at the Library and the importance of the Library’s collection. The Library holds hundreds of medieval manuscripts from a …

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

Using the Kislak Collection to Study the Early Americas

Posted by: Jason Steinhauer

This week the Kluge Center extended the application deadline for Kislak Fellowships until October 31. These unique fellowships support research related to the discovery, contact, and colonial periods, particularly (but not exclusively) in Florida, the Caribbean, and Mesoamerica using The Jay I. Kislak Collection. The Kislak Collection is an extraordinary trove of materials. It includes: …

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

The Kazakh Famine of the 1930s

Posted by: Jason Steinhauer

As a Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress, historian Sarah Cameron researched a book project on famine in Kazakhstan, 1930-33. She sat down with Jason Steinhauer to discuss this understudied chapter in Soviet history. Hi, Sarah. Tell us briefly about the Kazakh famine of 1930-33. The Kazakh famine was the defining event in the …

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

Lincoln and the Supreme Court

Posted by: Jason Steinhauer

We should think about the Supreme Court not as a separate and isolated institution, but rather as an integral and interconnected part of the federal political apparatus in the 19th century. –Rachel Shelden In her lecture “Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Politics of Slavery“, historian Rachel Shelden examined Lincoln’s relationship with the …