Library Faculty/Staff Scholarship and Research

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 636
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    “For the Better Satisfaction of the Christian and Curious Reader”: Visual Tropes and the Rhetoric of Atrocity Representing the 1655 Massacre of the Piedmont Protestants
    (2025-06-06) Sly, Jordan S.
    Abstract: In April of 1655, soldiers in the employ of the Duke of Savoy massacred scores of Protestants living in his territories at the basin of the Italian Alps outside of Turin. In response, the Cromwellian Protectorate launched a diplomatic and propagandistic mission to supply aid on their behalf. Following this mission, Samuel Morland, an agent and of the Protectorate and chief envoy responsible for the administration of these efforts, published The History of the Evangelical Churches of the Valleys of Piemont (1658) to publicise and memorialise these events. Included in this work are several shocking and atrocious images depicting the arbitrary and horrific nature of this massacre against a civilian population. In this presentation I will demonstrate the rhetorical use of this imagery in comparison to other collections of inhumane images from the period including those stemming from the Thirty Years’ War, the 1641 Irish Rebellion, the Amboyna massacre, and depictions of violence in from other non-European locations. Through this analysis I will demonstrate the tropes of atrocity and their memetic and symbolic uses in the development of a shared visual language of atrocity. Additionally, this presentation will address the creation of memory through Morland’s work and the archival anxiety surrounding the collection and publication of documents pertaining to the massacre and the aid organised.
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    Cromwell: A Protector of the Reformed
    (2025-05-28) Sly, Jordan S.
    As Lord Protector, did Oliver Cromwell seek to make himself leader of a Reformed Protestant alliance in Europe? This talk looks at a forgotten aspect of Cromwell's foreign policy. Through the examples of the collections of a large sum of money on behalf of the Vaudois Protestants of the Piedmont, the commissioning of a foreign policy mission on their behalf, the extension of this aid to central European Protestants, and the expansion of the merchant colonial efforts in the Atlantic, it is evident that Cromwell sought to expand the powers of the Lord Protector in novel and interesting ways that challenge some of the traditional conceptions of the Protectorate period.
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    Queens United: Building a Descendant Community Network
    (Visual Resources Association, 2024) Floyd, Joni; Porter, Kevin
    In recent years, several academic and cultural heritage institutions have joined forces to share best practices for engaging with the descendants of individuals whose enslavement contributed to the prosperity of these institutions. However, there is still a need for more testimony from these descendants, particularly regarding their support systems that existed long before many institutions began their outreach efforts. As both descendants of the same enslaved family and representatives of their institutions, the authors draw upon their unique perspectives to provide insight into the foundation of their emerging descendant network. By highlighting three members of this network—Aisha L. Abdul Rahman, Irving Gaither, and Robin Proudie—readers will gain a better understanding of the spiritual foundations, skills, experiences, and sophistication present in these networks. These insights will enhance the readers' cultural competency.
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    Democratizing Academic Librarianship: Ten Years of Community-Building Through a Graduate Fellowship
    (ACRL 2025, 2025) Shaw, Benjamin; Gammons, Rachel; Pierdinock-Weed, Amber
    Developed in partnership between a University Library and a College of Information, the presenters have created and led a three-semester teacher training fellowship that prepares MLIS students for careers in academic librarianship. In celebration of the Fellowship program*s 10th anniversary, we offer reflections from a decade of research and practice, including findings from an ongoing qualitative study featuring interviews with Fellowship alumni. While this presentation focuses on our institution’s Fellowship program, the implications of our findings are relevant to anyone interested in supporting early-to-mid-career librarians as they navigate the challenges, opportunities, and future of the profession. Objective 1: Participants will be able to identify and apply effective strategies for developing and maintaining professional development programs based on a decade of insights from a student-centered fellowship program. Objective 2: Participants will learn to evaluate which components of a professional development program are most impactful for participants, drawing on qualitative findings from interviews with fellowship alumni. Objective 3: Participants will gain actionable recommendations for supporting early-to-mid career librarians in navigating career transitions, building scholarly portfolios, and fostering community-building, informed by findings from interviews with fellowship alumni.
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    Archivists Leading the Reckoning: Confronting Slavery and its Legacies at the University of Maryland
    (2025) McElrath, Douglas; Floyd, Joni
    Case study of The 1856 Project, the University of Maryland’s chapter of the Universities Studying Slavery consortium. Provides practical strategies for social justice workers who seek scalable project models for addressing legacies of racialized harm at their institutions.
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    The History of the Evangelical Churches of the Valleys of Piemont: Political Performance, and the Use of History in the Cromwellian Protectorate
    (2025-03-07) Sly, Jordan S.
    The History of the Evangelical Churches of the Valleys of Piemont: Political Performance, and the Use of History in the Cromwellian Protectorate In 1655, the Duke of Savoy ordered the violent removal of Protestants from his territory in Northern Italy in the basin of the Italian Alps. The horrific massacre that resulted provided vivid evidence of the arbitrary cruelty of Catholic European powers in the development of mid-seventeenth-century polemic literature. Specifically, it provided the Cromwellian Protectorate a useful tragedy in conceptualizing and actuating long-standing threads of religious history that provided the backbone justification of military action against their enemies. This presentation focuses on the book commissioned by the Protectorate and compiled by Sir Samuel Morland titled The History of the Evangelical Churches of the Valleys of Piemont and the complex composition of this book in terms of its religious and political uses. This talk will include descriptions of extant copies of the book in addition to its contents and some history of its use, dissemination, and idiosyncratic elements of specific copies. Content warning: This presentation will contain images from Morland’s work which graphically depict atrocious imagery of extreme violence against men, women, and children.
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