In a “Chats in the Stacks” book talk, Jeremy Braddock, assistant professor of English at Cornell University, will discuss his new book “Collecting as Modernist Practice” in the series Hopkins Studies in Modernism (Johns Hopkins University Press, January 2012). His book focuses on collective forms of modernist expression—the art collection, the anthology, and the archive—and their importance in the development of institutional and artistic culture in the United States. In his talk "The Material Formation of the Field,” Professor Braddock will draw from his book to focus on the establishment of two modernist archival collections, the Poetry Collection at the University of Buffalo and the James Weldon Johnson Collection of Negro Arts and Letters at Yale University, touching on the contribution that collectors and their collections have made in helping to define the modernist movement. Braddock is also co-editor of “Directed by Allen Smithee” (University of Minnesota Press), a book that examines the politics of the pseudonym in Hollywood, and his articles have appeared in “Callaloo,” “Modern Fiction Studies,” and “Art Journal.”

Professor Braddock will lead a question and answer session after the talk, and a book signing will follow. For more information, please visit booktalks.library.cornell.edu or call 255-3393. Free and open to all.