Author Archives: Fernando Acosta-Rodriguez

Records of Resistance

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Records of Resistance: Documenting Global Activism 1933 to 2021, Princeton University Library’s latest exhibition, includes images that range from sacred Passover Haggadot that embody Jews’ spiritual resistance to their oppressors during and immediately after the Holocaust, to dramatic photographs of marchers on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965, to vibrant posters, pamphlets and photographs created by protesters taking to the streets of Lahore, Pakistan and Santiago, Chile, only a few years ago.

The exhibition content originating in Chile relates to the nation-wide mass protests known as the Estallido Social (social outburst), a series of nation-wide mass protests that went on steadily from October 2019 to March 2020 and made painfully visible the deep social discontent of broad sectors of Chilean society.  

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Escena de Avanzada Chilena

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Last week, the Library was fortunate to receive a visit from PLAS Visiting Scholar Agustín Díez Fischer and students participating in his seminar Art Archives in Latin America to view and discuss more than twenty items related to Chile’s Escena de Avanzada, most of which are part of the Rare Books section of the Marquand Library of Art and Archaeology. 

The ample selection of exhibition catalogs, brochures and books by and about experimental artists such as Carlos Altamirano, Eugenio Dittborn, Paz Errázuriz, Alfredo Jaar, Ronald Kay, Carlos Leppe, and Nelly Richard, among others, allowed students to look closely at and discuss how, after the Military Coup of 1973, Chilean artists reconceptualized traditional artistic practices, languages, techniques and genres.

Inside page of Dittborn, Eugenio. V.I.S.U.A.L. Santiago: V.I.S.U.A.L. and Galería Época, 1976
https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/99125446528106421
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Alma Concepción Collection

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Princeton University Library is pleased to announce the acquisition by donation of the papers of Puerto Rican dancer, educator, choreographer, and independent scholar Alma Concepción. Concepción was first soloist of Ballets de San Juan, a member of the Carmen Amaya Company, Antonio´s Ballets de Madrid, and the Taller de Histriones mime company in Puerto Rico. She was the founder of Taller de Danza, a children’s movement and dance community organization based in Trenton, New Jersey. She was instructor of Spanish dance and ballet at the Princeton Ballet School and the Ballet Hispánico of New York, as well as Visiting Faculty at Fordham, Princeton, and Rutgers University. She has also been a long time and dedicated contributor to People & Stories / Gente y Cuentos, a grassroots literature program dedicated primarily to underserved communities.

September 2023 UPDATE: Archivo de Alma Concepción, 1939-2021 is now open for research.

Alma Concepción as Erzulí. Atibón-Ogú-Erzulí. 1979
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Brazilian ephemera just received

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In recent days, we unpacked a shipment of dozens of fascinating pieces of ephemera gathered across different regions of Brazil by our colleagues at at the Library of Congress Office in Rio de Janeiro.

Items address a wide variety of timely topics including indigenous rights, women’s rights, anti-racism, and COVID-19 public education. Also included are several political campaign propaganda pieces for the 2022 general election.

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Jorge Díaz Papers Open for Research

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The papers of Jorge Díaz, one of the most distinguished members of Chile’s literary Generación del 50 and an extraordinarily prolific playwright, are now available for research in Firestone Library’s Special Collections. 

Jorge Díaz wrote more than one hundred plays for adult audiences and thirty-seven for children. Some of his best known plays include El cepillo de dientes (1960), Topografía para un desnudo (1965), Toda esta larga noche (1976), Las cicatrices de la memoria (1984), Nadie es profeta en su espejo (1990), Canción de cuna para un anarquista (2003), and El Quijote no existe (2005). In addition to theater, he wrote short stories, poems, radio and TV scripts. He published more than 50 books in Chile, Spain and other countries.  

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Juana Inés

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Special Collections recently acquired three rare villancicos authored by Juana Inés de la Cruz. A self-taught poet, philosopher, and dramatist, she is considered one of the preeminent figures of Mexican and Spanish American colonial literature as well as a precursor of feminism in the Americas. The three items, published in Mexico in the last quarter of the 17th century, are among the earliest publications authored by de la Cruz.

Juana Inés de la Cruz. Villancicos, que se cantaron en la Santa Iglesia Cathedral de Mexico, à los maytines del gloriosissimo príncipe de la Iglesia,: el Señor San Pedro. Que fundó, y dotó el Doct. Y M.D. Simon Estevan Beltran, de Alzate, y Esquibel (que Dios aya) maestre-escuela, que fue, desta S. Iglesia Cathedral, y cathedratico jubilado de Sagrada Escriptura, en esta Real Universidad de Mexico. En Mexico: Por la Viuda de Bernardo Calderon, Año de 1677.
https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/99123064593506421
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