Library News

Students from Prof. Mary Farag's and Prof. Heath Carter's classes got to view materials from Wright Library's Special Collections and Archives up close this week.

On Monday, Prof. Farag brought her History of Christianity in Egypt (CH 5230) class to the Theron Room, where Brian Shetler and Lydia Andeskie carefully arranged materials including incased 5th c. papyri, an Arabic prayer book and items with ornate marginalia from the library's collections.

On Tuesday, Prof. Carter brought students from his History of American Christianity (CH 9051) course to the reading room upstairs. There, materials relating to pre-Revolutionary America, the American Civil War and American missionaries were made available for viewing.

Photos of these materials, including some close-ups, are below.

If you would like to bring your class to the archives, contact Brian and Lydia.

• Special Collections and Archives materials staged in the Theron Room including incased 5th c. papyri (far right side)
• Daw al-Misbah (17th c), containing ornate marginalia
• An Arabic prayer book (ca. 1767) from the Persian Manuscript Collection with beautifully illuminated pages depicting the Dome of the Rock (verso) and Mecca (with the Ka’aba) (recto).

• Reading room filled with items on display; nearest table holds materials relating to pre-Revolutionary America
• Table holding materials relating to the Civil War. Most prominently displayed are the diaries of John Jay Pomeroy, a Union Military Chaplain, his writing box, and a bible he used in the field (a gift from his mother). Slightly to the left are sermons delivered by Virginian Henry Carrington Alexander to a Confederate audience.
• Presbyterian missionary Sheldon Jackson's North Star Scrapbook, opened to a drawing of a day’s catch: Trout and a Sea Serpent by Sal Pipinsky
• Another photo of the reading room in Special Collections and Archives, Wright Library, Princeton Theological Seminary with the materials on display for the class

Browse a selection of books and other works by Lisa M. Bowens, Katie G. Cannon, James H. Cone, timone davis, Keri Day, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Angelina Weld Grimké, Dwight Hopkins, Nyasha Junior, Jarena Lee, Darnell L. Moore, Howard Thurman, Eboni Marshall Turman, Desmond Tutu, Chanequa Walker-Barnes, Jesmyn Ward, Ida B. Wells, Phillis Wheatley and many others* in the Black History Month curated bibliography online (link below). The call numbers of these books, the names of their authors and the subject headings found in their library catalog records are all good entry points for further research.

The curated bibliography also contains links to research databases, such as Black Life in America and the Oxford African American Studies Center; lectures, such as the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary; and other suggested reading, listening and viewing.

*Authors and editors include (among others):

• Albert J. Raboteau
• Angelique Harris
• Anthony B. Bradley
• Austin Channing Brown
• Betty Livingston Adams
• Brenda Salter McNeil
• Brian K. Blount
• Bruce D. Haynes
• Cain Hope Felder
• Carla Jones
• Cassandra Jackson
• Cecelia Barr
• Chad Williams
• Chanequa Walker-Barnes
• Charlene A. Carruthers
• Charles M. Payne
• Charlotte McSwine-Harris
• Clarice J. Martin
• Claudette Copeland
• Clayborne Carson
• Cleophus J. LaRue
• Coretta Scott King
• Cornel West
• Courtney Pace
• Dale P. Andrews
• Danjuma G. Gibson
• Darnell L. Moore
• David Walker
• Deborah Blanks
• Deborah Gray White
• Delores Carpenter
• Derrick A. Bell
• Desmond Tutu
• Dorothy Porter
• Dwight Hopkins
• Eboni Marshall Turman
• Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.
• Efrem Smith
• Emerson B. Powery
• Frantz Fanon
• Frederick Douglass
• Gregory C. Ellison, II
• Harriet Jacobs
• Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
• Howard Thurman
• James Baldwin
• James H. Cone
• James Weldon Johnson
• Jarena Lee
• Jennifer T. Kaalund
• Jesmyn Ward
• Johari Jabir
• John H. McClendon
• John Lewis
• Josef Sorett
• Juan Williams
• Judith Weisenfeld
• Karen D. Crozier
• Kathryn Watterson
• Katie G. Cannon
• Keisha N. Blain
• Kenyatta R. Gilbert
• Keri L. Day
• Khristi Lauren Adams
• Kidada E. Williams
• Lisa M. Bowens
• Malcolm X
• Manning Marable
• Margaret Busby
• Margarita Simon Guillory
• Maria Thomas
• Marisa J. Fuentes
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Michael Eric Dyson
• Monica M. White
• Natasha Sistrunk Robinson
• Nyasha Junior
• Octavia E. Butler
• Phillis Wheatley
• Piper Kendrix Williams
• Quinton H. Dixie
• Resmaa Menakem
• Richard J. Douglass-Chin
• Richard S. Newman
• Rima Vesely-Flad
• Robert A. Wortham
• Shamoon Zamir
• Stephanie J. Shaw
• Stephen C. Ferguson
• Tamura Lomax
• Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Toni Morrison
• Vincent W Lloyd
• W. E. B. Du Bois
• Wallace D. Best
• Walter Earl Fluker
• Whitney Battle-Baptiste
• Willie James Jennings
• Winnifred Brown-Glaude
• Yolanda N. Pierce
• Zora Neale Hurston

Thich Nhat Hanh, one of the world’s most influential Zen masters, passed away on January 21, 2022, at the age of 95. Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, was born in Dalat, Vietnam on October 11, 1926. His life’s work as a peace advocate, teacher, poet, and activist took him all over the globe, including a brief but influential stay at Princeton Theological Seminary. Beginning in 1961, Nhat Hanh was a visiting student at Princeton Seminary. He applied for acceptance into the Seminary in 1961 and was accepted as a non-degree-seeking student (also referred to as a “Special Student”) for the 1961-1962 academic year. During that time, he was sponsored and supported by the Institute of International Education (IIE), which provided him with a scholarship that covered tuition, fees, and room & board. This funding was rather modest, as noted in a June 1962 letter from Princeton Seminary Dean Elmer G. Homrighausen, but was supplemented by generous donations and gifts from within the Princeton Seminary community. While at Princeton Seminary, Thich Nhat Hanh (known then as Nguyen Xuan Bao) resided in the dormitories in Brown Hall, attending classes with his fellow seminarians. During his year at the Seminary, Nhat Hanh took five courses—two in the Fall semester and three in the Spring semester. According to the official transcript, his main areas of study were world religions and religious history. A copy of this transcript is located in his alumni file in the Seminary Archives.

According to the official appointment for study that Nhat Hanh received from the IIE in 1961, he was granted permission to be in the United States for one academic year. This limitation was part of the reason that he was not accepted as a degree-seeking student: one year was not enough to earn a degree from the Seminary at the time. All programs at Princeton Seminary were a minimum of two years of schooling (the exception to this being in an area of study requiring prerequisites that Nhat Hanh did not have). This being the case, Nhat Hanh was accepted as a “Special Student” at the graduate level, with funding as noted above but with no expectation of a degree upon completion of his one year of study. During the 1961-1962 academic year, numerous attempts were made by Princeton Seminary faculty and administrators (including President John McCord) to help place Nhat Hanh into a long-term academic program at another institution. These included Princeton University, Yale Divinity, and Harvard Divinity, among others. Eventually, Nhat Hanh was accepted at Union Theological Seminary for the 1962-1963 academic year, where he would be able to pursue coursework both at Union and at Columbia University.

While Thich Nhat Hanh’s stay at Princeton Seminary was relatively short, he is still considered an alumnus of the Seminary and a record of his work here was added to the alumni file collection in the Seminary Archives. This file also records some of the great work of Nhat Hanh’s life, highlighting his role as an international peace activist. According to later publications, Nhat Hanh looked back fondly at his time at the Seminary and, in particular, his relationship with his advisor, Prof. Edward Jurji, Professor of Islamics and Comparative Religion. Throughout the years, Thich Nhat Hanh stayed on the radar of faculty and staff of the Seminary and clippings, letters, and other documents related to his work and life were kept as part of his alumni file in the Princeton Theological Seminary Archives.

For more information about the life and work of Thich Nhat Hanh, take note of recently published obituaries in the New York Times and Associated Press.

To learn more about the Princeton Seminary archives, including materials related to Thich Nhat Hanh, please contact the Special Collections and Archives department.

At right: Photo from Nguyen Xuan Bao (Thich Nhat Hanh)’s Princeton Theological Seminary application, March 1961

Below: Read "Reflections on Princeton By a Vietnamese Buddhist" by Nguyen Xuan Bao (Thich Nhat Hanh) published in The Seminarian.

Wright Library, named for abolitionist, pastor and Princeton Theological Seminary alumnus Rev. Theodore Sedgwick Wright, joins the American Library Association (ALA), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and the Society of American Archivists (SAA) in recognizing the sixth annual US National Day of Racial Healing.*

"The naming of the library is a milestone in the implementation of a multi-year action plan to repent for the Seminary’s historical ties to slavery." October 13, 2021 press release

Whether your work and/or scholarship brings you to Wright Library or to other libraries or archives, we encourage you to engage with our history to better understand the present and help bring healing. This bibliography offers some reading and listening resources from Wright Library's general and archival collections and beyond.

*The National Day of Racial Healing is part of a larger movement for Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT)—a political and cultural framework developed by Dr. Gail Christopher and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

In observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Wright Library will be closed on Monday, January 17.

Visit the curated bibliography linked below for local events, books and open access articles from the collection and past lectures honoring the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. King.

In addition to individual e-book titles, Wright Library purchased several databases in 2021, including:

• Access World News Research Collection (Newsbank)
• Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries (Bloomsbury)
• Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (Bloomsbury)
• Black Life in America, Series 1, 2 and 3 (Newsbank)
• Bloomsbury Religion in North America
• Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek
• Civil Rights and Social Justice (HeinOnline)
• Open Society Justice Initiative (HeinOnlne)
• Tillich Online (De Gruyter)

All databases available to current Princeton Seminary students are in the A-Z list and those available to Princeton Seminary alumni can be found here on the library website (links below).

Wright Library closes at noon on Wednesday, December 22, 2021 and will reopen on Monday, January 3, 2022. Have a safe and joyful break and we'll see you in the new year!

What makes a church sacred? : legal and ritual perspectives from late antiquity by Assistant Prof. Mary Farag is now available in the library collection.

Call Number: BR166 .F37 2021
ISBN: 9780520382008
Publication Date: 2021-11-02

An open access e-book version is also available.

Caught between Justice and Mercy: The Sacred in Late Antiquity (UC Press blog post about the book)

Wright Library is pleased to provide trial access to Tillich Online for Princeton Seminary students, faculty and staff.

Tillich Online (TILLO) from De Gruyter is the first bilingual database of the entire work of German-American theologian Paul Tillich (1886–1965) documents the Gesammelte Werke (Collected Works) and the Ergänzungs- und Nachlassbände (Supplementary and Literary Estate Volumes).

Trial access ends 12/3/21.

November is Native American Heritage Month.

Browse a curated bibliography of selected titles from the Wright Library collection and find material in Cherokee, Delaware, Navajo, Ojibwa and other languages in the Theological Commons.

You'll also find links to the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research, the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries & Museums, and more.