Author Archive

This video includes quotations from Cion along with drawings by the Ohio University students and musical accompaniment. Just under 8 minutes in length, this video was a student project from the 2008-2009 academic year. Used by permission. Credits are at the end.

Alden Library has just added a new book on African American quilters, Crafted Lives, by Patricia A. Turner. Quoting from the dust jacket blurb:

Patricia A. Turner explores the culture and recent history of African Americans through the creations and wisdom of nine quilters. Turner profiles quilters who exemplify the range of black women and men dedicated to the making of quilts, and she shows how their craft work establishes order and meaning in their lives. The artists comprise eight women and one man, ranging fro teenagers to octogenarians, representing an array of education and income levels, and living across the United States, including Alaska.

Here is the record in ALICE which will show the location and current status of this book.

Alden Library has just added a new two-volume encyclopedia on the Underground Railroad, entitled The Underground Railroad : an encyclopedia of people, places, and operations.

In addition to the articles themselves, there are several other useful features in these volumes:

• maps (near the front of each volume)
• a detailed timeline (at the end of vol. 2)
• lists of notable passengers and conductors (at the end of vol. 2)
• a comprehensive bibliography (at the end of vol. 2)

The second volume ends with a detailed index, which allows you to pinpoint Ohio-based activities of the Underground Railroad.

These volumes may be found in the Reference Collection in the Learning Commons on the 2nd floor of Alden Library. The call number is: E450 .S65 2008. Although these volumes may not be taken out of the building, we encourage you to make photocopies of articles you’re interested in.

For more resources on the Underground Railroad, see this page in the Cion Blog.

Dr. Glen Jackson of OU’s Chemistry Department will do another presentation about his scientific analysis of the famous “Stain” at The Ridges on Wednesday, November 5 from  7-9 pm in Walter Hall Rotunda. An earlier post gave some background on his research. Here’s a little more:

In March 2007, a production company in California who was filming a new pilot for the History Channel contacted Dr. Jackson.  They were following the story of Margaret Schilling, which lead them to the “stain” at the former Athens Insane Asylum, now the Ridges, a place that takes on the role of a major character in Cion.  They wanted to know whether or not the stain on the floor—where her body was apparently discovered—was authentic.  Glen led the investigation: “We used several analytical techniques and instruments in our lab to analyze the residue found in the stain.”  Glen will discuss the results of his investigation.

If you’re at all interested in the quilting theme in Cion, be sure to visit OU’s Multicultural Center to see the exhibit entitled “The Quilter’s Eye.” It features quilts from this region, including some from Kilvert, and connects with Cion’s rich symbolic history and features Mda’s book in one of its cases. You can preview several more quilts in this exhibit on this page from the Multicultural Center.

On Friday, October 24 from 5-7 pm  there will be a Gallery reception for the quilt exhibition; it will be free and open to the campus and Athens community.

The Multicultural Center is in 205 Baker Center, and is open from 8 am-10 pm Monday through Friday, and noon to 5 pm on Saturday. You can preview several more quilts from this exhibition on this page from the Multicultural Center. Please note: the exhibit ends on November 20.

Anyone doing research relating to The Ridges and its early history as a mental hospital should take a look at Katherine Ziff’s 2004 dissertation entitled Asylum and Community: Connections Between the Athens Lunatic Asylum and the Village of Athens 1867-1893. Here’s the abstract (summary) that she wrote for her thesis:

The locus of care for mental illness in the United States has traditionally been described as either community based or centralized, asylum based. Most asylum case studies have focused on the inner workings of the institutions. None have studied in asylum in the context of its surrounding community.

This research explores the nature of the connections between asylum and community by way of a historical organizational case study of the Athens Lunatic Asylum from 1867 through 1893 as it relates to the Village of Athens, Ohio. Sources consulted include official documents (government reports and records, census data), personal documents (letters and manuscripts), and popular culture documents (newspapers, atlases, and photographs).

Between 1867 and 1893, the Asylum was connected with the Village of Athens in five areas: money economy, landscape, political and physical infrastructure, family, and social order. These connections were forged by the asylum’s need for goods and services and by the needs of the Athens community for jobs and cash. They were also sustained by community needs for recreation and entertainment, for humanitarian resources for those with mental illness, and at times for a means of social control. The political and physical infrastructure as well as the formal and informal networks that controlled the commitment process served to make possible the connections that met the needs of both asylum and community.

This research documents three aspects of asylum-community affairs receiving received attention from researchers. First, it identifies ways in which the Asylum functioned as customer and employer in the community. Second, it documents how the asylum grounds, as a permeable boundary between asylum and community, functioned as a community resource. Third, it shows how the Athens community used the state and local political infrastructure to advance its interests with regard to the Asylum; it also describes the ways in which the physical infrastructure connected Asylum and community.

This study describes an example of a community’s collaboration with an asylum at a time when care has been thought of as situated within the asylum. It suggests areas for constructing or renewing community connections for those with mental illness.

The full text of the dissertation is available for viewing or downloading. Be sure to consult the bibliography at the end for leads to many more sources.

Puzzled by the fuzzy borders between fact and fiction in Cion? Wonder what’s real and what isn’t? Come and learn “CION: the Real Story,” a presentation by Reference Librarian Sherri Saines. Sherri is a member of the Reference and Instruction Department, and serves as the First Year Outreach Librarian.

She’ll reveal the mysteries of Cion at noon on Tuesday, October 28 in Alden 323 (just outside the entrance to the Faculty Commons). We hope to see you there!

Several months ago, Dr. Glen Jackson of Ohio University’s Chemistry Department made a presentation in Alden Library about a research project he had been involved in dealing with one of the ghost stories connected to The Ridges. Briefly, the story concerns a patient at the Athens Mental Health and Retardation Center who went missing in December 1978 and whose body was discovered in an unused part of The Ridges the next month. Quoting from Dr. Jackson’s article:

Although the floor was supposedly cleaned after removing her body, there now (December 2007) is present a very distinct white mark on the floor in the shape of a human body (Figs. 1 and 2). This ‘‘stain’’ has fueled numerous ghost stories and urban legends in the community, and has been featured in a TV documentary⁄drama (3).

The article, “Analysis of Suspected Trace Human Remains from an Indoor Concrete Surface,” describing this research and its conclusions has now been published in The Journal of Forensic Sciences. To learn about how Dr. Jackson went about this research and the conclusions he came to, you can read the article for yourself.

Our second, and final, speaker of the quarter in the Alden Lunchbag series will be Dr. William Condee, J. Richard Hamilton/Baker and Hostetler Professor of Humanities and Professor of Theater, School of Interdisciplinary Arts.

Speaking on “Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Race in 19th Century Ohio,” he will address questions such as: How has the reception of Uncle Tom’s Cabin changed during the sourse of American history? How did Uncle Tom’s Cabin, as a novel and a play, change American history? How can Uncle Tom’s Cabin serve as a lens for understanding race in 19th century Ohio?

Dr. Condee’s presentation will take place on Wednesday, October 22 at noon in the Friends of the Library Room (Alden 319).

This blog, developed and maintained by librarians in Alden Library at Ohio University, is intended to support the University’s Common Reader for 2008-2010, the novel Cion, written by English Department faculty member Zakes Mda. As the site develops, we hope to include information and suggestions for research that arise from issues and themes in the novel.

We welcome your comments; just post them using the link at the end of the articles in the blog. We reserve the right to edit or delete abusive or irrelevant comments as well as the usual “spam.”