Books are very special objects. They tickle our imagination. They send us through rabbit holes and offer shelter in worlds of the mind. And they generate places of transformation and deep intimacies. In turn, used books are often stubborn survivors that have had many lives: they were read to death and handed down through generations because intellectually and emotionally they have become part of their readers’ lives.
Based on undergraduate research conducted in the English Honors seminar “The Power of the Page,” this exhibition examines books from Hale Library’s special collection that were written, collected, and cherished by Kansans, often over generations, and the stories they have passed along with them. Reading Kansas understands these books as windows onto dazzling and usually unexplored local experiences that link the present to the past, and Kansas to larger American stories and to the world. The eight case studies are also an attempt to give a voice to Midwestern booklovers and book collectors and some of their beautiful, intriguing or intriguingly bizarre volumes.
We hope you enjoy Reading Kansas and invite you to share your thoughts, suggestions, and discoveries on our comments page. By design, Reading Kansas is a work in progress, and we hope that it will become a richer archive with each future book history class. Thank you for exploring Reading Kansas. |
"We read over the shoulders of giants; books place us in dialogue not just with an author but with other readers."
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Website Design by Sarah Peterson, Photographs by Hallie Lucas