Greetings! On my way to the subway after class last night, another classmate told me one of the reasons she didn't choose to join our group is that Amazon's cheapest copy of Jane Maher's biography, "Her Life and Work," is now $42! Yikes. When I got home I checked, and she was right! But I also found that I had actually gone ahead and ordered a copy along with my other books last week, and paid only $12. Dumb luck for me. Still, the small vendor I bought it from isn't promising delivery until September 26, though I'm hoping for sooner.
In case you haven't bought a copy and can't get it cheaply or quickly enough, here's a pdf version I found:
"Her Life and Work"
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED403603.pdf
And here's a pdf of Jane Maher's article in the Journal of Basic Writing in 1997, "Writing the Life of Mina P. Shaughnessy."
Writing the Life of Mina P. Shaughnessy"
http://wac.colostate.edu/jbw/v16n1/maher.pdf
So then I did the next thing I always do in researching these days: check Wikipedia, Google Images and YouTube. Alas! Mina Shaughnessy died in 1979, long before ubiquitous camera phones and selfie obsessions. Long before routine videotaping of every conference presentation. So she's still a very elusive figure, brought to life only in words. But Maher's book includes a number of photos that I may be able to photograph and reproduce as part of our presentation. At least I plan to try. And although I couldn't find anything on the CUNY library website, I will pursue any resources they may have. I'm wondering if there's anyone else around who remembers her and who might be willing to talk about her on audiotape? Barbara has some memories, though many of us have already heard them. Might be worth getting them down on tape anyway. Cheers!
Karen, thank you so much for starting the blog and for all the research you've done! I'm checking out that PDF now, thanks!
ReplyDeleteThanks for starting the blog, Karen. I did a quick search on CUNY libraries and found two copies of the Shaughnessy biography available ("look on shelf" is what the status says, to be specific). If anyone hasn't received their copy yet or is itching to look at it before then, the call number for it is: PE 64 .S36 M34 1997.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, I noticed there is a book authored by Adrienne Rich (we've been assigned one of her articles, actually, for our next class) and it appears to be a collection of documents from her time teaching at City alongside MS. I'm familiar with her work as a poet; it's a new thing for me to see write her as as BW teacher. This book is available at the Graduate Center and I'd be willing to go pick it up and skim it to see if it would help our research.
Sok - Yes - By all means see what Adrienne Rich has to say that will contribute to our project.
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