We begin this week with the news that Wendell E. Berry will deliver the 41st Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities. Then, find articles on IRBs, AHA President-elect Kenneth Pomeranz, the National Archives exhibition of the Magna Carta, and restored Edison recordings. Finally, find teaching resources to prepare for Presidents’ Day and learn more about the history of Washington, D.C.

News & Insights

• Wendell E. Berry named 41st Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities
  Wendell E. Berry, a distinguished poet and environmental writer, will deliver the 41st Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities on Monday, April 23, 2012 at the Kennedy Center in D.C. His talk is entitled, “It All Turns on Affection,” and he will “discuss man’s interaction with nature, as depicted in history, philosophy, and literature.” Last year Drew Gilpin Faust delivered the lecture, and the year before Jonathan Spence had the honor. See a complete list of past lecturers here.
• Behind Closed Doors: IRBs and the Making of Ethical Research
  Inside Higher Ed interviews Laura Stark, assistant professor at Wesleyan University, who attended institutional review board meetings around the country and put together the book, Behind Closed Doors: IRBs and the Making of Ethical Research.
• Past master
  The University of California, Irvine profiles Kenneth Pomeranz, the AHA’s new president-elect.

Collections

• Magna Carta to be Focal Point of New National Archives Exhibition Gallery
  The National Archives announced last week that David M. Rubenstein, co-founder and managing director of The Carlyle Group, has loaned the organization the 1297 Magna Carta. The National Archives has posted two videos on the conservation and encasement process of this document. Rubenstein has also supported DC cultural institutions in the past, giving $4.5 million for the National Zoo’s panda program and more recently $7.5 million to fix a crack in the National Monument caused by the east coast earthquake last summer.
• Restored Edison Records Revive Giants of 19th-Century Germany
  A trove of wax cylinder phonograph records recently discovered at Thomas Edison’s laboratory brings back the voices of Otto Von Bismark, and his contemporary Helmuth von Moltke the military strategist.

Resources

• PBS: "The Presidents:" EDSITEment’s Related Lesson Plans and Websites
  Presidents’ Day will be celebrated later this month. Prepare with PBS’s The Presidents series and EDSITEment’s related lesson plans.
• Ghosts of DC
  The Ghosts of DC blog uses historic photos to express “a love of D.C. with a fascination with history.”

Contributors: Elisabeth Grant, Vernon Horn, Matthew Keough, Robert B. Townsend.

This post first appeared on AHA Today.