Undergrads to present work at Newberry Library

Students in the Newberry Library Undergraduate Seminar, which is sponsored by UIC, DePaul, Loyola and Roosevelt University, will conclude the annual semester-long humanities program with public presentations April 25 and 27, from 2 to 5 p.m. in the library’s Towner Fellows’ Lounge.

This year’s seminar, “Exchange Before Orientalism: Asia and Europe, 1500–1800,” has focused on the era’s formation of extensive commercial, cultural, and technological trade between Europe and Asia. Co-taught by Ellen McClure, associate professor of French and history, and Laura Hostetler, professor of history, participating students were assigned individual study areas and expected to complete common reading assignments and research in the Newberry’s core collections.

The presentations represent the culmination of research paper projects that explore topics such as the cotton trade between India and England, and Ottoman and Venetian maps.

Each seminar class carries six credits and is limited to 20 participants, five per school, who are encouraged to work closely with Newberry staff.

UIC student presenters and their projects are:

• Auguste Baltrimaviciute, “England’s Path to the Industrial Revolution through India: Understanding the significance of Mercantilism in the Context of Textiles”
• Tyler Grand Pre, “More than Exoticism: Utopian and Ethnographic Imaginings of the East”
• Israel Hernandez Luna, “Maps as Recording Systems of Cultural Ideas: An Introspective of the
  Kitab-i Bahriye”
• Olivia Hutto, “Literature Alive: Spanish Colonization and Conversion of the Ilocos Sur”
• Oscar Martinez, “China — A Model for Europe: The Exemplary Legal System of the Qing”