Category: History

Valentin Haüy’s Essai (1786) * On the Education of Blind Children * NYPL Rare books * Image + Description

I wrote about Valentin Haüy and his founding of the first school for blind children in 1785 in There Plant Eyes. My dear friend David Lowe, who is a photo specialist in the Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs at the New York Public Library, read my book (Thanks, David!), and because he did, when he saw Valentin Haüy’s… Read more

NYPL Works In Progress Talk with David Lowe, Photography Specialist

On October 19, 2023, I was honored to present my work-in-progress as a 2023-24 NYPL Diamonstein-Spielvogel Fellow at the New York Public Library. Thanks to Deirdre Donohue and David Lowe for supporting this talk with their brilliance and kindness! The entire talk with ASL interpreters is below as a Vimeo link and my lecture notes follow.     Face of… Read more

Tap. Tap. Tap. Joyce’s Blind Stripling in honor of White Cane Safety Day

*Parts of This introductory essay first appeared for White Cane Safety Day 2018 at Catapult* “God’s curse on you,” said the blind stripling sourly to the oblivious passerby who’d knocked his cane, “whoever you are! You’re blinder nor I am, you bitch’s bastard!” The blind stripling is one of the hundreds of Dublin characters who crisscross Ulysses. His unfortunate encounter… Read more

Flaubert’s Rule for Artists: Be Regular? Settled? Ordinary as a Bourgeois? Essay 28 of #52essays2017

“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” –Gustave Flaubert I first encountered this quote a few weeks back in my Catapult Advanced Writing Workshop with the amazing R.O. Kwon. I liked it and it felt right. Having no set schedule as a writer makes it very hard to allow… Read more

I Have A Fellow Feeling For Trump. He Seems As Blind As I Am, Essay 27 of #52essays2017

Helen Keller startled vaudeville audiences from 1920 to 1924 with her lefty politics. According to Dorothy Herrmann’s biography, Keller’s answers to current events questions from the audience such as “What do you think of President Harding?” had planned zingers such as “I have a fellow feeling for him. He seems as blind as I am.” For my title, I take… Read more

Bobst Library, the Education of the Blind, and The Buffoon of Saint-Ovide, Essay 21 of #52essays2017

When I started my grad degree at NYU, I was given, for my nearly exclusive use, a little padded cell in the basement of Bobst Library where, in the beginning, I read books on the history of the education of the blind alongside postmodern theorists. It was black, or I remember it as such because of the black acoustic foam… Read more