Assessing the Spring Semester - Part II

Dear Readers:

As I mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to share a bit more about what we did in Providence when Albert and I were not at the conference sessions. One of the places we visited was The Providence Athenaeum, which was the successor to the Providence Library Company founded in 1753.

By European standards, 1753 is not very old, but for Americans this type of historical building really brings to mind our fairly recent colonial past and the birth of our country. So of course, Albert and I were very excited and spent some time walking around the library. It is rather small and has a damp, wooden smell, but that certainly is part of the charm. Even though the library's dimensions limit its capacity to have an extensive book collection, I was very impressed to see Herencia: The Anthology of Hispanic Literature of the United States edited by Nicolás Kanellos. Its inclusion certainly has a great deal of symbolic significance, given the Hispanic legacy in the United States, as well as pointing to the growing influence of Latinos in the U.S.

Here are a few more pictures of us while we browsed.

Albert and I at the library. Notice that Herencia is the bright yellow book  in the  upper right.

Engrossed in reading!

Posing next to the Egyptian Elephant Folio Cabinet, 1838-40.
Click  on The Providence Athaneaum Art Collection to learn more about this piece. 

An exterior view of the Athaneaum.

Just to wrap things up, here a a few final pictures of Providence.

A view of Fleur-de-lis Studios.

A view of the Brown University campus.

The conference ended the first of April, and we returned to Houston that same Sunday. I gained a lot from this experience, and it was a refreshing break from the hectic routine of the past few months. Upon returning home, I concentrated on making corrections to my dissertation, and I anxiously waited for a date to be set for my defense. During these first few weeks of April, my maternal grandmother also became quite ill, and I spent time visiting her as well. In my next update, I will give you more details about those turbulent times. 

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Best,
Sylvia