February 2017 Archives

Know before You Go: Researching East Asia in US

Part I. East Asian Library and the Gest Collection, Princeton University

Speakers: Dr. Martin Heijdra, Library Director; Ms. Setsuko Noguchi, Japanese Studies Librarian

Time: 12:00 pm-1:00 pm, Friday February 17

Place: Room 218, Sterling Memorial Library

Sponsored by the East Asia Library and Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University. Light lunch will be provided.

It’s #ColorOurCollections week @YaleLibrary! The Arts, Bass, CSSSI and Medical Libraries have each pulled images from Yale collections, and are making them available for you to color. Stop by these libraries to collect the images, and tag your completed artwork on Facebook, Twitter and/or Instagram with #ColorYaleCollections.

All are invited to join us for a talk on Ajami Sources of Knowledge: The Case of the Muridiyya Tradition by Fallou Ngom, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of the African Language Program at Boston University. It will take place on Thursday, February 23rd, in Bass Library LO1.

Muridiyya is an African Islamic tradition dating to 1883, founded by Cheikh Amadou Bamba, and is widespread in Senegal and the Gambia. Ngom's research interests include the interactions between African languages and non-African languages, the adaptations of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa, and Ajami literatures—records of African languages written in Arabic script. He seeks to understand the knowledge buried in African Ajami literatures and the historical, cultural, and religious heritage that has found expression in this manner. His work has appeared in several leading scholarly journals, including African Studies Review, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Language Variation and Change, and International Journal of the Sociology of Language. He is the author of Muslims beyond the Arab World: The Odyssey of Ajami and The Muridiyya (Oxford University Press, 2016).

The talk is sponsored by Yale University Library's SCOPA committee, the Yale African Students Association, and the Yale Muslim Students Association.

This semester, the Sterling Memorial Library Exhibits Corridor highlights the research of four extraordinary Yale students. Maria de las Mercedes Martinez (Trumbull College ‘16), a recent Yale graduate with a degree in  Archaeological Studies, explores how new technology can allow archaeologists to create three-dimensional representations of destroyed historical sites.


Martinez’s display focuses on three monuments destroyed by ISIS in 2015. Located in Palmyra, Syria, these buildings were both historically and culturally significant. Using data and models available in the public domain, Martinez created three-dimensional prints of these structures, revealing details lost in two-dimensional images. Martinez’s project extends beyond archaeological interest, however; rather, she views the new field of digital archaeology as a an opportunity to preserve cultural heritage and provide a path for healing.

Throughout her research process, Martinez has made extensive use of physical artifacts and archaeological books and periodicals available through the Yale Babylonian Collection. She discovered the collection during a search for a specific book. Martinez explained her project to Ulla Kasten, an Associate Curator in the Babylonian Collection, and Kasten offered her a student position in the Collection. Kasten and Agnete Lassen, another Associate Curator, provided significant support and guidance throughout Martinez’s research process.

Martinez’s research is ongoing. Through the Erasmus Mundus program, Martinez will be continuing her studies in digital archaeology and archaeological sciences at the University of Evora in Portugal, the University of Sapienza in Rome, and the University of Aristotle in Thesaloniki. Learn more about Martinez’s research by visiting her display in the SML Exhibition Corridor!

Written by Hilary Purrington

All are welcome to join us on February 14 at 4:30 pm in the Sterling Memorial Lecture Hall for the for the latest lecture in the Arts and Humanities Book Talk series, Ten Restaurants that Changed America by Paul Freedman.

Combining a historian’s rigor with a foodie ’s palate, Ten Restaurants That Changed America reveals how the history of our restaurants reflects nothing less than the history of America itself. Whether charting the rise of our love affair with Chinese food through San Francisco’s fabled The Mandarin, evoking the richness of Italian food through Mamma Leone’s, or chronicling the rise and fall of French haute cuisine through Henri Soulé’s Le Pavillon, food historian Paul Freedman uses each restaurant to tell a wider story of race and class, immigration and assimilation. Freedman also treats us to a scintillating history of the then-revolutionary Schrafft’s, a chain of convivial lunch spots that catered to women, and that bygone favorite, Howard Johnson’s, which pioneered midcentury, on-the-road dining, only to be swept aside by McDonald's. From Delmonico’s to Sylvia’s to Chez Panisse, a daring and original history of dining out in America as told through ten legendary restaurants.

Light refreshments will be available at 4:00 pm with the talk starting at 4:30 pm.