CLA: IHRC Updates

The Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation announces the opening on March 20 of the exhibition The Journey : The Greek American Dream at the Rooftile and Brickworks Museum N. & S. Tsalapatas-Volos in Greece.

The exhibition focuses on Greek immigration to the United States and was created by IHRC researcher and filmmaker Maria Iliou and historian Alexander Kitroeff. The display features images from the IHRC's Greek American Collection, including the exceptional publishing materials of the Demetrios P. Callimachos Papers. Many images from that and other collections are available through COLLAGE, the IHRC's online digital images collection.

The Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation (PIOP) opened the exhibition on Nov. 7, 2008, at the Museum of the Olive Oil Production-Lesvos. In March 2009, the exhibit will begin traveling to other halls in the cluster of regional museums directed by PIOP, which organizes location-specific museums emphasizing the distinct historical cultures of Greece.

The exhibition includes the award-winning documentary film of the same name produced in 2007 by Maria Iliou. The film was produced from research in more than 50 collections of Greek American materials and with interviews of prominent Greek Americans.

The documentary narrates the migration of Greeks to America from 1890 to 1980 and is subdivided into three parts: Immigrants 1890-1920, Becoming Americans 1920-1960, and The Revival of Ethnicity 1960-1980.

A Greek-language volume accompanying the exhibition is available and the documentary film in either Greek or English can be purchased in a DVD format.

Posted by Elizabeth Hawley at 10:51 AM | Permalink

The IHRC and Elmer L. Andersen Library will be open to researchers Monday, March 16 through Thursday, March 19. The building will be closed to researchers on Friday, March 20, which is a university holiday.

Additionally, there will be no Saturday reading room hours during the week of spring break at the University of Minnesota (March 16-22). Usual building access schedules will resume on Monday, March 23.

All IHRC collections have brief finding aids available online. Researchers are encouraged to visit the IHRC website to consult online finding aids and to contact staff with specific questions about their projects prior to visiting Andersen LIbrary.

An IHRC public access terminal is available in suite 311 for walk-in researchers. Visitors without appointments may have a longer waiting time for staff consultations or in the servicing of material requests.

Posted by Elizabeth Hawley at 6:13 AM | Permalink

Historians from Europe and the United States have often treated North Africa as marginal to the central dramas of the twentieth century. "Placing the Maghrib at the Center of the 20th Century: From Colonial Histories to Post-Colonial Societies" will examine the role of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia in the unfolding of the recent past.

The conference will take place in Ann Arbor, MI and Minneapolis, MN during the week of April 6-10, 2009, and has been coordinated by Joshua Cole (History, University of Michigan) and Patricia Lorcin (History, University of Minnesota). The IHRC will host the second part of the conference April 9-10 in Elmer L. Andersen Library.

The full program is now available.

Although the modern nations of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia share a legacy as former colonies of France, the different modes of colonial control in each region and the different patterns of accommodation and resistance to European imperialism shaped their histories in divergent ways. Likewise, different areas within the Maghrib had their own relationship to political and religious movements emanating from the Middle East and elsewhere.

The experiences of the peoples of North Africa thus provide a useful comparative basis for contemporary reflection on the major turning points of the last hundred years: on the legacies of colonialism and anti-colonial forms of nationalism, on the meaning of the cold war and its end, and on the emergence of post-colonial societies facing new challenges in the late twentieth century. This conference brings scholars from North Africa to meet with specialists and students from two U.S. universities for a fruitful exchange of views and research agendas.

The schedule for the conference will be:

April 6-7, University of Michigan
April 6: 9:30-12:00, 2:00-4:00
April 7: 10:00-12:00, 2:00-4:00
All sessions in 1014 Tisch Hall

April 9-10, University of Minnesota
April 9: 9:30-12:00, 2:00-4:00
April 10: 10:00-12:00, 2:00-4:00
All sessions in 120 A,B C, Andersen Library

Posted by Elizabeth Hawley at 8:40 AM | Permalink

IHRC Director Donna R. Gabaccia currently is a Visiting Scholar in the Immigration program of the Russell Sage Foundation in New York City. In May 2009, she will be a Visiting Fellow in the Institute of Advanced Study at the University of Warwick and participate in an international symposium on diaspora studies.

The University of Warwick program will be held May 5-14, 2009. Highlights of the scheduled events include:

Tuesday 5th May, 10.30-12.30
Symposium: Diaspora Studies and Diasporic Identities: Italians and OthersSpeakers: Donna Gabaccia (Minnesota), Stefano Luconi (Florence). Main discussant: Robin Cohen (Oxford)
Venue: Social Studies Building. Room S0.13

Friday 8th May, 1-6pm
Workshop: Interrogating the usefulness of the diaspora paradigm for the study of migrant, transnational and postcolonial cultures and literatures
Venue: Humanities Building. Room H0.60

Monday 11th May, 5.30-7pm
Seminar: Gender and Theory in an Interdisciplinary Field: International Migration Studies
Venue: Ramphal Building. Room R3.25

Wednesday 13th May, 5-7pm
Public lecture: Imagining Nations of Immigrants
Venue: Humanities Building. Room H0.52

Thursday 14th May, 3-5pm
Seminar: Do Words Matter? The History of Ideas meets the Digital Archive
Venue: Ramphal Building. Rooms R0.03/4

The events are open to the public and have been organized by the Warwick Institute of Advanced Study, in collaboration with the Department of Italian and the Social Theory Centre at Warwick University.

Posted by Elizabeth Hawley at 10:14 AM | Permalink

Racism and xenophobia have long shaped the circumstances under which people emigrate, as well as the opportunities and constraints facing immigrants and their communities. Explore this topic at a presentation and discussion to be held 3-5 p.m. on Friday, March 13, at 120 Elmer L. Andersen Library.

Global REM, in conjunction with the European Studies Consortium, will sponsor "Racism vs. Xenophobia: Transatlantic Perspectives," with a scholarly presentation, discussion, and reception following the event.

The event pairs two scholars from different disciplines: a sociologist, Michele Lamont (Harvard University), whose work has focused on racism and xenophobia both in France and the U.S., and a linguist, Ruth Wodak, who focuses on racism and xenophobia in political discourse in Europe. Each presenter will speak for 20-25 minutes, with the presentations followed by conversation between the two scholars and the audience. A reception follows.

Speakers will be:

Michele Lamont, Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies and Professor of Sociology and African and African-American Studies, Harvard University.

Ruth Wodak, Dr. Habil Distinguished Professor and Chair in Discourse Studies, Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University.

Posted by Elizabeth Hawley at 9:25 AM | Permalink

During March 2009, the IHRC welcomes representatives from the National Archives of Estonia (Rahvusarhiiv) to the University of Minnesota as part of an international partnership promoting preservation of and access to Estonian cultural materials.

Gristel Ramler, Head of Private Archives Services of the State Archives, and Archivist Birgit Nurme will be conducting research in the Estonian Archives in the U.S. Collection at the IHRC. They will conduct research and consult with IHRC staff for four weeks to link the exceptional collection of materials to related holdings in Estonia, Sweden, Germany, and other countries.

IHRC Research Archivist Daniel Necas is supervising the project, which will lead to a digital integration of finding aids for selected materials. The project is part of multi-archive effort to reunite virtually cultural materials created by and about Estonians who migrated during the 20th century.

The partnership is supported by the Immigration History Research Center, the government of Estonia, and the Estonian Archives in the U.S., Inc., of Lakewood, N.J. The Estonian Archives in the U.S., Inc., transferred a large portion of its collections to the IHRC in 2003 while continuing to operate within the Estonian American community.

The IHRC holds the largest collection of Estonian diaspora materials in the world and receives continuing financial support for collections and research through an ongoing relationship with the Estonian Archives in the U.S., Inc. Among the types of funding provided is a graduate fellowship for a University of Minnesota student conducting research in the Estonian American collections of the IHRC.

Posted by Elizabeth Hawley at 8:46 AM | Permalink