Rauner Special Collections Library

Rauner's current exhibit, "Let the Old Traditions Fail: Persistence of Feminist and Queer Life At Dartmouth in the Twentieth Century" was designed by the students in Professor Matthew Ritger’s ENGL 61.03/WGSS 66.20 class, "Early Modern Literature and the History of Sexuality." Throughout the quarter, the students explored academic debates over the history of sex and gender, the relationship between identity formation and sexual orientation, and the difference between representations of these issues in literary/dramatic texts and legal/institutional archives.

We are always touting our beautiful books--so important and culturally significant!--but this summer we are working with a class called "Baaaaad French" and another one called "Bad Art!" We have so much to offer it is dizzying!

This month we have a new single-case exhibit installed at Rauner Library, one appropriate to the summer and especially to this coming Fourth of July weekend. Since the movie Jaws just turned 50, we decided to do a survey of sharks and shark attacks in the collections.

We found quite the variety, including 16th-century tomes on ichthyology, painted and written accounts of attacks on sailors, informative pamphlets for 19th-century children and for 20th-century navy men, and -- naturally -- a student's review of Jaws in the Dartmouth.