Collections by Subject: International Literature
A Selected List of Holdings in Special Collections, University of Maryland Libraries
For more information about how to access materials in this guide, please visit the Maryland Room web page or fill out an information request.
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Archives of the International Brecht Society, 1971-1985. 4.75 linear feet.
Location: Literature and Rare Books
The International Brecht Society was established in 1970 to encourage and promote the study and performance of the work of German dramatist Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956). The collection, donated by Brecht scholar Professor John Fuegi of the University of Maryland, includes correspondence, administrative files, manuscripts, and galley proofs and published copies of the Brecht Yearbook.
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John Fuegi Collection, 1855-2003. 33 linear feet.
Location: University of Maryland
John Fuegi, Clara and Robert Vambery Distinguished Professor of Comparative Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, since 1992, holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Southern California. In addition to the University of Maryland, he has taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Harvard University, Wesleyan University, and at institutions in Berlin and Mainz, Germany, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Support for Fuegi's seventeen books and films on subjects as diverse as Virginia Woolf and 12th century nun Hildegard of Bingen came from grants and awards by the Guggenheim Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment For the Humanities, and the Danish Film Institute. An authority on the life and work of Bertolt Brecht, Fuegi was the founder if the International Brecht Society in 1970 and edited the first 14 volumes of its Proceedings. The collection contains materials related to Fuegi's research for the book Brecht and Company: Sex, Politics, and the Making of Modern Drama [New York: Grove Press, 1994], and his award-winning film about Danish novelist Ruth Berlau, Red Ruth: That Deadly Longing [1992]. The collection consists primarily of manuscripts, research files, and publicity materials for Brecht and Company. Materials also document Dr. Fuegi's activities in the field of Brecht scholarship through articles and audio-visual materials, records of the International Brecht Society, and significant correspondence with scholar Eric Bentley. Other materials include correspondence, clippings, and photographs relating to Bertolt Brecht's collaborators such as the writers Elisabeth Hauptmann, Ruth Berlau, and Margaret Steffin, and the dramaturge Robert Vambery. While some are originals, others are photocopies of extremely rare material such as records from the Bertolt Brecht Archive at Harvard University.
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German Expressionism Collection, 1909-1961. 0.50 linear feet.
Location: Literature and Rare Books
The literary movement German Expressionism generally dates from around 1905 to 1945. It arose as a reaction against materialism, complacent bourgeois prosperity, rapid mechanization and urbanization, and the domination of the family within pre-World War I European society. It was the dominant literary movement in Germany during and immediately after World War I. The authors explored in their works the predicaments of representative symbolic types rather than of fully developed individualized characters. Expressionist poetry was similarly nonreferential and sought an ecstatic, hymn like lyricism that would have considerable associative power. This condensed, stripped-down poetry, utilizing strings of nouns and a few adjectives and infinitive verbs, eliminated narrative and description to capture the essence of feeling. The dominant themes of Expressionist verse were horror at urban life and apocalyptic visions of the collapse of civilization. This collection of approximately sixty individual items includes correspondence and manuscripts, of both prose and poetry, by forty individuals including Leonhard Frank, George Groz, Oskar Kokoscha, Else Lasker-Schuler, Ernst Toller, and Franz Werfel.
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Jesse Glass papers, 1836-2011. 79.5 linear feet.
Location: Literature and Rare Books
Jesse Glass, Jr., (1954- ), a writer, artist, and editor, is Professor of American literature and history and of comparative literature at Meikai University in Chiba, Japan. Raised outside Westminster, Maryland, he holds degrees from Western Maryland College (B.A., 1979), Johns Hopkins University (M.A., 1980), and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (Ph.D., 1988). He was closely associated with avant-garde periodicals, Goethe's Notes (1976-1980), Cream City Review(1982-1988), and Die Young (1991-1996). After moving to Japan in 1992, he became involved with the Abiko Quarterly. In 1998 he established Ahadada Books, which publishes both online and in print. Published works of his poetry include The Passion of Phineas Gage & Selected Poems (2006), The Life and Death of Peter Stubbe (1995) and Lexical Obelisk (1983, 1990, 1996). He has also written on the history and folklore of Carroll County, Maryland, in The Witness: Slavery in 19th century Carroll County, Maryland (2004), Carroll County Newspaper Wars: Know-Nothings, Alms House Scandals and the Death of a Civil-War Editor (2004), and Ghosts and Legends of Carroll County (1982; revised, 1998). His papers include correspondence with such notable poets as Cid Corman, Leo Connellan, Robert Peters, Rod Summers, David Ray, and Armand Schwerner. Also in the collection are photographs, artwork, clippings, background material for books, visual and sound poetry, monographs, serials, chapbooks, manuscripts and poetry publications documenting the careers of Glass and of others. The collection includes both English and Japanese language materials and documents Glass's interest in Japanese poetry and folklore.
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George Margoulies papers, 1918-1967. 6.25 linear feet.
Location: Literature and Rare Books
George Margoulies (1902-1972) was a Russian-born author and translator. He lived primarily in France from 1919 until his death in 1972 and obtained degrees from various French institutions. Margoulies was a lecturer at Ecole des Langues Orientales, Paris, from 1926 until1939. He was sent on an educational mission to China by the French educational ministry in 1930. From 1945 until 1966 he worked as an international official and interpreter to the UN Secretary's office. Margoulies published numerous books and articles on history and literature in French, English, German, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese. He also read Latin and Portuguese. The collection includes correspondence (in French, English, German, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese), notes, and manuscripts of Margoulies's translations. There are also ten notebooks of Margoulies's diaries dating from 1918 to 1925.
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Clara and Robert Vambery Papers, 1929-1998. 9.00 linear feet.
Location: Literature and Rare Books
Robert Vambery (1907-1998) was born in Hungary and educated in Germany. He was the artistic director for the Theater an Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin and in this capacity was involved in the first production of Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera. While in Berlin, Vambery met his future wife, Clara Erdelyi (1909-1993), whom he would marry in 1948. Vambery left Germany in 1933 and came to the United States in 1938, where he taught in the Drama Department at Columbia University, and contributed to The Nation. The collection includes the Vamberys' correspondence, financial documents, and material relating to Robert's literary writing and research, including manuscripts of Robert Vambery's operetta Der Kuhhandel. Other materials relate to Robert Vambery's mother Olga, his grandfather Professor Arminius Vambery, and Lotte Lenya.