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The Presse Journal blog published by the staff of Presse Bookstore is a regular source of information about literature, music, and art from around the world. We sell a wide selection of books, music and films. We can always close our eyes and imagine we're in the Latin Quarter in Paris (or Greenwich Village in NYC), but we're really located near the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and Q Street in Georgetown.
by Harvetta Asamoah
January 25, 2010
Candide, ou l'optimisme
The New York Public Library has created a phenomenal multimedia website all about Voltaire's 1759 bestselling media sensation: Candide, ou l'optimisme. The book was written in response to an earthquake that occurred in Lisbon and the Seven-Years' War. How could a world in which these horrible events happened be a perfect world? The main character, a young naive man named Candide, travels the world and learns to shape his own destiny.
As I watched the videos and read this website, a few great but hazy memories from my very first first college French course with Dr. Schier at Carleton College floated back to mind: for example, the hot air balloon, the harsh anti-slavery message, the auto-da-fe. The Library's presentation includes a seven-minute discussion with Dr. Paul LeClerc, who concludes by saying that Voltaire could be called the world's first human rights activist.
When Random House came into existence in 1928, it decided that Candide would be the very first book they would publish.
Link to the New York Public Library's digital exhibition
December 30, 2009
Canal Académie, Amazing Online Classes
Canal Académie is the premier French academic radio station on the Internet. The Literature section includes a class on Corneille's Le Cid by Hélène Carrière d'Encausse, Secretary of the Académie Française as well as a class on Négritude et Francophonie by Lilyan Kesteloot, a professor at the University of Dakar. These are only two of the interesting courses on the website.
Link to Canal Académie
December 17, 2009
Write History with The Oral History Workshop
by Cynthia Hart and Lisa SamsonThe Oral History Workshop is a useful guide for beginning an exploration of the personal histories of our family and friends which greatly enriches our experiences. This book is full of thoughtful interview questions and is a straightforward, step-by-step guide for collecting information in conversations and recording it in scrapbooks or using the information as the starting point for writing projects.
Who knows where an oral history will lead? With the help of information available on the Internet, now it's possible to corroborate even tiny shreds of evidence from the most minimal oral histories, particularly if valuable detailed censuses are available. In some cases, a census may include details such as religion or an ancestor's literacy. The first U.S. federal census was in 1790. Detailed state censuses are extremely valuable: for example, the first Iowa state census on Ancestry.com is the 1838-1870 census.
Ancestry.com uses a miraculous soundex system that makes is possible to locate ancestors even if the census taker mispelled their name!
If a family member ever served in the military, detailed military records going as far back as the Civil War are available. The results of even a little research work can be amazing!
If you like challenging detective work, try checking resources on the Internet including local historical societies and courthouses which have digitized millions of records that include an incredible amount of detail. Re-checking every few years is an excellent idea. There is always some new information. The Oral History Workshop is an excellent starting point!
December 16, 2009
Chronicles
Remembering Georgetown: A History of the Lost Port City takes us on a 250-year journey through the rich history of the nation's oldest neighborhood. David Mould and MIssy Loewe conducted extensive research to produce this attractive book full of interesting photographs and colorful stories about the neighborhood's personalities -- famous, infamous, or practically unknown. From it's earliest days, Georgetown has been a busy commercial and industrial center, first as a Native American trading place, and later as a tobacco and slave trading center, and then as an industrial area.
Did you know that Francis Scott Key was the Georgetown District Attorney when he wrote the Star Spangled Banner or that Alexander Graham Bell lived and worked here? Did you know the level of M Street was changed so drastically that the basements of some of the buildings became the ground floor?
The book also describes the history of some of the most beautiful buildings in the area, including the Volta Bureau and the Georgetown Visitation Convent, which I have always admired for its French-inspired architecture. Remembering Georgetown explains that the convent was founded in 1792 for French nuns of noble birith who fled the French Revolution. The description of the dedication of a group of young women emotionally states that they "abandoned the cares and vexations of this life, of which they were too young to have felt any of its viscissitudes."
The colorful facts about nineteeth and early twentieth century life here are most entertaining. As I write this Internet blog in 2009, it's amusing to read that in Georgetown it was illegal to kill any geese or swine, but if any goats were running at large they were" forfeited to whoever shall take them up" and that a detailed ordinance had to be designed in 1807 to reduce the dog population. And now the biggest problem is how to find a parking space.
