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"I was captured by the ethereal beauty of the crystals in a newly opened rock cavity, of the pure sweep of dunes, peach-colored sand against the cobalt sky, sun falling past purest curves of dark shadow. The juxtaposition of art and science. That has always been with me."
Kenneth S. Norris, Beyond Mountain Time (Introduction)
The University Library's Regional History Project presented this
exhibit
to highlight some of the facets of the late Kenneth S. Norris's rich
scientific
and conservation legacy. Norris (1924-1998) a UCSC Professor
Emeritus of
Natural History, was one of this campus's most extraordinary
professors for
eighteen years, until his retirement in 1990. While at UCSC he
founded Long
Marine Lab and the Institute of Marine Sciences. He also conducted
for many
years the legendary Natural History Field Quarter class, a 6000-mile
odyssey
around California, where each spring, 23 students traveled together
and
studied the state's diverse natural habitats. The two upright cases at
McHenry
are devoted to the Natural History Field Quarter.
Two cases feature Norris's teaching career, a collection of
"Kenisms,"
which express his humor and unique slang and vernacular;
memorabilia
including a tribute book produced after his death; and items from
the
Norris
Memorial, held at UCSC on October 24, 1998.
Norris was a natural historian of incredible breadth; he studied
the
lives of fishes, turtles, lizards, iguanas, bats, dolphins, and whales,
and how
they adapted to their environments. His work as a desert ecologist
led to
discoveries of circadian rhythms in snakes and the function of color
changes
in amphibians and reptiles. One case at McHenry is devoted to
Norris's
research in desert ecology and herpetology.
As the acclaimed father of marine mammalogy, Norris proved
echolocation in dolphins and did pioneering work in discovering the
complex social and familial relations among dolphins and whales.
His
expertise also enabled Norris to influence the crafting of the Marine
Mammal
Protection Act of 1972, and led to a national campaign to reduce the
dolphin
kill in tuna fishing nets. These aspects of Norris's work are featured
in the
case at the Science Library.
Norris was also the founder in 1965, under UC President Clark
Kerr, of
UC's Natural Reserve System, envisioned as "living laboratories,"
representing 30 diverse habitats up and down the state. The two
cases by the
library entrance are devoted to the Natural Reserve System.
The Regional History Project has recently published Norris's oral
history biography, Kenneth S. Norris: Naturalist, Cetologist &
Conservationist, 1924-1998, which includes interviews with
Norris
and his
colleagues and former students, documenting the history of Long
Marine Lab,
the Natural History Field Quarter class, the founding of the Natural
Reserve
System, and Norris's scientific legacy.
We would like to express our appreciation to Norman Locks,
UCSC
Professor of Photography, for lending us his exquisite photographs
of
Big
Creek Reserve; to Susan Rumsey, Principal Publications Coordinator
of the Natural Reserve System for lending us the images of Big
Creek, the Granite Mountains and the Natural History Field Quarter;
to Professor of Environmental Studies and Natural
Reserve
Coordinator Maggie Fusari for her information on the recent fire at
Big Creek
Reserve; to Bryn Kanar and Ian Lawless for their assistance with the
portion
of the exhibit at the Science Library; and most of all to Phylly Norris,
for her
warm and generous spirit in lending us items from Ken Norris's
personal
collection and library in the magical house in Bonny Doon.
--Irene Reti and Randall Jarrell
To Order
Regional History's First Quality Paperback Publication of
Kenneth S. Norris: Naturalist, Cetologist, and
Conservationist, 1924-1998: An Oral History Biography
This exhibit followed the twenty-five years of Women's
Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz--from its
beginnings as a student collective in 1974; through its first
graduating class in 1975; the hiring of Bettina Aptheker as its
first core faculty member in 1980; until 2000 when there are
six full-time faculty, over 50 adjunct faculty, instructors, and
a women's studies librarian. The numbers of WS majors, both
men and women, have risen to over 200 at the present time,
making the department one of the largest in the country.
Faculty publications, both core and adjunct, were highlighted,
as well as photos of faculty, staff, students, and WS
graduations, and past and present student theses. There was
also a display of posters representing events sponsored and
co-sponsored by Women's Studies.
Two projects housed in McHenry Library, Special Collections
were displayed. One is the Asian Pacific Lesbian Collection
donated by Alison Kim, 1989 UCSC Women's Studies
graduate and consisting of books, articles, photos,
newsletters. The other was the UC Women's Studies/History
Consortia California Feminist Presses Project. UCSC Special
Collections houses the archives of local presses, HerBooks
and Papier-Mache Press, as well the early feminist press,
Shameless Hussy, from Berkeley, begun by Alta in 1968.
Books, manuscripts, mockups, photos, tee shirts are
displayed.
Coordinated and set up by Sally Ann Rodriguez, 2000 UCSC
Women's Studies graduate, Cristina Verduzco, UCSC
Anthropology graduate, Jacquelyn Marie, Women's Studies
Librarian, and Irene Reti, McHenry Library exhibits.
From May 19th to 28th, 2000, 21 librarians, library workers,
and students from California, Chicago, Massachusetts, and Seattle
traveled to Cuba on a cultural/educational exchange with other
librarians and library workers. The tour, facilitated by Global
Exchange in San Francisco, was entitled Cuban Libraries: Creating
Partnerships. The participants visited libraries, such as Jose Marti
National Library, University of Havana Library, National Medical
Library and Infomed Project, National Archives, Librarians Training
School, and the Ruben Martinez Provincial Library and shared
experiences, and mutual interests in preservation, reference,
collection building, access, acquisition, cataloguing, Internet
technology, and bibliographic instruction.
Sister library relationships were set up, cards were exchanged,
and many books, serials, preservation materials, pens, paper, etc.
were donated. The group also met with the Cuban Librarians
Association, especially the President Marta Terry (former Head of
the Jose Marti Library). Jacquelyn Marie, UCSC librarian, had made
the original contact with Marta Terry who invited the group to her
country. Visits were also made to the Women's Studies Department
of the University of Havana, the Cuban Book Institute, the Casa de
las Americas Bookstore, the old Havana community project, the La
Vigia Publishing House, two medical clinics and various museums
and
music venues.
Jacquelyn Marie led the trip with a UC Berkeley colleague,
Elizabeth Sibley; other participants from UCSC included Deborah
Turner, Head of Access, Helen Lew Sam of Serials, and Andrea del
Pinal, Women's Studies student.
This exhibit focused on the library cultural exchange delegation.
It also included material from the UCSC Library's collection, as well
as material from two other recent cultural exchange trips to Cuba:
Ellen Farmer's Women Drummers International's 1998 trip, and
Sarita Silverman's trip to Cuba in 1999, in which she brought
Sephardic Jewish literature to Cuban Jewish communities.
The exhibit was curated by library staff members Wendy Lees
and Irene Reti, with invaluable assistance from Jacquelyn Marie and
Andrea del Pinal. We also wish to thank Jacquelyn Marie, Deborah
Turner, Helen Sam, Andrea del Pinal, Dwight Frey, Ellen Farmer,
and Sarita Silverman for lending us material for this exhibit.
--Irene Reti and Wendy Lees
Opera has its roots in sixteenth-century Italy, where polyphonic
music, the Renaissance revolution in painting, and the humanists'
love of classical literature inspired new kinds of theatrical
productions combining drama, music, and elaborate backdrops
painted in one-point perspective.
In the last decade of the sixteenth century, a group of composers,
writers and other intellectuals in Florence, Italy, known as the
Camerata experimented with re-creating Greek drama. Sparked by
these efforts, Claudio Monteverdi--a court composer in Mantua--
combined this new approach with dance and the madrigal comedy
to create the first enduring opera, Orfeo. Orfeo tells the
story of Orpheus's descent to the underworld to retrieve his beloved
wife, Eurydice after her death, only to lose her a second time when
he disobeys the gods by turning around to look at her before they
reach the world of the living. Orpheus's fateful error and his loss--
not once but twice!--of Eurydice establish a beginning point for
tragic opera, where themes of passion, death, justice, love, and
revenge abound in delirious excess. When opera develops a comic
strain with Mozart and later Rossini, it is in fact only doing what
opera has always done best: mixing forms and aiming for strong
emotional and psychic effects, whether they be in laughter or in
tears.
To many viewers, the emotional response to opera's lyricism
combined with its provocation to reflect on human situations is
precisely what opera "means." When characters in a film attend an
opera (Cher in
Moonstruckor Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman) or
listen to opera
recordings (Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, or the playing of an
aria from
"The Marriage of Figaro" in The Shawshank Redemption), we
understand
them to be engaging this complex of effects. Directors often call on
these associations in film sound tracks as well--an aria from
Lakme by
Leo Delibes is used to great effect to enhance the seduction scene in
The Hunger--possibly one of the most erotic scenes ever put
on film.
Given opera's extravagance, it has inspired both emulation and
parody.
Bugs Bunny ("What's Opera, Doc?," "The Rabbit of Seville") and the
Marx
Brothers (A Night at the Opera) remind us that opera is
synonymous with
the outrageous and the exorbitant. Opera music is everywhere in
our
contemporary society: In the days of radio just a few bars of the
William Tell overture by Rossini produced the automatic response--
The
Lone Ranger. On television it has been used to sell Rice Krispies
(Pagliacci), champagne (Puccini) and other products.
But contemporary composers still turn to opera's capacity for
intensity
as a challenge to musical innovation (Philip Glass's 1976 Einstein
on
the Beach) and to capture on stage the pressing issues of our
times:
John Adams composed Nixon in China in 1987 in reference
to the
President's historic visit; and this season in San Francisco, Jake
Heggie and Terrence McNally are premiering their opera Dead
Man Walking,
which confronts the ethics of capital punishment in America.
If opera's relations to history are often evident and extremely
interesting, it owes many of its plots to literary works. The earliest
operas drew on Greek and Roman mythology and on Renaissance
classics
such as Alexandre Dumas La Dame aux camelias for La
Traviata, to the
Old Testament for Nabucco, to Shakespeare's drama for
Otello, Macbeth,
and Falstaff. Virgil Thomson's 1934 Four Saints in Three
Acts is based
on a text by modernist writer Gertrude Stein; and recent new operas
include productions based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great
Gatsby and
on Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire.
Opera is alive and well right here at UCSC. A conference this quarter
entitled "In and Out of Opera: The Media and Spaces of the
Operatic"
will bring together scholars and opera practitioners from Santa Cruz
and
around the country to discuss how opera draws on literature,
history,
politics, and popular culture and the ways the media are
incorporating
opera in new kinds of productions today.
Who at UCSC is involved in opera? The generous sponsors of the
opera
conference and its surrounding events are Siegfried and Elizabeth
Mignon
Puknat. Siegfried Puknat was a founding member of the UCSC
faculty,
taught German literature at UCSC from 1964 to 1982, and was a
lifetime
lover of opera. Professor John Dizikes is a scholar of American
culture
and a loyal patron of operatic productions in the Bay Area; his 1993
book Opera in Americawon the National Book Critics Circle
Award.
Professor Sherwood Dudley teaches opera in the Department of
Music at
UCSC. Also in UCSCs music department, Vocalist lecturers Brian
Staufenbiel and Patrice Maginnis have collaborated on student opera
productions, including last spring's Carmen. Professor H.
Marshall
Leicester of the Literature Department teaches and writes on the
high-emotion similarities among opera, horror, and pornographic
films.
Lecturer in French Herve Le Mansec is the Los Angeles opera
reviewer for
the magazine Opera Internationalin Paris. Lecturer in French
Miriam
Ellis is translator of numerous French operas, several of which she
has
directed at UCSC.
Two of our outstanding graduates have achieved world-wide fame
in the
world of opera--Kent Nagano as musical director and conductor of
the
Opera Lyon in France and Patricia Schuman who has sung featured
roles
with the Metropolitan Opera.
The McHenry Library holdings include over 160 operas in video
format and hundreds of audio recordings. This exhibit features a sampling
of McHenry's holdings in books, musical scores, librettos, posters, and
archival photographs.
McHenry Library holdings
Indeed, opera is alive and well at UCSC!
Introduction by:
--Deanna Shemek, Professor of Literature, Cowell College
--Dave Kirk, Video Selector, McHenry Library
Exhibit by
--Dave Kirk, Video Selector, McHenry Library
--Irene Reti, Exhibit Coordinator, McHenry Library
