All My Sons

 Image credit: Paul Sihvonen-Binder

This month the University of Redlands Theatre department performs Arthur Miller’s All My Sons at Glenn Wallichs Theatre on November 11-13 and 18-20.

All My Sons is Miller’s first play to receive widespread critical acclaim. It is the story of the Keller family: Joe Keller, a successful factory owner who has built his business on selling defective parts to the military during World War II, his older son Larry, a pilot missing in action, and his younger son Chris, who joined the family business despite suspicions about his father’s unethical actions.

Miller frequently drew from real-life experiences and people for his plays. He was the younger of two brothers, and his father ran the family business, a coat and suit factory, in a well-to-do part of Manhattan. When Miller was a teenager, the business failed, and his father moved the family into smaller quarters in Brooklyn, just as the Great Depression began. Miller lacked the money to go to college and worked odd jobs for years to save for his education, building experiences (such as encounters with anti-Semitism while working an auto parts warehouse) that would recur throughout his later plays.

An English major at University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Miller studied expressionist playwrights like Henrik Ibsen and social protest plays by Clifford Odets. He received university awards for his earliest plays and further honed his craft after graduation by producing half hour works broadcast over the radio. However, his first play produced on Broadway was a critical failure. The story of a garage mechanic who cannot understand why he is successful while his brother is not, The Man Who Had All the Luck closed after just four performances. Discouraged, Miller decided to try writing one more play before giving up on playwriting for good. That play would become All My Sons.

After the play premiered at the Coronet Theatre in January 1947, William Hawkins wrote, “All My Sons is a play of high voltage, charged with things to say. No civilian, past or present, will find himself immune from its comment.”

Buy tickets to attend a University of Redlands performance of All My Sons here.

Further Reading

Hawkins, William. “‘All My Sons’ a Tense Drama.” New York World-Telegram, January 30, 1947. Reprinted in New York Theatre Critics Reviews, Vol. 8, No. 1, p. 475.

Marino, Stephen. “Arthur Miller.” Twentieth-Century American Dramatists: Fourth Series. Ed. Christopher J. Wheatley. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 266. Detroit: Gale, 2003. From Literature Resource Center.

Faith, Sexuality, & Gender Identity

On November 8, 2016, America's attention will be on the election. A few days later, this stressful and unpredictable election will be followed by a move from a "historic campus ministry that has accomplished an incalculable amount of good in its many years of operation" to become more homogeneous by pushing out voices of its more progressive employees. Whether we're talking politics or doctrine, whether we understand or agree with one another, we must take and create opportunities to come together to listen, learn from, and engage with each other. Doing so asks that we brave uncomfortable, controversial, and threatening ideas. Doing so asks that we question the foundations of our beliefs. Doing so challenges the idea that perhaps defining what and who are 'right' and 'wrong' may be less important than coming together to find common ground.

Below are some of the wonderful resources Armacost Library has to stimulate conversations on faith, sexuality, and gender identity. We can use these to outline or strengthen our stances, but we can also use these to redefine the ways we understand and experience difference, ignorance, appreciation, justice, dogmas, respect, and dignity.

Paige Mann
Physical Sciences Librarian, Web Experiences Librarian, and Alumni of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Redlands

      

Women's Health: More Than Breast Cancer

October is breast cancer awareness month in the United States. While it is estimated that 1 in 8 women will develop invasive breast cancer during their lifetime, breast cancer isn't the extent of women-specific health issues. As we think about women's health this month, it seems like a good time to think more broadly about women's health and women's rights in relation to their health and well-being.

This week the University of Redlands hosted a screening of No Más Bebés and discussion with the filmmaker, Renee Tajima-Peña. Women's health includes reproductive justice.

Tajima-Peña's film resurfaces a forgotten and not well know story of a small group of Latinas who sued county doctors, the state of California, and the federal government over coerced sterilization at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center in the 1960 and 1970s.

Perhaps you'd like to explore the Armacost Library's collections for more information on women's health and reproductive health issues.


Breast Cancer

         

Women's Health, General

       

Reproductive Justice

         

Dr. Joyce Banda and Armacost Library books

Dr. Joyce Banda, "a champion for the rights of women, children, the disabled, and other marginalized groups," and former president of Malawi, is speaking at the University of Redlands on Saturday, October 22, 2016 at 3:30pm in the Memorial Chapel.

A few Armacost Library books on Africa, global health, and social change:

Women's Activism and Feminist Agency in Mozambique and Nicaragua 

Aid and Authoritarianism in Africa: Development without Democracy

Global Health, Human Rights, and the Challenge of Neoliberal Policies

Muslim Societies in Africa: A Historical Anthropology

For the City Yet to Come: Changing African Life in Four Cities

Theory from the South: Or, How Euro-America is Evolving toward Africa

Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change

Removing the Barriers to Global Health Equity

Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development in Africa: Concepts, Role-Players, Policy and Practice

The Library Whiteboard

So far this year, the questions have been light-hearted. 

• Where did you come from?
• Draw a self-portrait.
• What organizations might you join?
• Right now, what are you feeling?

But they won't always be. The prompts are meant to provide you a space to be silly, but also to stimulate discussion.

In the past, prompts have included:

• Draw a picture of your pet(s)
• Is feminism relevant today? Why/why not?
• What inspires you?
• Power is...
• How have you changed since high school?
• Syrian refugees:  What should we do?
• What meal from home do you miss most?
• Why are fewer Americans believing God, praying daily, and attending religious services?

Responses have been thoughtful, offended, offending, encouraging, insensitive, creative, and humorous. Forums like this, where you can respond with casualness and some guarantee of anonymity can be freeing and I hope you'll respond with candor, grace, and a willingness to learn from the experiences of others on campus.

If you've ever entered the 2nd floor entrance to the library, you've seen this board in front of the east stairway. If you've ever wanted to post a question--or if your student organization has ever wanted to post a prompt--please know that we in the library encourage you to send your ideas to Paige [underscore] Mann [at] redlands [dot] edu or add them to the board when asked. I'll soon use the board to ask for suggestions.

Paige Mann
Physical Sciences Librarian

Banned Books Week

September 25 - October 1 is Banned Books Week, a time in which we can celebrate our freedom to read! This year Banned Books Week focuses on diversity, and thus challenged literature focusing on "diverse experiences, including (but not limited to) LGBTQIA, people of color, gender diversity, people with disabilities, and ethnic, cultural, and religious minorities" (WNDB, 2016). Events planned over the next several days include a a lunch time Read-Out, a screening of a banned Star Trek episode, and a discussion on Sherman Alexie's work led by the Anti-Racist Book Club.

Banned Books Week events are sponsored by the Center for Diversity and Inclusion, Johnston Center for Integrative Studies, and Armacost Library.

Banned Books Read Out
When: Monday, September 26, 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Where: Outside the Irvine Commons
Brave members of the community will read from their favorite banned or challenged book. Stop and listen for a spell, or join in the freedom to read. Banned and challenged books will be available for perusal.

Star Trek Screening
When: Tuesday, September 27, 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Where: Library computer lab, #104
Why was "Plato's Stepchildren" banned? Food will be provided during the screening. After, discuss anything Star Trek with expert Iyan Sandri.

Anti-Racist Book Club
When: Wednesday, September 28, 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Where: Holt Lobby
Join the Anti-Racist Book Club for a discussion on works by Sherman Alexie!

Banned Books Display
When: All week
Where: Library entrance, 2nd floor
The Armacost Library will highlight banned and challenged literature.


References
We Need Diverse Books [WNDB]. (2016). The we need diverse books YA short story contest. Retrieved from http://weneeddiversebooks.org/the-we-need-diverse-books-ya-short-story-contest/
 

Welcome (back)! The Armacost Library is here to support you.

Borrow
Of course you expect to be able to borrow books from the library, both e-books and in print. But we also have many DVDs--feature films, television shows, and excellent documentary films. More interested in music? We have music available on CDs, streaming, and on vinyl.

Searching for articles (scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers)? The library purchases access to 123 multi-disciplinary and subject-specific databases. Your librarians have created guides to the core databases in each of the major/minor disciplinary programs available at University of Redlands.

Business research guide: http://library.redlands.edu/business

If you can't find what you need at Armacost Library, we can get it for you from another library easily (usually)! We can get most books through our Link+ service, and it takes only a day or two for books to arrive. Look for the Link+ button in the library catalog. Articles can be requested through Interlibrary Loan: When you see the Find Full Text button next to an article in one of our databases, click through to Interlibrary Loan if we don't have the article. Most articles will arrive within days; we'll email to let you know it's available online. We can get almost anything in the world for you; all you have to do is ask.

Study
The Armacost Library offers a variety of study spaces: individual study carrels, large group study tables, soft comfortable seating, and two group study rooms.

Computers and printers are available both in the Library and in the Fletcher Jones Computing Center (computer lab and several smaller collaborative learning spaces) on the first floor of the building.

Research
Your librarians are here to help you with research projects and other assignments. Research assistance is available M-Th 9am-9pm, F 9am-5pm, Sat. 10am-5pm, and Sun. 1-9pm. Ask at the main desk for the librarian on-call. You can also call, chat, email, and make an appointment with your subject librarians. After hours, these subject research guides my help you out.

If you're having trouble finding your way, these floor maps of Armacost Library may help.

Please don't hesitate to contact us, let us know what you need. We're only a few steps, a phone call, a chat window, and an email away.

Good luck with the first week of classes!

Library Open House

Greetings new students! The Armacost Library will host an Open House on Friday, September 2, from 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. 

Please drop by to enjoy light refreshments, short tours, and discussions with your Librarian. That's right, all students have their own Librarian depending on what their major is. For example, there is an Arts Librarian, a Natural Sciences Librarian, and so on. We look forward to introducing you to all the ways in which the Library supports student research.

"Seeing Unseen": Privacy, Surveillance and the Hamlet Project

This Thursday, May 26 at 7 pm, the University of Redlands Theatre department invites you to attend a free, open rehearsal of "The Hamlet Project" developed by Chris Beach and Doug Hammett at the Frederick Loewe Theatre.

Beach and Hammett's adaptation sets Shakespeare's tragedy in a dystopian world where people speak Shakespearean English while employing modern-day social networking and surveillance technologies.

This juxtaposition makes thematic sense given that the plot of Hamlet revolves around several crucial mysteries: has King Hamlet's ghost risen from the grave? How did the king really die? Why has Hamlet started to behave strangely? Shakespeare's characters seek eyewitness evidence to answer these questions, devising elaborate strategems to ensure that they can see without themselves being seen.

Surveillance has become a heightened concern in modern-day societies, with the introduction of digital technologies that expand the scope of what can be recorded, analyzed and inferred. Incorporating cameras, mobile devices and social networking into a production of Hamlet raises necessary questions about the value of privacy and the way in which societies throughout history have balanced security and liberty.

If you're interested in reading further, try searching the Armacost Library catalog for more information on electronic surveillance, privacy and digital technologies. Here are a few possibilities:

American Privacy: The 400 Year History of Our Most Contested Right
Frederick S. Lane
KF 1262.L36 2009

Attorney Frederick Lane reviews the role of privacy in American history, from the efforts to keep postal mail safe during Colonial times through the signing of the PATRIOT Act in October 2001.

Privacy in the Age of Big Data: Recognizing Threats, Defending Your Rights, and Protecting Your Family
Theresa M. Payton & Theodore Claypoole
KF 1262.P39 2014

Payton is a former White House Chief Information Officer and CEO of a fraud and risk consulting company. Claypoole is a technology attorney who heads the Privacy and Data Management team for a major law firm. They explain in plain English how popular consumer technologies can be used to gather data in unwanted ways, and what you can do about it.

Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World
Bruce Schneier
HM846.S362 2015

Security analyst Schneier describes how corporations and governments have created a "surveillance society" at the cost of economic, civic and moral harms.

Unpopular Privacy: What Must We Hide?
Anita L. Allen
JC596.A44 2011

Is privacy always good? Should we have laws enforcing privacy, or should it be a matter of individual choice? Philosopher and laywer Anita Allen looks beyond the most popular and well-liked privacies, to ask whether unpopular - even coercive - privacies are also worthwhile, even if they require government regulation.


Sanjeet Mann
Arts & Electronic Resources Librarian
University of Redlands