John H. Pollack
John H. Pollack is Curator, Research Services, in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries. He has worked in this department since 1995. His responsibilities include providing assistance to students and scholars, and teaching and organizing class sessions centered on the collections. He is also responsible for the Furness Shakespeare Library, which is part of the Kislak Center.
John holds a PhD in English from Penn and a BA from Washington University in St. Louis. He specializes in Early American literature and history, and early modern book history. His research has focused on topics including Native American languages; colonial writings from New France; and Benjamin Franklin and colonial education.
Cultural historian Kathy Peiss is author of the new book Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe (Oxford University Press).
Information Hunters investigates book collecting missions for the purpose of intelligence gathering during World War II. Professor Peiss writes, "An unlikely band of American librarians, archivists, scholars, spies, and soldiers went abroad to aid the Allies' cause, their war work centered on books, documents, and print culture." Information Hunters investigates these collecting missions and their long-lasting impacts on research libraries and on cultures of knowledge.
Professor Peiss will discuss her work in conversation with Professor Roger Chartier (Annenberg Visiting Professor in History and Professor at the Collège de France) and Dr. Arthur Kiron (Schottenstein-Jesselson Curator of Judaica Collections, Penn Libraries).
Kathy Peiss is the Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of American History at the University of Pennsylvania.
This event is co-sponsored by the Penn Department of History.
