Tableau THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SPRING | SUMMER 2007 IN THIS ISSUE | HIDDEN ARCHIVES | MARVELOUS REAL | REMEMBERING ENGLISH Editor’s Corner his issue of Tableau considers the tells the remarkable story of Professor of Romance monumental work, The T. L. Yuan Bibliography of book, broadly conceived. We consider Languages E. H. Wilkins (1880–1966), an important Western Writings on Chinese Art and Archaeology, Tthe influence of the East upon the scholar of Petrarch, dean of the colleges at the Uni- remains a lasting contribution to the field. Prof. European romancers in Michael Murrin’s feature versity of Chicago in the late twenties, and president Vanderstappen was also instrumental in building article on the Silk Road and its chroniclers. Richard of Oberlin College in the thirties and forties. the study collection of Chinese and Japanese Stern describes changes in literary scholarship Sadly, we have received notice of two deaths scrolls at the Smart Museum of Art at the Univer- from the mid-1950s onward in his highly personal in Art History. Angela Volan, PhD 2005, died last sity of Chicago, including the donation of many recollection of the Department of English. The year at the age of 35 from complications of works from his private collection. need for universities to collect, to preserve, and Marfan’s Syndrome. Professor Emeritus Harrie Joanne M. Berens to archive books and other primary sources for Vanderstappen, PhD 1955, died this year at the Editor of Tableau scholarly research is the theme of several articles. age of 86. Prof. Vanderstappen taught East Asian Director of Communications We look at Mark Slouka’s new novel, The Visible art history to several generations of students Division of the Humanities World. And finally, David Thompson, PhD 1997, during his more than thirty years at Chicago. His contents 1 LETTER FROM THE DEAN FEATURES ON CAMPUS 5 Chinese Studies at Chicago 14 CURRICULUM VITAE 2 HERE & NOW By Theodore N. Foss PhD 1979, Associate Faculty Honors • Uncovering Chicago’s Hidden Archives Director, Center for East Asian Studies • Honoring Angela Volan 6 The Marvelous Real: 15 IN MEMORIAM • MAPH Enters a Second Decade Marco Polo’s Legacy to European Romance Harrie Vanderstappen, PhD 1955, By Michael Murrin, the Raymond W. and • The Visible World: A Novel Professor Emeritus of Art History and Martha Hilpert Gruner Distinguished Service East Asian Languages and Civilizations • The Fate of the Book in the Digital Age Professor of English, Comparative Literature, • Documenting Endangered Languages and the Divinity School 16 PALIMPSEST 12 Remembering the English Department The Archive and the Office By Richard Stern, the Helen A. Regenstein By David M. Thompson, PhD 1997, Professor Emeritus of English Associate Dean for Planning & Programs 17 HAPPENINGS Tableau, Spring /Summer 2007, Volume 9, Number 1 —Tableau is published biannually with Division of the Humanities funds for our alumni and friends. Editor: Joanne M. Berens, MFA 1993; Copy Editor: Kristian C. J. Kerr; English Doctoral Student. To Contact Tableau: The University of Chicago, Division of the Humanities, 1115 East 58th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, [email protected] FROM THE DEAN 1 for multilingual work, and for the creativity that catches its light from surprising, unsettling conjunctions. During my tenure as dean, we have also worked hard on developing our strengths in creative and per- forming arts. Visual Arts in particular has made three exciting new hires, as has English with the hire of novelist Mark Slouka and poet Srikanth Reddy. Art History, Cinema and Media Studies, and Music have recently added scholars who are forging strong links to the studio arts program. The Division is also actively dear alumni strengthening ties to professional arts organizations both on and off campus. The recent movement of humanistic disciplines into closer proximity with the and friends arts, which complements our decades of kinship with anthropology and history, provides an important occasion to envision new intellectual configurations I WRITE TO SHARE SOME EXCELLENT NEWS. within the humanities generally. This past winter President Robert J. Zimmer announced As many of you know, I will conclude my service a new graduate aid initiative that will direct $50 million as dean of the Division of Humanities at the end of over six years toward the University of Chicago’s doc- June. In July, I will take up an appointment as the UPS toral programs in the humanities and social sciences. Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science This is the largest investment in graduate fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton; hap- & pily, this research appointment will also allow me to aid in twenty years and means that we are once again able to offer fellowship packages to incoming graduate maintain a teaching appointment at the University of students that are competitive with our peers. Beginning Chicago over the coming years. As of this writing in with the entering class of autumn 2007, nearly all mid-March, a faculty committee is in the process of doctoral students in the humanities and the social making a recommendation for the twelfth dean of the sciences will receive five years of funding, including Division of the Humanities to President Zimmer and both tuition remission and generous living stipends, as Provost Thomas F. Rosenbaum, and they will make a well as health care and summer stipends to support formal appointment of the new dean this spring. academic work and hasten progress through our pro- As I close out my term, I am confident that the grams. Graduate aid was the highest priority articu- Division stands ready to maintain its position at the lated by faculty when I assumed the deanship. We front of humanistic inquiry. Every day the imagination needed to strengthen our capacity to recruit and sup- and intellectual intensity of my colleagues astonishes port the best students not only for the sake of their me. This issue’s list of faculty honors is a reminder of educational experience, but also to retain our stellar the rich scholarly life within the Division. Let me also faculty. I am delighted that we have achieved this. offer a few examples that reflect how new technologies I am also pleased to report that this autumn’s are transforming research in the Humanities: in Art matriculating class of doctoral and masters students History, Professor Wu Hung has assembled a team of will enter a Division of the Humanities that is as scholars and scientists to reconstruct digitally Buddhist strong as it has ever been. At 170 members, we have cave temples from the Northern Qi dynasty, whose the largest faculty since the early 1970s. We can once magnificent sculptural holdings were carried away or again report strength not only in areas like philosophy, forcibly cut from the cave walls and taken out of China art history, and English, but also in programs that are in the early part of the twentieth century. In Near too often sacrificed in higher education, such as South Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Professor Matthew Asian languages and civilizations, Germanic studies, Stolper is leading emergency efforts to digitize thou- and linguistics. Whereas the University of Cambridge sands of endangered clay tablets whose Achaemenid last year stopped teaching Sanskrit, which they have Elamite cuneiform markings contain valuable, other- offered since the mid-nineteenth century, we have re- wise unknown information about daily life in the cently hired four young scholars in South Asian studies, ancient capital Persepolis. In Linguistics, Professor including a Sanskritist. In this issue of Tableau, you can Salikoko Mufwene is collaborating with colleagues read in depth about the historic and current strengths in Computer Science to model language evolution. of Chinese scholarship across several divisional depart- We offer our sincere thanks to all of our alumni ments. Finally, this winter we opened the doors to the and friends whose generous and ongoing support of new Center for the Study of Languages. The $1.7 million the humanities at the University of Chicago makes center provides a state-of-the-art research center for work like this possible. ■ the development of teaching materials for second- language acquisition and language pedagogy, together Sincerely, with classrooms for teaching the roughly fifty languages regularly taught within the Division of the Humanities each year. The center will benefit not only divisional faculty and graduate students but also undergraduates and professional students. With resources like these, we have an unrivaled capacity for comparative work, 2 HERE & NOW training in archival work, and promoting collaborative work both within the University community and the city at large. To date, MTS has processed the papers of poet-journalist Frank Marshall Davis, Ebony maga- zine editor Ben Burns, and is currently processing the vast photograph archives of the Chicago Defender. The University’s Regenstein Library is providing here &now UNCAP with coordination and professional expertise, as well as technical infrastructure through the library’s digital development center, which will design an on- line search software for the project. Special Collections Research Center will provide archival training for Uncovering Chicago’s Hidden Archives graduate students working on the project, and archi- By Moira Hinderer, doctoral candidate in History vists, faculty, and students will together explore