This page identifies the materials brought to your RCAH 202 class visit on February 8 or 9, 2023. Some were unique artworks, while others were representative of a genre. For the latter, there's help finding more pieces.
Andreas Vesalius De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body, 1543) was the first modern work on human anatomy.
Vesalius intersects with your course topic in two interesting ways:
Special Collections has a 1555 edition of De Humani Corporis Fabrica (brought to class.) An annotated translation into English is also available.
Epitaphs are the inscriptions on grave markers. In the 1700s and 1800s collections of epitaphs were common.
Brought to class: A Collection of Epitaphs and Monumental Inscriptions... (1806)
More collections of epitaphs in Special Collections
Photo from takomabibelot on Flickr. Creative Commons license.
Artisans of the fine press movement idealized the book aesthetics of the Middle Ages. Their work can also be understood as part of the larger Arts & Crafts movement. The Kelmscott Press, founded by William Morris, was the most admired practitioner.
Brought to class:
A haggadah (plural haggadot) is a book or booklet containing the service for a seder, the ritual meal for the Jewish holiday of Passover.
Special Collections has about a dozen haggadot that were acquired and cataloged individually.
The Sylvia B. Kruger Haggadah Collection includes 80 haggadot, from the 1920s to 2006. Box 3 of this collection was brought to class.
Lev Raphael is an American writer of Jewish heritage who has published both fiction and non-fiction.
His book My Germany (2009) concerns his parents' experiences during the Holocaust and his own feelings about German history and culture.
Raphael's papers are held in MSU Special Collections. Files concerning My Germany are in box 9 (folders 17-20) and box 9.5 (folders 1-33.)
Brought to class: box 35, folder 22.5, with notes & drafts for a presentation at the Yom Hashoah Holocaust memorial service at Congregation Shaarey Zedek, East Lansing, 1994.
Here's the finding aid (archival term for a collection inventory) for the Lev Raphael papers. Click Collection Organization for an outline of the holdings.
Seen in class: Frances Hodges Receipt Book, 1834
More manuscript cookbooks in Special Collections, from oldest to newest:
Art Spiegelman's classic graphic memoir of his father's experiences in the Holocaust. Copies in Special Collections:
Also available as an ebook (MSUnet logon required)
Volume 1 of Maus (My Father Bleeds History) is also available on 2-hour loan at the Main Library Circulation Desk, call number D810.J4 S643 1986. (Longer hours than the Special Collections reading room.)
Brought to class:
More zombies in Special Collections:
Brought to class:
Extinction Scares Me, by Wael Taleb (2016)
I Listen to the Snow Shrouding Me Forever, by Christine Kermaire (2010)
Pansy's Hexagons, by Elsi Vassdal Ellis (2015)
[Scrapbook of botanical illustrations], 1886
Still, by Jenna Rodriguez (2015?)
Brought to class: Hunger of the Heart: Communion at the Wall (1995)
More on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Special Collections