Shakespeare Weekend! 

UWM Special Collections holds a considerable Shakespeare collection because for many years our library was home for the Modern Language Association’s New Variorum Shakespeare project under the general editorship of UWM English professor Robert K. Turner, Jr. (1926-2012). In memory of Bob Turner, we are pleased to begin our new Shakespeare Weekend series with the thirty-seven volumes of The Comedies Histories & Tragedies of William Shakespeare, published by the Limited Editions Club from 1939-1940. 

Each of the Limited Edition Club (LEC) volumes of Shakespeare’s work are illustrated by a different artist, but the unifying factor is that all volumes were designed by famed book and type designer Bruce Rogers and edited by the British theatre professional and Shakespeare specialist Herbert Farjeon. This week we present Volume 1, Shakespeare’s comedy of infidelity and character swaps All’s Well That Ends Well, illustrated by the noted German-American illustrator and graphic artist Richard Floethe (1901-1988). The volume was printed in an edition of 1950 copies at the Press of A. Colish. The title page and colophon say that the illustrations are from Floethe’s drawings, but we suspect that they are linocuts, much like the prints he produced for the 1937 LEC edition of Pinocchio.

View more Limited Editions Club posts.

-- Teddy, Special Collections Graduate Assistant

i hate you mla formatting I hate you double spacing I hate you 12-point times new roman I hate you alphabetized works cited page

See us at #MLA 2024

We will be hosting a panel on Margaret Atwood and holding our annual business meeting at the Modern Language Association convention this weekend! Our panel is from 5:15 to 6:30 pm EST on Friday, January 5! If you're in #Philadelphia for the convention, don't miss our panel! Dressing the Part: Fashion in Atwood’s Works and Adaptations in Loews Congress C on the fourth floor. We will be happy to meet you and invite you to join the Margaret Atwood Society!

See, I personally find this quest to find pagan/pre-Christian elements in Welsh/Irish literature quite unnerving - I don't know about anyone else.

There's something to be said about genuinely discovering pre-Christian elements in a narrative or story and that being where evidence and study has led you. But I see some people on this fruitless quest to find pagan elements in very Christian texts and sometimes it feels like if no pagan elements can be found, people start making stuff up out of whole cloth - and that can be very dangerous for already not-well known texts in minoritised languages!

There's already so much misinformation out there about Irish/Welsh texts and literature in general - so it hurts to see people carelessly adding to the misinformation either out of ignorance or lack of respect for the source material.

I promise you the source material being Christian doesn't ruin it - you can in fact, enjoy these myths without making them into something they're not!

ace culture is listening to a fun popular song and not relating to a single lyric

Must a movie be "good?" Is it not enough that it is a feast for the senses and provides a break for you to ponder metaphysics for a short while?

The Modern Language Association of America finally announced the winners of this year's book prizes. It's always interesting to see what the prize-winning books are because they're a decent indicator of the current direction of literary and cultural studies. Also, the winner of the de facto overall book of the year award, the James Russell Lowell Prize, taught in my old program for a few years at the beginning of his career. I never worked with him (different subfields and all that), but I talked to him a couple times, and he always struck me as a nice, smart guy. What an honor to win the James Russell Lowell. I'm very happy for him.

It’s orvuto anon again, I stalled on your pinned post again — experimental neuroscience?? :eyes:

Yesss. I'm actually an undergrad neuroscience major... Like writing and art and stuff is just for fun, I wanna be a research neuroscientist one day lol.

me using block format instead of indenting

Suzanne Collins has me deranged.

We know from the Ballad of Song Birds and Snakes that many of the features of the modern Hunger Games are Snow's invention, including those that motivate the districts, like prizes. It's fair to assume he likely came up with the idea for tesserae, it's an easy way to keep the districts well fed while encouraging/forcing participation and general involvement in the games. It's a great reminder, even the food you eat is linked to the games themselves. Tesserae is a type of tile work commonly associated with Romans which Collins draws a lot of inspiration from in her depiction of the Capital. It has also in the past been used as a token. In this case, you take the token of food in exchange for extra names in the bowl. Now that's fucking excellent on it's own, real neat bit of linguistic worldbuilding.

BUT what really gets me, what truly fucks me up is that Snow didn't name it that because he's like a language nerd. Tigris had to use tile buttons, tesserae buttons on his shirt during songbirds because they couldn't afford anything else. Snow inherently associates that material with poverty, specifically with the lack of food he had during that time. As a result tesserae represents poverty starvation and desperation to everyone in the districts. Snow is so god dam self obsessed he imbedded ,intentionally or not , personal fucking references to himself within the districts.

AND THAT is why Collins is so crazy to me that detail is tiny, you truly would not notice and in the grand scheme it's not that important but that's woman is on her shit and she's fucking thinking her thoughts and its genius. HER MIND UGH. truly has me messed.

I have to explain what is going on in the UK, because it is absurd.

So, this is Gary Lineker:

He's known for a fair few things over here. He was a very good (association) footballer, playing for England in the 1986 and 1990 World Cups, winning the Golden Boot in 1986, and managing to never get a single yellow card in his playing career. He played for Leicester City, Everton, Barcelona, and Tottenham, before finishing his career in Japan. But if you aren't in your mid 30s, you probably know actually know him him for a couple of other things. The first is the role of spokesman for another Leicester icon, Walkers Crisps (which are sort of equivalent to Lays, but hit different), as pictured above. Despite being a notably clean player, he used to play a cheeky serial crisp thief. I don't think he's done that for well over a decade, but his ads were on the telly a lot when I was a kid and it's a bit like learning that the hamburglar was an incredibly clean (American) football player or something.

The second thing Gary is widely known for is having presented Match of the Day, the big football program on the BBC, the sort-of state broadcaster, since 1999. He is, incidentally, very well paid for this (though with a consensus that he could get even more if he went to one of the non-free-to-view broadcasters because he is very good at the job). He also has a twitter account. And political opinions. So, the UK government has got itself dead set upon doing heinous stuff that will totally somehow work to prevent people who want to come to the UK making the perilous crossing of the Channel (between England and France). By heinous, I mean "openly advertise that they won't attempt to protect victims of modern slavery" stuff. It's very obviously using a legal hammer to victimise a marginalised group of people in order to win votes. And, uh, I should clarify that by "legal" I mean "using the passage of laws" - the policy is, in addition to all the other ways it's awful, probably incompatible with the Human Rights Act and the UK's international law obligations. Gary, top lad that he is, objected to this. On Tuesday 7th March, he made a quote Tweet of a video of the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, bigging up the policy, he wrote "Good heavens, this is beyond awful.". This got a bunch of backlash from extremely right-wingers, and then he made the tweet that really got him in trouble (with right-wingers): "There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?".

Now, I am not actually subjecting myself to watching a video of Suella Braverman bigging up a cruel policy to say whether the specific comparison of the language to 1930s Germany is accurate. But needless to say, Ms Braverman was amongst the many figures on the right of UK politics objecting to Gary's rhetoric. And here's the part where a fact about the BBC comes in: it is nominally neutral and impartial (and so, of course, is routinely accused of bias from all sides but particularly the right-wing), and has something of a code for its contributors to this effect. Now, that code has previously been applied to Gary Lineker, over a comment about whether governing Conservative Party would hand back donations from figures linked to the Russian regime. But it generally hasn't been applied too strongly to people like Gary, whose roles have nothing to do with politics (such as presenting a "here's what happened on the footie today" show), on the basis that, well, their roles have nothing to do with politics. However, when directly asked about whether the BBC should punish Gary Lineker for his tweets, government figures basically went "well, that's a them problem". But a couple of days passed, and it seemed like Gary's approach of "standing his ground because he did nothing wrong" was working and everything would die down. He was set to get 'a talking to' but not much more than that. The Conservative right, after all their fire and fury earlier, had gotten bored and moved onto something else. And then, on Friday 10th March, the BBC announced that he would be suspended from hosting Match of the Day this weekend. But it could still go ahead, because there are, like, other hosts! Except, well, funnily enough, when you take a beloved figure off air, for making a fairly anodyne tweet, no one wants to be the scab who actually takes up the role of replacing him. Gary's two co-hosts, Alan Shearer and Ian Wright, said that they would not appear without him. People who (co-)host Match of the Day on other days followed suit. The net result is that Match of the Day is currently set to air without hosts, BBC commentary, or global feed commentary. And the solidarity shown to Gary Lineker, over what is very flagrantly actual cancel culture and an attack on freedom of speech (the logic implied is that institutional impartiality requires that no one say anything too critical of the government ever), has continued to grow. The BBC has pretty much been unable to run pretty much any live sports content today, and has resorted to raiding the BBC Sounds archive to fill the sports radio channel. And, as of 17:30 on Saturday 11th March, the situation shows no signs of improvement, though some are calling for the Chairman Richard Sharp, who is separately facing corruption allegations, to resign (yes I linked to the BBC itself there, there is nothing, nothing, the BBC loves more than going into great detail about how much the BBC sucks).

actually i just realized why interpretations of [atla] characters that are like “aang doesn’t lie” (blatantly textually false) or “katara would be offended by swearing” (sensically false) are so common. aang and katara are the most overtly ethical characters in the show, and people [subconsciously] associate morality with honesty and “clean language.” but none of aang’s principles preclude him from lying (he lies. a lot), just as nothing in katara’s moral code dictates that she must be a square (she is, in fact, the furthest thing from a square, and if you argue otherwise you are simply misremembering her character). i can understand why people think that an ethically principled person would consider honesty a virtue, even if aang clearly doesn’t, but the association between morality and language feels like a very christian (to broadly generalize) conception of “sin” and moral transgression that doesn’t map onto the atla characters whatsoever, and is entirely a projection of the largely american (and otherwise western) viewership. inversely, fanart that depicts “modern au” azula as some kind of goth abg with dyed hair and leather pants also attempts to map our internalized notions of how aesthetics are illustrative of morality onto a character who would clearly never present herself in any way countercultural. if azula were suddenly transported to montclair, new jersey, she would be a conservative and present herself accordingly (most likely scenario she would dress like shiv roy). i’m not saying all this to condemn the activity of projecting onto characters, as i clearly participate and engage in these fandom-cultural practices, but rather that i think it’s important we be mindful of what connotations are carried in certain interpretations and depictions, because even our subconscious associations can stem from a legacy of cultural contexts, often embedded within harmful institutions we may not consciously wish to associate with, or that are simply not useful or relevant associations when thinking through whatever thing we are in the process of fandomitizing.

Updates to AO3 "Mythology" Fandoms

Hi AO3 users! You may have noticed that recently, fandoms previously canonized as "Mythology" are being updated to "Religion & Lore". This renaming project is part of a wider ongoing process on AO3 about respectful treatment and naming of various religions, spiritual beliefs, faiths, and collections of folklores belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition. This includes both major and minor religions, as well as reconstructionist, ancient, and modern religions.

In the coming months, the term "Mythology" is being phased out of canonical fandom names. This is because of its potential for use as a disparaging term, and the way in which it is used primarily for religions which are already under-represented. Since "mythology" has connotations of being fictional or inferior to the religious beliefs of the speaker or writer, and is unfortunately used in this way by some, the decision has been made to replace this term with something that the Wrangling Committee believes is more inclusive and less derogatory.

After extensive discussion between individuals from varying religious backgrounds and beliefs, including wranglers representing the various fandoms which were being covered, it was felt that "Religion & Lore" was an appropriate and neutral way to describe the bodies of faith, belief, knowledge, and tradition associated with many of these religions which were ancestrally imparted and regional in nature. It is also hoped that this will decrease ambiguous or confused use, allowing people to more accurately describe their works and find works in which they are interested moving forward.

The use of "Ancient" in many of these fandoms' names reflects that these countries still exist but now have different predominant religions or spiritual beliefs. For example, Ancient Greek Religion & Lore (as Greece is now a predominantly Christian country) or Ancient Egyptian Religion (as Egypt is now a predominantly Muslim country). Because "Norse" does not refer to an extant country, region, or culture, it is not necessary to specify that it is historical or ancient in nature.

The names of these fandoms will also have the native language piped, if the English-language demonym is significantly different from the native-language demonym or if there is a culturally specific term based on consultation with individuals who speak these languages as a first language. We hope to give representation to the language of the source culture by doing so.

Each of these changes has been and will continue to be carefully researched and discussed with traditional knowledge keepers and researchers from the cultures represented in the fandoms under discussion.

Many religions face the issue of texts being written long after their events occurred. Unfortunately this is something which is shared across many religious fandoms; AO3 seeks to treat these religious fandoms equally. Care has been taken in researching characters relating to these fandoms, and character tags will be canonized or made a synonym on a case-by-case basis. Fandom tags that are currently synned to the Ancient religious fandoms have been checked as thoroughly as possible to ensure that they are not referring to modern folk tales, and where possible such relatively modern folk tales are canonized as their own fandoms.

(From time to time, ao3org posts announcements of recent or upcoming wrangling changes on behalf of the Tag Wrangling Committee.)

15 Grimoire Page Ideas That Aren't Basic

Chronomancy Correspondences:

Explore the connection between time and magic, including auspicious moments for spellcasting, planetary hours, and lunar phases.

Echoes of Enchantment:

Discuss the use of echoes and resonance in magical workings, tapping into the vibrational frequencies of words, symbols, and intentions.

Liminal Spaces Invocation:

Explore the magical potency of liminal spaces—thresholds, crossroads, and in-between places—and how to invoke their energies.

Numinous Nectar Elixirs:

Detail the creation of magical elixirs using rare and ethereal substances, discussing their uses in rituals and ceremonies.

Quantum Sigilcraft:

Delve into the intersection of quantum physics and sigil magic, exploring the idea that consciousness can influence reality at a fundamental level.

Astral Alphabets:

Introduce lesser-known alphabets or symbolic systems used in astral travel and communication with otherworldly entities.

Dreamweaving Spells:

Discuss the art of crafting spells that are specifically designed to be cast within the dream realm, influencing waking reality.

Candle Color Alchemy:

Explore the magical properties of less common candle colors and their associations with specific intentions, emotions, and energies.

Chthonic Charms:

Focus on charms and talismans specifically attuned to underworld energies and deities, connecting with the mysteries of the subterranean realms.

Technomancy Scripts:

Examine the use of coding languages, digital symbols, and technology-based sigils in modern magical practice.

Quantum Familiars:

Explore the idea of spirit companions that exist beyond the constraints of time and space, bridging the gap between the metaphysical and quantum realms.

Sacred Geometry of Sound:

Investigate the use of sound frequencies and sacred geometry in combination, exploring how they can enhance magical rituals and spellcasting.

Ephemeral Elementals:

Discuss the existence and interaction with elementals that are tied to fleeting or ephemeral elements, such as mist, shadows, or reflections.

Psychotronic Crystals:

Explore the use of crystals not only for their physical properties but also for their alleged ability to interact with psychic and spiritual energies.

Aetheric Anatomy Cleansing:

Detail practices for cleansing and balancing the aetheric body, exploring lesser-known energy centers and channels.

something something american necropolitics the tillamook county creamery association found online on tillamook dot com that sells many dairy products in the united states under the brand name tillamook has no relationship and makes no acknowledgement of the tillamook people from whom it get its name. the name comes from the chinook translation of the people of nehalem. early contact with european sailing ships is dated to the 1770s. in 1805 lewis and clark's "discovery" expedition noted at the time that many large villages had been depopulated by pandemics and many adults had smallpox scars. this followed a period of fur trading with the involvement of hudson bay corporation. in 1850, the us govt passed the oregon donation land act, announcing over 2,500,000 acres of land as available for settlers to seize, which happened in patterns whose violence mirrors that of the continent. there was no treaty. in 1907, the tribe sued and was paid 23,500 dollars for the land the us govt has seized from them when it forced them onto the siletz reservation. the tillamook language is a salishan language that lost its last fluent speaker in 1970. many descendants are considered part of the confederated tribes of siletz. other nehalem are part of the unrecognized clatsop nehalem confederated tribes. the nehalem-tillamook were also socially and economically integrated with the clatsop peoples. today the town of tillamook has a population that is only 1.5% native american. the modern day corporation started as a settler coop created in 1909. it is the 48th largest dairy processor in north america and posted $1 billion in sales in 2021.

Happy birthday, Edward Said! (November 1, 1935)

A highly influential Palestinian academic, author, and activist, Edward Said was born in Jerusalem to Christian Palestinian parents. After receiving his education, Said began a teaching career at Columbia University, and would also teach at institutions including Stanford and Yale. A prolific academic, Said also contributed editorially to publications including the Arab Studies Quarterly and as the president of the Modern Language Association. Said is best known as a cultural critic through such books as Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism, the former of which, his best-known work, laid out his critique of European and American perceptions of "the East," and those perceptions' link with imperialism and colonialism. He also advocated for the Arab and Palestinian perspective on the issue of Palestine, and from 1977 to 1991 Said served on the Palestinian National Council, where he critiqued the Oslo Accords for not establishing an independent State of Palestine. He died in 2003 in New York City.

"Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't trust the evidence of one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice."