Lunch at the Library: “Unboxing the Dead” – A Memoir with former APS Manuscripts Librarian J. Stephen Catlett
Please register here to attend in person or livestream.
Wednesday, December 13, 2023
12:00 - 1:00 p.m. ET
Join us for a Lunch at the Library presentation from former APS Manuscripts Librarian J. Stephen Catlett, who will be sharing reminiscences and reflections from his memoir published in the Fall 2023 issue of the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society.
In 2018 the author began working on a Memoir about his life as a Manuscripts Librarian at the American Philosophical Society in 1977 and then in 1986 as Archivist at the Greensboro Historical Museum, in Greensboro, NC. It became a journey of discovery that, he hoped, would help him understand how his mother had struggled to overcome her WWII Marriage and Divorce. His experience for over 37 years of “boxing & unboxing” the papers both of scholars and everyday people, living their life “Along The Banks” as historian Will Durant described the simple life of ordinary people would help him to better understand his mother's own struggle to find herself and become the strong, spiritual person she had once been. Thus, “Unboxing the Dead” is both a personal exploration and a universal quest of how we face and overcome our own path to a healthy, fulfilling life.
The conversation will include excerpts from the memoir, as well as additional anecdotes from his experiences at the APS.
This event will take place on Wednesday, December 13, 2023 at 12:00 p.m. ET in Benjamin Franklin Hall and will also be livestreamed.
This event is free to attend but registration is required. Please register to attend in-person and online. Lunch will be provided to those attending in person.
This lecture is sponsored by the APS Press. The American Philosophical Society has the longest continuously-running scholarly press in the nation. Since the first issue of Transactions of the American Philosophical Society in 1771 featured research on the Gulf Stream and the Transit of Venus, the APS Press has been committed to promoting useful knowledge in all areas of research. Learn more about APS Press here.