December 2006 Archives

Temple University Libraries recently began electronic subscriptions to titles from the CQ Press. This gives the Temple community access to substantial resources on American government, politics, history, public policy, and current affairs.

One of the sources of particular note is CQ Researcher, a weekly publication that focuses on a balanced presentation of one specific topic per week that follows the format of sections covering:

Introduction to the issue, History of the issue, Recent events surrounding the issue, Where the issue is headed, Maps, graphs, tables, charts, Issue time line, Statements from representatives of opposing positions, Works cited, Readings for further research, Organizations concerned, and Notes on sources.

It makes for an ideal starting point for forming opinions and beginning research, particularly on controversial issues and public policy. Recent topics have been:

Philanthropy in America (12/08/2006)
The New Environmentalism (12/01/2006)
Privacy in Peril (11/17/2006)
Video Games (11/10/2006)
Understanding Islam (11/03/2006)
Middle East Tensions (10/27/2006)
Ecotourism (10/20/2006)
Caring for the Elderly (10/13/2006)

In addition to CQ Researcher, Temple is subscribed to the titles that make up the Political Reference Suite through a common interface that is easy to navigate. The site describes these resources at:

"CQ Congress and the Nation is the signature resource for perspective and analysis of the U.S. Congress. It is the authoritative reference on Congressional trends, actions, and controversies.

CQ Historic Documents Series Online Edition collects more than 2,500 primary sources covering current events around the world from 1972 to present and provides a clear, logical organization and tools for exploring these rich resources.

Comprehensive country profiles chronicling national history, government, and political parties, as well as profiles on intergovernmental organizations, development banks, and the agencies and specialized bodies of the United Nations.

CQ's Politics in America has been called "the ultimate insider's guide to politics" and is an essential resource for readers who want authoritative information on the members of Congress.

Explore the actions and opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court with clear and in-depth analysis of every decision made by the nation's highest court since the 1989-1990 term.

CQ's Vital Statistics on American Politics is a powerful tool for researching statistical data on politics on the United States.

Washington Information Directory Online Edition is the one resource you can trust to navigate the complicated web of official Washington. It's your one-stop source for the right information."

Feel free to contact me for further information about using these resources.

--Rick Lezenby
Librarian Subject Specialist for Political Science
rlfile@temple.edu
215-204-4571

CQ Researcher Online
Great for researching pressing public policy issues that come before Congress. CQ Researcher takes an issue and explores it in depth. Start here on a research paper, or use it for in-class discussion.

CQ Press Political Science Suite
Contains many CQ Press titles that researchers and policy makers are so familiar with. Broken into sections: Congress and the Nation; Historic Document Series; Political Handbook of the World; Politics in America; Supreme Court Yearbook; Vital Statistics on American Politics; Washington Information Directory

CQ Weekly Online
Congressional Quarterly's weekly magazine online back to 1983.

---Fred Rowland

Our Rare Book of the Month discussion series continues on Wednesday, December 13th, at 4 p.m., in the Special Collections Reading Room on the mezzanine of Paley Library.

This month's feature is the Gutenberg Bible, the first book printed from moveable type in the west, circa 1455. You are invited to inspect the Libraries' copy of this rare volume and participate in a discussion led by Tom Whitehead, Head of Special Collections. Tom's discussion will also include progressive printing of the 15th century and the process of hand type composition and printing.

For more information, call the Special Collections Department at 215-204-4571.

Among their many achievements, the ancient Maya of Central America invented, by 250 A.D. at the latest, a fully functional, phonetic writing system. Scribes recorded sophisticated texts containing religious, astronomical, and very likely historical, literary, and even medical content – in other words, an entire system of human thought – in bark-paper books, called codices. Of the many thousands of Maya codices that must once have existed, only four remain. Time, a humid climate, and the zealous, destructive tendencies of one 16th century Spanish friar named Diego de Landa combined to ensure the destruction of the rest. As a librarian and longtime student of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, I’ve often wondered about the nature of ancient Maya libraries. Were scribes, many of whom now appear to have been blood relatives of Maya kings and queens, responsible for safeguarding the codices, as seems likely? Or were a separate group of specialists the librarians? Maya codices were not particularly fragile. If properly cared for they could have lasted for many decades or more. It’s intriguing, then, to think about where codices might have been housed and by what system cataloged and shelved.

Of course it would be naive to expect these and other “burning” questions to be addressed in Mel Gibson’s new film Apocalypto. After all, this is Hollywood not PBS. On one level, most Maya archaeologists and art historians will probably be happy the film got made at all. Discounting J. Lee Thompson’s 1963 Kings of the Sun, Apocalypto is the first Hollywood epic to treat any ancient New World civilization. (One wonders why this is so, since the clash of Worlds we call the Conquest makes Russell Crowe’s Colosseum tour look like a walk in the park.) Certainly Apocalypto’s high production values, including especially its exquisite costuming in conjunction with the sheer joy (see Ardren, below) of hearing the very much alive-and-well Yucatec Maya language spoken on the big screen, are a great enticement. But unfortunately, in the end, Apocalypto is an enticement with very little substance. The fundamental disappointment among academics will likely not involve per se the film’s numerous and rather egregious historical inaccuracies, e.g. the conflation of pre-Classic, Classic, and post-Classic imagery; the absurd Yanomamo-like portrayal of the village Maya as hunter gatherers, unaware of the presence of a grand city less than a day’s march away; or even the anachronistic appearance of outsiders at the end of the film (the events depicted clearly reference the Classic, not the post-Classic). Nor will many scholars truly object to the elites' propensity for extreme violence, although in reality the heart extraction technique used so salaciously by Gibson belongs to a cultural complex that likely originated in the post-Classic Highlands – that is to say, with the progenitors of the Aztec Empire – not with the Lowland Maya. Be that as it may, the Maya were certainly as violent as the next civilization and historical inaccuracies can be written off as artistic license, so neither of these is where the true beef lies.

University of Miami anthropologist Traci Ardren, in a review for Archaeology Online, has articulated the real problem with Apocalypto: “Gibson's efforts at authenticity of location and language might, for some viewers, mask his blatantly colonial message that the Maya needed saving because they were rotten at the core. Using the decline of Classic urbanism as his backdrop, Gibson communicates that there was absolutely nothing redeemable about Maya culture, especially elite culture which is depicted as a disgusting feast of blood and excess.” This is indeed the most disturbing message of the film. As Ardren points out, it is a message that plays directly into a longstanding trope that has been used to subjugate the Maya for centuries. It has also been used to explain away the inestimable loss that resulted from the destruction of New World cultures. One need not fret too much about the passing of a people already decadent and, as depicted in the film, quite literally dying. The historical truth, of course, is much less comforting.

For me, the experience of viewing Apocalpyto was like flipping through an art catalog without bothering to read any of the accompanying text. For while images hold inherent meaning and value, it is upon the text that most observers will rely to provide some explanation for the images shown. Apocalypto has no "text" in this sense, no narrative or story that could help viewers accurately contextualize what they're seeing on the screen. I hope that those who see this film will keep in mind that the Maya did and do have much to offer the world. The ancient Maya civilization was one of the greatest and most accomplished in all human history. The Maya had books and libraries, and so much more.

--David C. Murray

The Urban Archives at Temple University Libraries invite applications for the 2007 George D. McDowell Fellowship. The McDowell Fellowship provides support for two fellowships not to exceed three weeks of research and study in the Urban Archives.

The Fellowship was established in memory of George D. McDowell, the last librarian at the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin newspaper. The Bulletin was founded in 1847 and the final issue was printed January 29, 1982. Shortly after the paper closed, Temple University acquired its entire clipping and photograph libraries. The clippings are an incomparable resource for research on the Philadelphia metropolitan area. They date back to the 1890s but the bulk of the clipping collection covers the period 1920-1981. Most importantly, the clipping collection is indexed by name or broad subject categories. The photographs date back to the early 20th century, with the bulk of the images covering 1940-1981. The photographs are also indexed by name and subject.

The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin Collection is the major resource in the Urban Archives and is complemented by more than 250 manuscript collections, which altogether provides one of the most comprehensive resources documenting the social, economic, and political development of an urban area.

Purpose of the Fellowship

The purpose of the Fellowship is to provide an opportunity for scholars to do research using the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin Collection and produce a scholarly work.

Who can apply

Undergraduate and graduate students, independent scholars, educators, writers, film makers and anyone interested in the history of Philadelphia are invited to apply. Current employees of Temple University are ineligible.

Download an application (Word Document)

Deadline

Application Deadline: February 15, 2007
Review and Selection: by March 15, 2007

Inquiries to: Urban Archives, Temple University Libraries, 1210 W. Berks Street, Philadelphia, PA 19122; email: urban@library.temple.edu ; voice: 215-204-5750; fax: 215-204-3681

-- Margaret Jerrido, Head of Urban Archives

Free coffee and snacks will be available on the main floor of Paley Library on Thursday and Friday evenings, December 7 and 8. Sponsored by the Academic Affairs Committee of Temple Student Government and by the Temple Libraries, the event will begin at 7:00 p.m. and last until the coffee and goodies run out.

Good luck on your finals!

-- Brenna Wilson, chair of TSG's Academic Affairs Committee
-- Carol Lang, Assistant University Librarian

The term "Silk Road" was coined in the nineteenth century by German geographer Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen to describe the informal network of roads that connected China to Central and South Asia, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean. Along its corridors between 200 BCE and 1500 CE flowed trade goods, technology, and weapons, as well as social, cultural and religious ideas. Religions like Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoastrianism, Manicheanism, Judaism, Islam, and Nestorian Christianity all traveled the Silk Road at different times and different places. Buddhism followed this route to China from India and Central Asia.

The Chinese city of Dunhuang was strategically located along the Silk Road on the western frontier of China at the edge of the Taklamakan Desert. It became an important place to stop, rest, pick up provisions, and trade. Between the fourth and fourteenth centuries, thousands of Buddhist cave sanctuaries were carved from the sandstone hills about 25 kilometers southeast of Dunhuang. These caves served the religious and secular purposes of a vibrant Buddhist community. Fortunately hundreds of caves survived intact to the present. Artifacts from the caves include murals, sculptures, paintings, manuscripts, and textiles. After removal of many artifacts to Western countries in the early twentieth century, the Chinese government set up the Dunhuang Research Academy to oversee the study and preservation of the Dunhuang caves.

ARTstor provides thousands of high resolution images of the Dunhuang caves and their contents through its Mellon International Dunhuang Archive collection. MIDA "is the product of a major and ongoing multi-institutional, multi-national effort to create high-quality digital reconstructions of the mural paintings and related art and texts associated with the several hundred Buddhist cave shrines in Dunhuang, China". Images come from the caves themselves, from artifacts found in collections worldwide, and from the Lo Archive at Princeton University.

Each image comes with a complete description that allows for easy access. You can browse the Dunhuang Archive by Object Type, Cave Number, or Contributor. The Advanced Search lets you perform complex keyword searches while limiting your search by Collection and Object Classification. I've created a few Image Groups below to give you a small taste of what's in this collection. You will have to disable your popup blockers to view the images.

Image Groups
Dunhuang Buddha paintings
Dunhuang Bodhisattva, Buddha sculptures
More Dunhuang Bodhisattva, Buddha sculptures

Other Links
Historic Maps of China (click on the timeline to see the borders of China during each dynasty)
Buddhist Art in China
Buddhist Art in Central Asia
Buddhist Art in India
Silk Road (saved search from Oxford Reference Online)

---Fred Rowland