Dr. Jean Lutes is working this semester with a research team of three first-year undergraduates, Gia Beaton, Jackie Solomon and Lucy Mileto, on a literary recovery project centered on Alice Dunbar Nelson, an African American writer, educator, and activist who wrote in many genres–poetry, fiction, essay, memoir–in the late 19th and early 20th century. Her papers are a treasure trove, and they are housed nearby in the Department of Special Collections at the University of Delaware. On Friday April 20, 2018, thanks to special funding from Dean Adele Lindenmeyr’s discretionary fund, Dr. Lutes spent the day working in the Dunbar-Nelson archive with her students, examining manuscripts (both handwritten and typed drafts of her work) and correspondence.
Although the group only had time to look at a few items in the extensive collection--as one of the students declared, “the time is flying by here!”--the students made some exciting discoveries, which they will present as part of an undergraduate research symposium at Villanova in September 2018.
During the visit, Dr. Lutes and the students also spoke with senior assistant librarian Curtis Small about how rare book collections are evolving in the digital age. And they got a special preview of an exciting new multi-media research project on Dunbar Nelson, which is being produced by Jesse Erickson, postdoctoral researcher in Special Collections and Digital Humanities at the University of Delaware. Dr. Erickson showed the group his own work, which documents Dunbar-Nelson’s reading practices through a digital presentation with innovative visual and audio elements. He also shared the early version of the work of his doctoral students, who, under his supervision, are producing a striking digital and analog scrapbook of Dunbar-Nelson’s work, based on the scrapbooks that Dunbar-Nelson herself kept.
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| Jesse Erickson, postdoctoral researcher in Special Collections and Digital Humanities at the University of Delaware, with students. |
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| University of Delaware senior assistant librarian Curtis Small with students |
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| Lucy Mileto |
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| Gia Beaton |
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Jackie Solomon
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