On the Road Again: Manifold Greatness Traveling Exhibition
Manifold Greatness may have left the Folger Shakespeare Library this week, but a traveling banner version of the exhibition is currently in full force. Forty libraries across the United States will receive the display – the traveling tour began in fall 2011 and will run through summer 2013. The American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office is coordinating the tour to public and academic libraries, who are all presenting a variety of free humanities programs in conjunction with the exhibition.
Program highlights so far include:
- Kennessaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia presented a program titled, “Music, Text, and the 1611 King James Bible,” in which Dr. Tamara Livingston, Associate Director of Museums, Archives & Rare Books, discussed the interplay between early 17th century music, text, and the production of books, as exemplified by the King James Bible.
- At Northwest Christian University in Eugene, Oregon, Dr. Jim Earl, professor of English at the University of Oregon, spoke on “The King James Bible and the Invention of Readable English.” Dr. Earl’s lecture explored the influence of the King James Bible on the development of the more direct style of language that is commonplace today.
- And the Burke Theological Libraryat Union Seminary at Columbia University, New York, hosted “The King James Bible at 400: A Conversation with Dr. David Burke,” Emeritus Scholar, the NIDA Institute, American Bible Society.
"Manifold Greatness" traveling exhibition on display at Kellenberger Library, Northwest Christian University. Image courtesy of Northwest Christian University.
Manifold Greatness is currently on view at the University of Texas in Brownsville; William Carey University in Hattiesburg, MS; and the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, MN.
The traveling Manifold Greatness exhibition provides host libraries with the opportunity to connect with their communities in new and fun ways – through lectures by scholars, panel discussions, book and film discussion series, school and college class tours, concerts, and more.
We look forward to seeing the creative ways the remaining tour sites will engage with Manifold Greatness: The Creation and Afterlife of the King James Bible!
Jennifer Dominiak is a program officer in the Public Programs Office at the American Library Association. The ALA Public Programs Office has a highly regarded program of traveling exhibitions; during 2011, the Public Programs Office toured 11 traveling exhibitions to 123 public, academic, and special libraries. Visitors to these exhibits numbered more than 300,000. An estimated 46,000 library patrons attended exhibit-related public programs.
A Flying Start: Update on the Traveling Exhibition
A large crowd gathered to hear four Kennesaw State University faculty disccus the history and language of the King James Bible.
After a very busy first four weeks at a trio of libraries across the United States, the Manifold Greatness traveling exhibition banners are packed up and on their way to three new locations, where the traveling exhibition will open in early to mid-November.
As chronicled in our Manifold Greatness tweets and Manifold Greatness Facebook page, each of the October sites (Northwest Christian University in Eugene, Oregon; Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia; and Columbia’s Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary) offered its own array of public events to go with the exhibition, including lectures, panel discussions, and—this Tuesday night, November 1—Sacred Songs for Sacred Texts with soprano Lisa Holsberg and harp at Burke Library in New York.
NCU also exhibited rare Bibles from its Bibles collection, which marks its 100th anniversary this year. KSU, which shared updates here and here on this blog about the Manifold Greatness exhibition (and its much appreciated intern-docents), opened its How God Became English King James Bible exhibit at the same time.
Photo by Lloyd Wolf.
The traveling exhibition moves now to three new libraries around the country, each of which will open the exhibition in early to mid- November:
Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, launches its Manifold Greatness exhibition on November 9 in connection with an international King James Bible symposium that includes a keynote address by Robert Alter, talks by a number of other scholars, including Folger exhibition curator Hannibal Hamlin, and an early modern music concert (events list).
Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California, which opens Manifold Greatness on November 10 at the Honnold Mudd Library, plans four lectures, a Bible printing workshop, and a student-organized companion exhibition of rare materials (see this new video), including a first edition of the Book of Mormon (events list; video interview; image gallery of CGU highlights).
Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, which opens the exhibition on November 14, plans two panel discussions and a symposium organized by the Arizona Center of Medieval Renaissance Studies (events list).
For more information on the traveling exhibition schedule, consult the Manifold Greatness website for an overview, a list organized by state, or a list organized by date.
The Folger exhibition Manifold Greatness: The Creation and Afterlife of the King James Bible is open to visitors seven days a week through January 16 at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. Admission is free.
Kennesaw State University Welcomes Manifold Greatness
The Kennesaw State University Department of Museums, Archives & Rare Books is delighted to be a part of the Folger Shakespeare Library’s traveling exhibition, Manifold Greatness: The Creation and Afterlife of the King James Bible, through the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the American Library Association (ALA). As one of the first institutions to host the exhibit, we are looking forward to the educational events, lectures, and hands-on workshops we have planned for the month of October.
Tony Howell, Exhibit Specialist, installing the Manifold Greatness panels.
The Department of Museums, Archives & Rare Books is housed in the Horace Sturgis Library at Kennesaw State University (KSU) in Kennesaw, GA. We are composed of many different divisions including the Bentley Rare Book Gallery, the University Archives and Special Collections, the Museum of History & Holocaust Education, and the Arts Collection. Manifold Greatness will be displayed in the Athenaeum Gallery of the Sturgis Library alongside our own exhibition commemorating the 400th anniversary, How God Became English: The Making of the King James Bible. If you’re interested in learning more about our exhibit, visit www.kennesaw.edu/kingjamesbible.
Under the direction of Dr. Catherine Lewis (Executive Director, Museums, Archives & Rare Books) and Dr. Tamara Livingston (Associate Director), our team of faculty, staff, and students has been working around the clock to put the finishing touches on the exhibit space in preparation for the opening date of October 4, 2011. We are thrilled to be able to showcase Manifold Greatness simultaneously with our own exhibit and are excited about the prospect that our visitors will be able to learn from both in the coming month. Our opening lecture, “The History and Language of the King James Bible,” will feature a faculty panel presentation exploring the importance and complicated history of one of the most influential books in history.
These two exhibits reflect the kind of engaged scholarship that Kennesaw State University has become known for, and the Department of Museums, Archives & Rare Books is proud to be a part of the dynamic community of academic and community libraries hosting Manifold Greatness: The Creation and Afterlife of the King James Bible.
To learn more about our Department or upcoming events, please contact Anna Tucker at atucke20@kennesaw.edu or 770-420-4699.
Going on the Road!
Photo by Lloyd Wolf.
The Folger Shakespeare Library’s King James Bible exhibition is going on the road! Forty public, university, and college libraries across the United States will host a smaller traveling version of Manifold Greatness: The Creation and Afterlife of the King James Bible beginning right away and continuing through July 2013.
From California to Georgia and Vermont to Texas, the 14-panel exhibit will criss-cross the country bringing the story of the KJB to diverse library audiences of all ages. Tour sites have fascinating programs planned to honor the 400-year history of the King James Bible and its enduring importance in world culture—and we hope you’ll be learning about some of them here on the Manifold Greatness blog as well as the Manifold Greatness Facebook page, YouTube channel and playlist, Twitter feed, and Flickr account.
There will be films, concerts, panel discussions, writing contests, lectures, plays, and readings—all dedicated to learning more about this remarkable work. A few library sites even have copies of the original 1611 King James Bible and other rare early Bibles to show their visitors.
I and my team at the American Library Association’s program development and partnerships group in the Public Programs Office have been delighted to work with the Folger Shakespeare Library in organizing the library tour. Representatives from the forty tour sites gathered in Washington, DC, on September 22 and 23 for a working session that included the opportunity to view the major Manifold Greatness exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library and talk to the curators and designers.
And now, in the months and years to come, they will present their own King James Bible programs and displays, which are sure to attract wide attention in their communities. In fact, the first sites will debut the traveling exhibit this week!
To see if the exhibit will be coming to your area, please visit the itinerary on our ALA website or call the ALA Public Programs office for more information (312-280-5045). You can also check the locations and schedule pages on the Manifold Greatness website for the same information.
The ALA Public Programs Office is grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities for making this traveling exhibition for libraries possible, and to the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, with assistance from the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas at Austin, for creating such a beautiful and informative exhibition. We expect the tour to be a huge success and a catalyst for individual learning and research across the country.
Susan Brandehoff is Director of Program Development and Partnerships at the American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office.
Manifold Greatness in The Big Easy
Manifold Greatness Panel 1 at NEH booth, ALA-New Orleans
Just before the 4th of July weekend, Panel 1 from the Manifold Greatness traveling exhibition made its first venture out of its home base at the Folger, and appeared at the American Library Association’s annual meeting, which took place this year in New Orleans. I was there for committee work, and to see the panel on the road.
With its strong tradition of jazz music and its southern sensibility, New Orleans struck me as an appropriate place to showcase the King James Bible. Biblical allusion and references run deep in much southern literature, and novelists like Kate Chopin, Tennessee Williams, and William Faulkner have made the city of New Orleans come alive for readers. But it was the music emanating from open doors down in the French Quarter and the unrelenting flow of the Mississippi that made the real connection for me. If you’ve heard any of the spirituals popularized by African American singing groups like the Fisk Jubilee Singers or the Selah Jubilee Singers (think of the song “Go Down, Moses”), you’ve heard the influence of the King James Bible’s language in America. While it’s a bit too simplistic to say that traditional spirituals, church music, the beat of drums, and the influence of European horns converged and gave birth to jazz, jazz did arise from pieces of those traditions, and some will tell you that New Orleans was its birthplace. Whether that claim can be validated or not, New Orleans certainly has carried on the jazz tradition in a way most American cities have not.
Canal Street, New Orleans
As I stepped around discarded crawfish on the Riverwalk and heard that music coming up from the French Quarter behind me, I thought this was surely an appropriate place for a piece of Manifold Greatness to appear.
Thanks to the National Endowment for the Humanities for showcasing our panel at their booth. The full traveling panel tour gets underway in early October, 2011. Stay tuned for details on when and where you can see the show out there on the road!
Caryn Lazzuri is exhibitions manager at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Drumroll, please… announcing the Bodleian Libraries Manifold Greatness exhibition!
Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.
Great excitement this morning with the official announcement of the Bodleian Libraries exhibition opening (April 22) of Manifold Greatness: Oxford and the Making of the King James Bible. Hurray and huzzah!
Manifold Greatness is a collaboration between the Bodleian Libraries and the Folger Shakespeare Library with the assistance of the Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. It will include the Bodleian Libraries exhibition announced here and a subsequent NEH-funded exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library in September and the Harry Ransom Center in early 2012, as well as a major companion website, a traveling exhibition throughout the United States produced by the Folger Shakespeare Library in partnership with the American Library Association, and more. Also look for Manifold Greatness: The Making of the King James Bible, from Bodleian Library Publishing.
From this morning’s announcement: “The Bodleian Libraries Summer 2011 Exhibition opens on Friday 22 April 2011. It celebrates the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible and sheds new light on its creation by examining the working process of the two translation committees based in Oxford at Merton and Corpus Christi Colleges.”
Included in the exhibition are the three key surviving working materials brought together for the first time: from Bodleian Libraries, the only surviving copy of the 1602 Bishops’ Bibles used by the translators; from Lambeth Palace Library, a unique document containing an interim translation of the New Testament epistles; and — on display for the first time ever — translator John Bois’s notes from the General Meeting of 1610 at which the work of the committees was reviewed and the translation finalized.
Why “Manifold Greatness”?
Bible. English. Authorized. 1611. Folger.
If you visit the King James Bible Trust website, as we often do, you may notice that the words “manifest,” “great,” and “greatness” come up fairly often in its events list. At the University of Toronto, “Great and Manifold: A Celebration of the Bible in English,” is on display through June. At Cambridge, “Great and Manifold Blessings: The Making of the King James Bible” wraps up that month as well.
And then, of course, there’s our own Manifold Greatness project, a major, two-continent endeavor that includes a new book from Bodleian Library Publishing, a Bodleian Library exhibition opening at Oxford on April 22, and, funded by the NEH, an exhibition this fall at the Folger Shakespeare Library, an early 2012 exhibition at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, a major website that’s now launching within weeks, and a traveling exhibition produced in partnership with the American Library Association.
But why “manifold” and why “greatness”? The answer lies in the King James Bible’s dedication to King James I, not always printed in modern editions, which begins, “great and manifold were the blessings” when James became king. (“Manifold” here means both “varied” and “abundant.”) Today, the same words describe the King James Bible itself.
Manifold Greatness blog 