10 April 2025
Two New Eccles Fellowships for Creative Practitioners!
The British Library is well known as a scholarly research library holding millions of printed books, archives and manuscripts. Less known are the vast resources in a wide array of formats and from all over the world, available to artists and creatives looking to find new sources of inspiration for their practice, and new spaces to think and research in.
The Eccles Institute for the Americas and Oceania is therefore excited to announce two new fellowship opportunities for UK-based creative practitioners to immerse themselves in the British Library’s Americas collections.
The first fellowship offers a chance for a UK-based creative with an interest in research-based practice (such as a print- or zine-maker, graphic designer, illustrator or writer) to explore the British Library’s collections of popular print and political ideas from the Americas (including pamphlets, broadsides, comics, zines and ephemera), and to work with one of London’s leading print studios to create a new body of work. If you’re someone interested in an aspect of the Americas’ ideological histories, currents and futures, and fascinated by how materials and design, images and text can work together to carry political meaning, this might be the fellowship for you. For more information on this fellowship, key dates and how to apply, please refer to the Popular Print Fellowship Brief.
The second fellowship is an opportunity for a UK-based lens-based artist (such as a photographer, filmmaker or content-creator) to explore the British Library’s collections of photographic material of and from Latin-America and the Caribbean (including travelogues, photo books, exhibition catalogues, magazines, newspapers and other photo-related media). If you are interested in interrogating how these regions, their peoples and diasporas have been represented and collected, this fellowship offers a great opportunity to incorporate these critical reflections into a new body of work. In addition to enhanced curatorial support to explore the collections, the fellow will be mentored by leading photographer and scholar of Caribbean and Latin American visual culture, James Clifford Kent. For more information on this fellowship, key dates and how to apply, please refer to the Photography Fellowship Brief.
The deadline for applications for both fellowships is the 2 June 2025 at 10:00 and the fellowships will start in September 2025.
03 April 2025
Photobooks and the Creative Journey: An Interview with James Clifford Kent
The Eccles Institute nurtures relationships with creative practitioners through the Eccles Institute & Hay Festival Global Writer’s Award, our Visiting and Creative Fellowship programmes and our public engagement activities. An artist we work closely with is photographer James Clifford Kent, who has been using the British Library both as a source of inspiration and a creative workspace for many years.
When did you start coming to the British Library? What brought you here?
Studying at the University of London, I regularly visited the Senate House Library and discovered photobooks there but quickly moved on to the British Library in search of books that were harder to find. It became my go-to place for developing ideas for creative projects—somewhere I associated with getting stuff done.
London is an exciting place, and I’m easily distracted, but I was struck by the peace and quiet of working in the various Reading Rooms, and that helped me to focus. I’d leave my phone in a locker and found I could be much more productive. It did feel like there was a world of knowledge available to you and that sense of discovery was exciting! You’d order some books, leave the Reading Room for a coffee, and they’d be waiting for you on your return.
It felt very different to libraries I’d visited growing up—where you’d browse and see what they have on the shelves. Here you could be specific and go down the rabbit hole exploring a particular area of interest, and the resources were all there at your fingertips. I remember finding books I’d only ever read about that were considered some of the greatest photobooks of all time, such as A La Plaza con Fidel by Cuban photographer and cinematographer Mario García Joya, also known as ‘Mayito’ (BL shelfmark: Cup.24.q.14).1 Just holding the books—getting properly immersed in their pages, design and layout—was completely different from seeing them online, and it brought them to life. Those early experiences with books shaped my own ambitions and I set off on my own journey determined to make pictures that would eventually sit alongside some of those great works.
That’s what initially brought me to the British Library, but I kept returning with various projects. I wrote my book, Aesthetics and the Revolutionary City (Palgrave, 2019) in Humanities 1, and I’m certain it wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for having that space to work. But it’s not always about being able to focus—one of the biggest draws about the British Library is being surrounded by people working on all these incredible projects, including some really well-known artists and writers. I’ll never forget looking up and seeing the late, great Benjamin Zephaniah and feeling properly inspired!
How do you use the Library's collections and how have they informed your practice?
A friend recently described the photobook as the purest form of photography, and I think that’s true. It’s how I first found my way into making pictures —through dusty, battered books by photographers like Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, and Walker Evans. There are places all over London where I draw inspiration from photobooks — from The British Library to the Bookstore at The Photographers’ Gallery, and labs like Photofusion and Rapid Eye. Visiting these places not only means developing ideas/projects but also staying up to date with new work, making new connections and keeping in touch with the community.
I’ve found that the British Library can be all these things and more—a creative space that I’ve often described to artist friends as a sort-of giant mood board. It’s easy now to capture ideas and inspiration with your smartphone camera — snapping pictures of books, pages — and you don’t need a lot of time. You might have a huge stack of books in front of you, but you can quickly go through them, capture what you need, and expand your creative archive.
Over the years I’ve created a photo journal. I’m a visual person, so it’s been helpful to refer to books I’ve consulted at the Library. These are sometimes pictures of the books (or videos of me turning the pages) in situ, alongside my notebooks full of scribbles. These pictures transport me back to the research I’ve done for different projects and remind me what’s inspired me along the way.
I’m currently working with GOST Books on my first photobook and I’m looking at more books than ever! The first thing I did when I began working with the GOST team was visit the British Library and take out all their books. Carving out time for more focused work (planning, writing and editing photographs) has become increasingly difficult. But the Library gives you a way to shut out the noise and step away from the hustle and bustle—it’s like a little oasis in the middle of London.
Can you describe a typical day for you in the British Library Reading Rooms? And what is your advice for any creative person considering coming to the Library?
Visiting the British Library is an important part of my week and people know they’ll usually find me there developing projects on research days (when I’m not lecturing, taking pictures, working in the lab etc). I know a lot of people that work at the Library—some have followed my projects from inception through to completion and in many ways they’re an important part of my creative journey.
But for some people, libraries can feel exclusive and/or restrictive, and I’m passionate about exploring how we can shift perceptions around space like the British Library, making them more open and accessible. There’s potential to break down barriers and create a more inclusive environment for learning and discovery. I always say that for people unfamiliar with the space, it helps to have someone guide you. The restrictions don’t seem as intimidating when you understand how things work and that’s when you begin making connections! For artists, it’s a great way for exploring connections and doing research—you’ll always stumble upon things you weren’t expecting.
In an AI-driven digital era, books feel more important than ever. But I’ve found that my students don’t engage with physical books like before, so I’ve started taking photobooks to lectures—big stacks of them—so students can properly immerse themselves in them in the way that was intended.
Any favourite collection items or exciting finds you’d like to share?
There are several comprehensive volumes on the development of the photobook, including Martin Parr and Gerry Badger’s The Photobook: A History trilogy (BL shelfmark: m05/.17063), and those are a good place to start.2 But the British Library also has an incredible collection of magazines and journals.
For my recent project ¡No hay más na’! (There’s nothing left, 2022–)—focusing on the challenges faced by Cubans amid a worsening humanitarian crisis—I began researching the work of British photographers who’d documented marginalised communities at home and abroad. This helped me to think about ethics and positionality, specifically insider–outsider perspectives.
I found a photo essay by Colin Jones published in the Sunday Times Magazine—later published as The Black House by Colin Jones (BL shelfmark: LC.31.b.3706)—which documented the lives of young black people at Harmabee (a North London hostel), which served as both a refuge and a site of racial identity formation amid societal alienation and prejudice in 1970s London.3 The work is really powerful—and I found myself down the rabbit hole again. It felt like I was having a sort of imaginary dialogue with this celebrated photojournalist as I thought about everything from storytelling to sequencing.
There have been lots of moments like this at the British Library and I’m very grateful for the way they’ve shaped my practice.
References
- Fidel Castro, A la plaza con Fidel: Un ensayo fotográfico de Mayito. La Habana: Instituto del Libro, 1970. (Cup.24.q.14)
- Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, The Photobook: A History. London: Phaidon, 2004-2014. (Vol. 1: m05/.17063; Vol. 2: LC.31.b.2932. & m06/.42511; Vol. 3: LC.31.b.13620)
- Colin Jones, The Black House. Munich; London: Prestel, 2006. (LC.31.b.3706 & fm06/.1541.)
James Clifford Kent (@jamescliffordkent) is based in London and lectures on visual culture at Royal Holloway, University of London: https://www.jamescliffordkent.com.
10 February 2025
Remembering Velma Pollard
Velma Pollard, the Jamaican cultural activist, educator, linguist and writer, passed on to the realm of the Ancestors on Saturday 1st February 2025. The Caribbean literary community is in mourning for this daughter of the region who was passionate in her love of the Jamaican nation language/patwa, and Caribbean culture in general.
Both Pollard and her sister Erna Brodber (social activist and writer) were brought up immersed in an understanding
of the heritage and value of indigenous and traditional knowledge.
Winning the Casa de las Americas Prize in 1992, for the novella Karl, Velma Pollard continued to build on an impressive body of creative writing, with five collections of poetry and three short story collections. Her book Dread Talk: The Language of Rastafari became a instant classic and many others are staples of the Caribbean literary canon.
Her impactful research focus on Caribbean women writers, Creole languages emanating from the Anglophone Caribbean, as well as the language of Caribbean literature, would find Pollard bringing forth texts like 'Anansesem - A Collection of Folk Tales, Legends and Poems for Juniors', 'Considering Woman' and 'From Jamaican Creole to Standard English: A Handbook for Teachers'.
The British Library holds titles about and by Velma Pollard. The following are some examples of what can be accessed:
Erna Brodber and Velma Pollard: Folklore and Culture in Jamaica by Violet Harrington Bryan YC.2023.a.841
Karl: Monologue - in the mind of - a man! by Velma Pollard YK.2009.a.31871
The Best Philosophers I Know Can't Read or Write by Velma Pollard YK.2008.a.5992
Anansesem: A collection of folk tales, legends and poems by Velma Pollard YD.2005.a.4795
From Jamaican Creole to Standard English: A Handbook for Teachers by Velma Pollard YA.2001.b.1763
Dread Talk: The Language of Rastafari by Velma Pollard YA.1994.a.18156
Go well Ms. Pollard and Thank You! May You be in the joyous company of the Ancestors.
Nicole-Rachelle Moore
Curator, Contemporary Caribbean Collections
07 January 2025
Delayed Promises and Steadfast Dreams: Mapping Out a Young Black Loyalist’s Fictional Journey
Monique Hayes is a historical fiction author, poet, and screenwriter from Maryland. She was a 2023 Eccles Institute Visiting Fellow at the British Library.
As an author who often utilizes young adult protagonists, I have to think about what passions and promises propel my characters to act. Will they ultimately get what they want? My novel-in-progress Sally Forth focuses on two enslaved brothers with disparate dreams and journeys, who go boldly into the Revolutionary War when they’re promised freedom for their service. While younger brother Brook’s path as a Continental Army soldier comes with difficult challenges, his older brother Albie, a Black Loyalist, goes down a rockier road full of weak promises, debilitating hardships, and dehumanizing moments. It becomes increasingly hard for Albie to get what he wants and deserves.
My Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship gave me access to rich resources so I could flesh out Albie’s journey, from his first time holding a uniform emblazoned with “Liberty to Slaves” in Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment to his days of crippling doubt in Nova Scotia and then his struggle to survive in Sierra Leone.
My primary goal during my Visiting Fellowship was to unearth as much information as I could about the Black Loyalist settlement of Birchtown and the Freetown colony in Sierra Leone. Unlike his brother who craves education, Albie’s passion is land ownership. He’s denied this as a slave in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and brightens at the promise of getting his own land in Birchtown after he emigrates to Nova Scotia. My eyes were truly opened by the British Library’s holdings. There were enlightening eyewitness accounts and secondary sources detailing how much the 1,521 free Blacks of Birchtown were disenchanted by the poor soil, the delays in receiving their land allotments, the lack of food and housing supplies, and the prejudice that forced them to take low-paying labour jobs.
The most stunning account came from a white landowner’s grandfather: “They just dug a hole in the ground and put a little packed roof over it…There was a small trapdoor in one side of the roof and the negroes entered the house by dropping right down through. And that was the black man’s home - a hole in the ground with a roof over the hole.”1 Others erected crude huts, but the Black settlers often received lumber and tools after their white counterparts. It became much easier for me to compose scenes focused on Albie dealing with these injustices and waiting years for his longed-for land.
Inefficient surveyors and harsh winter conditions frustrated the Black Birchtown settlers as well. Some surveys for Black settlers were halted when new white Loyalists arrived looking for land. Other land allotments guaranteed to the Black Loyalists were taken away and used for other purposes.
I particularly gravitated to a passage about Black Loyalist Caesar Perth who went to his 34-acre lot for the first time, only to find “a rocky outcropping that was not suitable for crops.”2 This was what Perth and 183 men received after several years of patience. I was heartbroken and inspired to craft a scene between Albie and Perth, arriving to see the “rewards” for their service, another crushing blow years after the loss at Yorktown.
After this devastating realization, Albie accepts the offer Thomas Peters gave to nearly 1,200 Black Nova Scotians to emigrate to Sierra Leone in 1792. According to naturalist Henry Smeathman, the land in Sierra Leone was a “suitable location”: “An opportunity so advantageous may perhaps never be offered to them again; for they and their posterity may enjoy perfect freedom.”3
However, that freedom was not at all perfect. Studying Mary Louise Clifford’s From Slavery to Freetown allowed me to truly see the major distrust between abolitionist John Clarkson and Peters, the negative influence the Sierra Leone Company had over the budding colony, and the emasculation of Peters over time.
Still, I was very moved when reading about the emigrants’ experiences, including the eldest emigrant that made the journey funded by the Sierra Leone Company. The one-hundred- and four-year-old woman, possibly the mother of famous preacher Cato Perkins, was determined to go so “that she may lay her bones in her native country.”4 Albie is just as eager to connect with his African past and start a family in the newly formed Freetown.
What most surprised and inspired me was Thomas Peters’ downfall during the early days of Freetown. I was well aware that Sierra Leone’s intense rainy season and various illnesses plagued the settlers, but Peters’ life was more complex than I thought. Former Black pioneer Peters went from the settlers’ preferred leader to an outcast among his peers due to the machinations of Clarkson and other officials.
Orphan Albie views Peters as a father figure. He admires Peters, who protested when authorities delayed land distribution and failed to let the colonists govern themselves. Peters’ sudden death after being accused of theft is an event neither the settlers nor Albie are prepared for, and it’s a haunting historical example of what a life of dashed dreams can do.
I’m incredibly grateful for the Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship which fulfilled one of my dreams to study these materials in-depth so I could give Albie a more historically accurate and meaningful journey. As he pursues his passions, Albie’s heart and spirit are tested on and beyond American shores, and I hope his story finds its way into the hearts of many readers.
References
1. "Birchtown: The History and the Material Culture of an Expatriate African-American Community", by Laird Navin and Stephen Davis. Chapter 4 of Moving On: Black Loyalists in the Afro-Atlantic World, ed. by John Pulis (London: Garland, 2013), p. 72. Shelfmark Y.C. 2003. a. 12259.
2. Mary Louise Clifford. From Slavery to Freetown (London: MacFarland, 1999) p. 60. Shelfmark Y.C. 1999. b. 6067
3. Henry Smeathman, Plan of a settlement to be made near Sierra Leone, on the Grain Coast of Africa (London: 1786). Shelfmark B.496.(1).
4. “The Black Loyalists in Sierra Leone” by Wallace Brown. Chapter 6 of Moving On: Black Loyalists in the Afro-Atlantic World, ed. by John Pullis (London: Garland,1999), p. 109. Y.C. 2003. a. 12259.
10 September 2024
Moving Texts and Individuals between New England and England in the Mid-Seventeenth Century
Weiao Xing (PhD in History, University of Cambridge, 2023, @WeiaoX) is a visiting postdoctoral fellow at the Global Encounters Platform and Institute of Modern History, University of Tübingen in Germany. He works on cultural and literary history in early modern English-Indigenous and French-Indigenous encounters and was a 2022 Eccles Institute Visiting Fellow at the British Library.
Among the items I consulted at the British Library as an Eccles Institute Visiting Fellow was a 215-folio manuscript entitled ‘State papers of John Thurloe, Secretary of State, 1650–1658’ (Add MS4156).1 Its compiler, John Thurloe, made use of his intelligence network across Europe, playing a pivotal role in domestic politics and foreign affairs during the Interregnum (1649–1660).2 Within the manuscript, on its second folio, rests a copy of a letter that has traversed the Atlantic. Dated 2 October 1651, the original letter was sent from Oliver Cromwell to John Cotton, the esteemed pastor of the Boston church in New England. ‘I receaued yours a few days sithence’ [sic], as Cromwell commenced his letter in a continuing dialogue, the circulation of texts intertwined political and religious circumstances in England and New England.
This letter concisely conveyed the prevailing political situation in England. Just one month prior to its writing, the Battle of Worcester, a major event at the end of the English Civil War (1642–1651), witnessed the Parliamentarians defeating a predominantly Scottish Royalist force led by Charles II. In his letter, Cromwell celebrated this victory with Cotton – when Charles II and his ‘malignant party’ invaded England, ‘the Lord rained upon them such snares’.3 Moreover, Cromwell earnestly sought religious support from Cotton, emphasising the need for prayers ‘as much as ever’ given the recent successes, or ‘such mercies’ in his own words. This letter affirms Cotton’s interest in English politics and his significance among Puritans in England during the Interregnum.4
The transatlantic movement of texts and individuals unveils intricate connections within the political and religious realms of England and New England. In the summer of 1651, five Massachusetts ministers, including John Cotton, corresponded with their fellow ministers in England.5 They defended the embargo placed by the colony’s General Court on a theological book entitled The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption […], authored by William Pynchon, one of the founding figures of the colony.6 Pynchon had managed to publish and sell his book in London in 1650 while residing in the colony. At the British Library, a copy of this work, annotated with ‘June 2d’, is under the shelf-marked E.606.(3.). It was acquired from ‘Thomason Tracts’, a collection of imprints dated from 1640 to 1661, curated by the London-based bookseller George Thomason (c. 1602–1666). The provenance of this copy suggests that Pynchon’s work, albeit heretical in New England, entered the intellectual spheres amid the political upheaval in England. Facing religious tensions and sanctions, Pynchon relocated to England in 1652 and continued publishing books that reflected his theological views. Pynchon to some extent maintained his ‘New England’ identity; he identified himself as ‘late of New England’ in his The Meritorious Price reprinted in 1655.7
Between the 1640s and the 1660s, a convergence of political, religious, and economic motives prompted numerous English settlers in New England to return home. While this statement articulated by William Sachse in 1948 holds merit, it does not fully alter the prevalent presumption of seventeenth-century transatlantic migrations as one-way journeys from Europe to the Americas.8 Many returnees from New England embarked on careers in England while maintaining their transatlantic connections. Sir George Downing exemplifies this pattern. As an ambassador in the Hague from 1657 to 1665, he facilitated England’s acquisition of New Amsterdam from Dutch settlers – in 1642, he had previously graduated from Harvard College in its inaugural graduate cohort.9 The tapestry of transatlantic migration is also woven from ordinary lives. In the prologue of her monograph Pilgrims, Susan Moore zooms in on Susanna Bell (d. 1672), an English merchant’s wife who crossed the Atlantic twice. Bell’s testimony, published in London upon her death, encapsulates her experiences, rhetoric, and mentalities.10
Within the British Library’s holdings, a myriad of manuscripts unfolds stories of texts and individuals crossing the Atlantic. Egerton MS 2519, for instance, encompasses correspondence and papers of Samuel Desborough (or Disbrowe), who assumed the role of the Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland from 1657 onwards.11 Desborough, after setting off for New England in 1639 and settling in Guilford, New Haven, returned to England in 1650 amid the Civil War before relocating to Scotland.12 In this manuscript, on folios 10 and 11, a letter dated 1654 from Guilford by William Leete appears (see Fig. 1).13 Leete, who would later become the governor of New Haven and Connecticut colonies, shared recent affairs in New England with Desborough, particularly his operation of Desborough’s colonial estate and several settlers who returned to England. This letter epitomises multiple connections between New England and England, ranging from personal careers and businesses to colonial affairs. As Moore suggests, it underscores the ‘delicate relation’ between those who remained in the settlements and those who returned to England.14 Additionally, as the letter tells, Desborough had addressed Cromwell, expressing his concern about potential threats from the Dutch on the settlement. Therefore, such transatlantic movements of texts and individuals repositioned overseas affairs of New England within the scope of domestic and European politics.
For the New Englanders who made the voyage back to England during the mid-seventeenth century, their ‘American’ identities were ill-defined as they ‘returned’ to their careers and lives in England, but many maintained connections with the settlements. Their experiences, in both New England and England, contribute to our comprehension of their engagement in and perceptions of transatlantic travels, mobility, Puritanism, colonisation, and English politics.
Notes
1. John Thurloe, ‘State Papers of John Thurloe, Secretary of State, 1650–1658 (Especially 1654–1655)’ (1658), Add MS 4156, British Library, https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_4156.
2. Timothy Venning, ‘Thurloe, John (Bap. 1616, d. 1668)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2008, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/27405.
3. In his letter, Cromwell enclosed a short narrative (possibly available on 26 September), see C. H. Firth and R. S. Rait, eds., ‘Table of Acts: 1651’, in Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660 (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1911), British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-interregnum/lxxxii-lxxxvii.
4. John Cotton, The Correspondence of John Cotton, ed. Sargent Bush (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 458–61.
5. Cotton, 454–58.
6. William Pynchon, The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption, Iustification, &c. Cleering It from Some Common Errors (London: Printed by J.M. for George Whittington, and James Moxon, and are to be sold at the blue Anchor in Corn-hill neer the Royall Exchange, 1650); Michael P. Winship, ‘Contesting Control of Orthodoxy among the Godly: William Pynchon Reexamined’, The William and Mary Quarterly 54, no. 4 (1997): 795–822.
7. William Pynchon, A Farther Discussion of That Great Point in Divinity the Sufferings of Christ (The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption [...]) (London: Printed for the Author, and are to bee sold at the Signe of the three Lyons in Corn-hill, over against the Conduit, 1655).
8. William L. Sachse, ‘The Migration of New Englanders to England, 1640–1660’, The American Historical Review 53, no. 2 (1948): 1640–1660.
9. Jonathan Scott, ‘Downing, Sir George, First Baronet (1623–1684)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2008, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/7981.
10. Susan Hardman Moore, Pilgrims: New World Settlers & the Call of Home (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 1–15; Susanna Bell, The Legacy of a Dying Mother to Her Mourning Children Being the Experiences of Mrs. Susanna Bell, Who Died March 13, 1672 (London: Printed and are to be sold by John Hancock, Senior and Junior at the three Bibles in Popes-Head Alley in Cornhill, 1673).
11. Samuel Desborough, ‘Correspondence and Papers of Samuel Disbrowe, or Desborough, of Elsworth, Co. Cambridge, Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland, 1651/2–1660’ (1660), Egerton MS 2519, British Library, http://searcharchives.bl.uk/permalink/f/1r5koim/IAMS032-001983482.
12. Susan Hardman Moore, Abandoning America: Life-Stories from Early New England (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2013), 90–91.
13. Bruce P. Stark, ‘Leete, Williamunlocked (1613–16 April 1683)’, in American National Biography, 2000, https://doi.org/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.0100511.
14. Hardman Moore, Abandoning America, 91.
27 September 2023
On the Trail of the Contemporary Singing Voice
Diane Hughes is a Professor in Vocal Studies and Music at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, and was a 2022 Eccles Centre Visiting Fellow at the British Library.
My research as an Eccles Centre Visiting Fellow was undertaken at the British Library during April to May, 2023. I arrived with a long list of sources to examine - recordings, historical references, and a range of interviews. I am passionate about music and singing. The aim of my current project is to document the evolution of the contemporary singing voice and its intersection with, and the influences of, American and British popular singing. This includes the conceptualisation and contexts of contemporary singing that centre around questions of voice and identity and sociocultural perspectives of song and of singing. It also involves diverse perspectives of contemporary voice and related technologies.
At the British Library, I discovered and listened to first-hand accounts related to crooning and orchestrated singing, along with more contemporary types of singing.1 This furthered my understanding of the historical significance of the musical arranger, of different recording technologies, and of various creative intents and interests. As recording technologies adapted to enable singers to be isolated from surrounding musicians, or in recording sound booths, more nuanced styles of singing emerged.2 Such nuanced audibility is often attributed to the communicative capabilities of “the microphone”, however, my research identified that this equally related to artistic objectives and to modes of audience engagement.
Several reflective accounts by touring and established singers, and by musical arrangers, provided detailed information on specific career trajectories.3 These accounts also contained commentary on changing musical styles, vocal delivery and on individual artistry. They assisted in contributing to a timeline of why and where transition points in contemporary singing occurred–broadly involving the strident sounds of vaudeville, the smoother crooning styles, the resonant singing of orchestrated standards, the personally expressive singer-songwriters, the stylistic influenced revival of skiffle, the innovative vocalisms of jazz, and the contemporary characteristics of rock ‘n’ roll, rock, and pop. I found it exciting to further explore these transitions through “captured” singing in broadcasts and recordings, through to singing in “live” performances.
During my research, I uncovered several unexpected sources. These related to mid-20th century definitions of popular music,4 and pedagogical publications on contemporary singing.5 In 1950, a renowned pedagogue of her time, Miriam Spier, offered aspiring singers the salient advice to use “the best artists as your guides, analyze and experiment; do not merely imitate”.6 This exploratory approach is still relevant today and has much to do with the evolutionary nature of contemporary singing styles and sounds. Other sources alluded to the progression and succession of popular styles, where rock ‘n’ roll/rock was hypothesised as having “the characteristics of a temporary craze”7 or where the development of contemporary jazz singing followed an exploration of vocal sounds and words.8 Many sources referenced the popularity of singing in relation to individual or communal listening and, as such, the value of singing clearly extended beyond the performer to their audience.
The evolution of the jazz and popular singing voice in Britain and the USA is complex and multilayered. Each is highly influenced by creativity, technologies, sounds, styles, and people, and will adapt and evolve as vocal exploration continues.
My sincere thanks to the Eccles Centre at the British Library for the opportunity to conduct this research and to the librarians at the Sound Archive for their assistance during my visit.
References
1. Stan Britt Collection. Sound and Moving Image Catalogue. This is a collection of interviews with a range of jazz and popular music performers undertaken by Stan Britt during the latter part of the 20th century.
2. See, for example, Peggy Lee interviewed by Stan Britt (23/07/1977). Stan Britt Collection. Sound and Moving Image Catalogue. C1645/238.
3. Stan Britt Collection.
4. Peter Gammond and Peter Clayton, A Guide to Popular Music. London: Phoenix House, 1960. British Library shelfmark: General Reference Collection 2737.c.3. Music Collections REF M.R.Ref. 781.63.
5. Frank Sinatra in collaboration with John Quinlan, (c1946), Tips on Popular Singing. For the British Empire (excluding Canada and Australasia) and the whole of Europe, the property of Peter Maurice Music Co. Limited. Music Collections VOC/1946/SINATRA; Miriam Spier, (1950), The Why and How of Popular Singing: A Modern Guide for Vocalists. New York: Edward. B. Marks Music Corporation, [1950]. British Library shelfmark: General Reference Collection 7889.b.43.
6. Spier, p.41
7. Gammond and Clayton, p.177.
8. Norma Winstone [interview] (1994). Oral History of Jazz in Britain. C122/206-C122/207.
13 September 2023
Machado de Assis, Portinari and the Bilingual Brazilian Book Club at the British Library
Rafael Pereira do Rego is the Interim Programme Manager and Area Specialist at the Eccles Centre for American Studies
It was a great pleasure for the Eccles Centre to welcome the Brazilian Bilingual Book Club to the British Library during the celebration of their 100th edition on Saturday 15th July. The Embassy of Brazil has been running the Book Club for the past nine years with a wide network of international members and friends. This special edition at the Library was an opportunity to deepen ties between our two institutions and to celebrate and invite discussion and reflection on Brazilian literature and culture through the Library’s collections.
The star of the event discussed during the Book Club – and for which we brought a special edition for the show-and-tell presentation – was the classic novella O Alienista (translated in English as ‘The Psychiatrist’ or ‘The Alienist). Originally published in 1882, by the illustrious Brazilian writer Machado de Assis, it is a wonderful short satirical work with an elegant and concise style centred on Dr Bacamarte, an alienist – the designation of psychiatrist in the nineteenth century, from the French ‘aliéniste’ – and his scientific experiments in the town of Itaguai, near Rio de Janeiro. There he established the Casa Verde (Green House) – a cross between a 19th century prototype of a psychiatric asylum and a scientific laboratory – to conduct experiential studies on the human mind. Dr. Bacamarte used his scientific power to define which denizens of the town should be confined to the asylum according to his shifting ideas of normality. As the narrative unfolds, the alienist gets lost in a madness of his own making. O Alienista was included recently in Machado de Assis: 26 Stories (2019) translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson, which among other translations of the title, are available at the British Library.
Machado de Assis is the most celebrated classic Brazilian author, so it is natural that the Library’s holdings will encompass some of his works, but it was very exciting to see the scope and depth of our collections reflecting the interest that his books have attracted from the time of their first publications in Britain. There are over 300 copies of various works by and about Machado de Assis, including some of his earliest works acquired in the nineteenth century, many of which are rare volumes. Nadia Kerecuk, the creator and convenor of the Book Club, very kindly made a list of all of our holdings available. For instance, the British Library holds the first edition of one of his most famous novels Dom Casmurro published in 1889, and the poetry collections Chrysalidas (1866), and Phalenas (1869). In addition, we have some beautiful editions including the 1948 version of the novella with illustrations of one of my favourite Brazilian artists, Cândido Portinari1.
Last year when I visited my hometown, Rio, there was a lovely and comprehensive exhibition at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil providing an overview of the various facets and languages explored by Portinari – and including some of the illustrations that are present in the selected 1948 edition, as well as from other illustrated editions of Machado de Assis’ Memoria Postumas de Braz Cubas and Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote de la Mancha.
Both Machado de Assis and Cândido Portinari had this incredible capacity to capture the human condition and Brazilian-ness in ways that feel both universal and culturally specific. Portinari was a keen enthusiast of Machado de Assis’ work and both lived in one of the neo-colonial elegant houses in Cosme Velho, a bucolic neighborhood in Rio and perhaps one of my favourite areas of the city. They came from a rather deprived childhood but with unwavering talent and determination, came to represent big names in literature and visual arts.
The 1948 edition was sponsored by the bibliophile and executive Raymundo Ottoni de Castro Maya (1894-1968). It is part of a wider collection named Os Cem Bibliófilos do Brasil (100 Bibliophiles of Brazil) named after a bibliophilic society created by Castro Maya. The society was composed of a hundred personalities of the time, among intellectuals, executives and society figures, which met annually to produce and publish works by great authors of Brazilian literature, illustrated by notable visual artists. In 30 years, they published names such as Machado de Assis, Guimarães Rosa, Jorge Amado, José Lins do Rego, Lima Barreto and Mário de Andrade, with their literary work illustrated by major visual artists such as Di Cavalcanti, Portinari, Iberê Camargo, Cícero Dias, Carybé, among others.
The Brazilian media tycoon Roberto Marinho was part of the select society, alongside names that might be very familiar to Brazilians, such as Walter Moreira Salles, Maria do Carmo de Melo Franco Nabuco, Horácio Klabin, Gilberto Chateaubriand, Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho, Lineu de Paula Machado, D. Pedro Gastão de Orléans and Bragança, Celso Lafer, Clemente Mariani and Niomar Moniz Sodré Bittencourt.
The artisanal publication of these beautifully illustrated editions was an important initiative, which resulted in the publication of authors and artists portraying Brazil in a variety of themes and motifs. At the same time, it is revealing of the Eurocentric references of Brazilian elites, importing values, techniques and cultural codes to the ‘developing’ country. Castro Maya based this collection on European publishing trends, especially from France where he lived. The publications were generally composed by hand and printed on manual presses. The paper had great quality specifications with rough texture and watermark, supplied by French manufacturers. Many books were engraved with different techniques such as etching, dry point, xylography and lithography.
Each edition took about a year to be completed and each member of the society would receive their own exclusive copy with their names identified and within loose sheets, so the binding could be personalised according to the owners’ tastes. Print runs were limited to about 120 copies. The Society launches took place at gala dinners at Rio’s most exclusive Country Club – established by British executives in 1916 and since then the meeting point of the crème de la crème of carioca society – when auctions were held of the original illustrations not included in the final edition. I was very pleased to find out that the British Library has 20 published copies of the collection Os Cem Bibliófilos do Brasil! Rare and exclusive copies of the beautiful pas-des-deux between classic authors of Brazilian literature and notable visual artists. I hope you can explore more the collection available at the British Library.
After the show-and-tell presentation, O Alienista was specifically addressed during the hybrid meeting of the Brazilian Bilingual Book Club, with members joining from overseas via MS Teams. Nadia Kerecuk prepared a historical background of the publication and a series of questions to direct the engaging discussion with the members of this successful bilingual and bibliophile ‘society’ with the welcomed accompaniment of delicious snacks and wine. Notwithstanding the indisputable differences between the Country Club in Rio and the British Library in London, we could say this was an exclusive gala afternoon!
Notes:
1To learn more about Candido Portinari’s work please check the five-volume catalogue raisonné available at the British Library organised by his son Joao Candido Portinari as part of the major Portinari Project which has the aim of cataloguing thousands of paintings, drawings and printings, as well digitally processing images and oral history outputs. Some of the audiovisual content of this project is also available via the online platform here.
08 August 2023
Cold War Whiteness: Literature and Race between Canada and Czechoslovakia
Františka Schormová is a post-doc researcher at the Institute of Czech Literature, Czech Academy of Sciences and an Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of Hradec Králové and was a 2023 Eccles Centre Visiting Fellow at the British Library.
To be a scholar outside of US/Canadian studies outside of North America means a transcultural perspective is a part of what we do and who we are. It allows us to think about the culture and region afresh and to reflect on our positions as mediators as scholars, educators, and public intellectuals. To be a scholar of US/Canadian studies from Central Eastern Europe and other regions outside of the usual trajectories of prestige might also mean that sources for our research are more difficult to obtain. This is why I went to the British Library to research Czech immigration to Canada.
In my previous research project, Translation and the Global Fifties: When the African American Left Went to Prague, I looked at the transnational journeys, exchanges, and allegiances between the African American Leftist intellectuals and early Cold War Czechoslovakia. One of the translators and mediators of African American literature in the 1950s and early 1960s, the Czechoslovak writer Josef Škvorecký, later became one of the almost twelve thousand people who fled to Canada after the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion to Czechoslovakia in 1968. Following Škvorecký and his wife, Zdena Škvorecká-Salivarová to Canada opened up a new set of questions for me some of which I tried to answer during my time in the British Library.
Škvorecký was awarded the Governor General's Award for English Language Fiction for The Engineer of Human Souls, a novel translated by Paul Wilson. This cultural moment became my entry point in the Canadian cultural field in the 1970s and 1980s. I explored magazines and journals I found out about in the United States and Canadian Newspaper Holdings in the British Library Newspaper Library (for example, Nový Domov: The New Homeland)1, conference proceedings from the time, fictional and autobiographical accounts of the Škvorecký’s and other Czechoslovak authors, diverse secondary sources on culture and politics of the era, multilingual sources published in various places. What I was looking for were interconnections between Canadian literature, quickly developing at this time as its own discipline tightly linked to the nation state, the official politics of multiculturalism, and the position of the so-called ethnic writers within this cultural field.
These interconnections support my broader project in the framework of which I look at how the notion of whiteness has operated within the Canadian cultural field in the late Cold War in connection to various immigrant groups coming to the country. It builds on critical whiteness studies but also asks whether these concepts can be applied and/or translated to Central Eastern European contexts. The ambiguous status of the Slavic and other groups in and from this region has been noticed by scholars such as Ivan Kalmar or Zoltán Ginelli; the historians of immigration have also noted the various ways racial discourses have transformed throughout the 20th century. The Cold War has introduced new challenges, trajectories, and allegiances, race refigurings, and vocabularies of whiteness that has shaped how both the immigrants and the domestic populations in Central Eastern Europe were perceived.
I found some of the answers I was looking for: yet I left with further questions. The British Library is its own little universe. In the weeks of the fellowship, one wanders in awe through the various reading rooms and the packed hallways. As a visiting researcher, one is not left to navigate this world on one’s own: the fellowship also gives one the opportunity to talk to the Eccles staff, people who work and research in the British Library and know many of its secrets. And while they are incredibly helpful, it is better to come prepared (the sheer quantity of the material at your fingertips can get intimidating!) but also keep one’s eyes open for surprising turns the research route might take.
Searching through my keywords one day, I found sheet music based on the poetry of Langston Hughes, the African American poet, novelist, playwright, translator, and social activist . It was a 1966 composition by the Czech composer Jiří Dvořáček with lyrics in Czech, English, and German, published in 1978 (Image 1, above). Despite having dealt with Hughes’s Czechoslovak connections extensively, I have never known this sheet music existed and I could not help but hum the melody (albeit very quietly). Hughes was one of the writers Josef Škvorecký also translated before emigrating to Canada. This multilingual, translational, transmedial cultural artifact reminded me that it is important that our scholarship can cross the linguistic, cultural, and national borders in a similar way.
Notes:
Nový Domov: The New Homeland. Toronto. Vol. 9, no. 19 etc. (10 May 1958 - 21 March 1970). Imperfect. British Library shelfmark: General Reference Collection Microform MFM.MC271.D
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