History of Costumes and the Arabian Nights Discussed at Writers Series

Sue Bottigheimer (l) and Celia Marshik (r), Writers Series, March 2016

Sue Bottigheimer (l) and Celia Marshik (r), Writers Series, March 2016

On Tuesday March 22, an engaged audience of students, faculty, staff, and community members attended the second event of the spring 2016 University Libraries Writers Series: A Conversation with Celia Marshik and Ruth (Sue) Bottigheimer.

Costumes were incredibly popular in the early twentieth century: period commentators even diagnosed an “epidemic” of fancy dress. Professor Marshik of English discussed “An Epidemic of Fancy Dress: Representations of Costume in Modernist and Popular Literature” and traced the range of options party-goers might wear and looked at the surprising responses of writers to a category of clothing that purported to transform a wearer’s identity, if only for a night.

In the “The Europeanness of the Arabian Nights,” professor Bottigheimer of Cultural Analysis and Theory highlighted the remarkable transformations of the Arabian Nights over the centuries, most notably the amazing way that the collection has incorporated European stories from the early 1700s. A spirited question and answer session followed the talks.

Writers Series, March 2016

Writers Series, March 2016

The final event of the series will feature SBU visiting faculty and best-selling author Naomi Wolf discussing “Victorian Sexualities” on Tuesday, May 3 at 2 p.m. To register and guarantee seating, visit: http://guides.library.stonybrook.edu/writersseries.

For more information about the series, contact event coordinators Kristen Nyitray and Sally Stieglitz.

Kristen Nyitray

Kristen Nyitray

Associate Librarian; Director, Special Collections and University Archives; and University Archivist at Stony Brook University Libraries
Contact her for research assistance with rare books, manuscript collections, historical maps, and SBU history. E-mail: kristen.nyitray@stonybrook.edu.
Kristen Nyitray
Posted in Special Collections & University Archives