New collection additions available for research
Please pardon our radio (blog?) silence for the past several months--it’s been a whirlwind of boxes, folders, files, and finding aid updates here in University Archives!
The Stanford Archives has been furiously processing our backlogged collection materials with the help of our new student workers for the fall quarter. Since the late summer, we have processed approximately 154.25 linear feet of archival materials. (For scale, 1 record storage carton measures 1.5 linear feet, while 1 manuscript box equals 0.5 linear feet.)
Highlights from these recently processed collections include:
Additions to the Herant A. Katchadourian Papers
Herant Katchadourian is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Human Biology. Since joining the Stanford faculty in 1966, he has served as Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education. This collection includes: correspondence, research files, notes, lectures, memoranda, articles, photographs, audio and video tapes of lectures, and other papers pertaining largely to his teaching and research career at Stanford University, with some materials from his association with the American University of Beirut.
Katchadourian was particularly well known on campus for his History of Sexuality class, which was "the most heavily subscribed class in the history of the university,” with nearly 20,000 undergraduates having taken the course between 1968 and 2002; at its peak, 1 in 4 undergraduates were enrolled.
Additions to the Philosophy Talk Collection
Philosophy Talk is a talk radio program co-hosted by Stanford professors John Perry and Ken Taylor (1954-2019). The program deals both with fundamental problems of philosophy and with the works of famous philosophers, especially as these relate to our contemporary, day-to-day lives. Some of the wide range of topics of past programs include terrorism, Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive self-defense, Descartes, genetic engineering, and virtue.
Additions to the Lawrence Berman Papers
Lawrence B. Berman joined the Stanford faculty in 1967 and was the first Stanford University professor to specialize in Jewish Studies. Berman's particular interest was the effect of the translation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics on the transmittal of its philosophical concepts. He taught courses in both Judaism and Islam, and at the time of his death in 1988 was developing a course on the Abrahamic tradition, attempting to compare the Jewish tradition with Christianity and Islam. This collection contains research notes in Hebrew and Arabic, subject files, correspondence, and teaching materials.
This collection primarily consists of conference materials, projects, papers, and notes related to his work in linguistics. It also includes photographs. We want to highlight audiovisual materials from this collection that are now digitized and available through Searchworks. These videos include the South Carolina Sea Islands Learning Expedition Tapes, the Dennis Brutus interview by John Rickford and Aimee Allison, and the Rosa Parks Press Conference at Stanford.
Additions to the Richard Foster Jones Papers
This collection consists of letters to and from Richard Foster Jones. Jones was a Professor of English at Stanford (1945-1952) and founder of the Stanford Creative Writing Center. The letters are mainly between him and his wife, Lucile Law Jones, and are written between 1903-1940. The letters follow their friendship and eventual courtship while Richard was at Columbia University for graduate school. These letters provide a fascinating and sweet look at long distance relationships in a time without cell phones or social media. 10 out of 10, highly recommend.
Additions to the Douglas Engelbart Symposia recordings
Accession 2019-264 consists of 10 video tapes from the 2000 Douglas Engelbart symposia titled, An In-depth Look at the Unfinished Revolution. These tapes have been digitized and are available to watch through Searchworks.
This academic year’s stellar student worker lineup, who helped us process the above, consists of:
Rohan Cherivirala ‘25 | Major: Computer Science
Jessica Femenias ‘23 | Major: History, Philosophy
Paw Mar Gay ‘24 | Major: Human Biology, Minor: Anthropology
Christian Guallpa ‘24 | Major: Mathematical and Computational Science, Minor: Economics
Devin Moua ‘23 | Major: Human Biology, Minor: Anthropology, Chemistry
Shayna Naranjo ‘22 | Major: Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Minor: Anthropology
Ayesha Rahman ‘24 | Major: International Relations
Bradley Strauss ‘25 | Major: Public Policy, Economics
Avi Udash ‘25 | Major: Computer Science
Big thanks to Presley Hubschmitt, Processing Archivist, for her contributions to the collections and to the text of this post!
