25.03.2025Emily Dickinson in facsimile and student-creators in person

The library team, the members of last semester's Dickinson-Whitman seminar, and Dr. Philip Gerard warmly invite you to join them this Friday, March 28^th, 2025, for the opening of a new library exhibition that pairs facsimiles of the Emily Dickinson’s manuscripts with "post-digital" writing by ES students. Drawing inspiration from Dickinson’s defiance of nineteenth-century print technology (only 10 of Dickinson’s 1700+ poems were printed during her lifetime, and these likely without her permission), the MA students have created a set of fascinating textual objects specially crafted to resist digitalisation. Unlike the news article you are reading now, these messages cannot be transmitted digitally. Most, in fact, require the receiver to take them in their hands. In several cases, the “post” of the students’ “post”-digital creations alludes to Dickinson’s celebrated envelope-poems, manuscripts in which the poet turned her epistolary medium literally inside out. The students’ works too are “letter[s] to the World,” a domain unreachable on the World Wide Web.
 
Friday’s opening represents the English Department Library’s contribution to this year's BiblioWeekend festivities and the seminar participants' response to its general theme, “Words connect worlds.” Visitors will have a chance to explore the student works alongside facsimiles of Dickinson’s poems and letters. The student-creators will be on hand to speak about their projects and answer any questions. Drinks and snacks will be provided.
 
When: Friday, March 28^th, 2025, from 6 p.m.
Where: The English Department Library, Pestalozzistrasse 50, 8032 Zürich, Room PET U 104