Archives

That Critical Voice

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In this episode, we speak with Piatt researcher Sean E. Andres.  A secondary educator and marketing expert by training, Sean specializes in public history projects, with a particular focus on historically marginalized populations in the Cincinnati area.  Sean talks about how he initially found Sarah, compelled by her work speaking out against social norms of her time.  He reflects on connections between her poems and the deep history of Cincinnati and surrounding lands, where Sarah and her husband J.J. long made their family home, and about the practicalities and challenges of conducting original archival research.  

Interview date: 23 January 2023

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The Palace-Burner

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In this first episode, we speak with pioneering Piatt scholar Paula Bernat Bennett. In 2001, Paula published the first university-press edition of Sarah’s work.  Paula talks about how she came to find Sarah; why Sarah’s voice stood out; social expectations for woman poets; and Sarah and Emily Dickinson as contemporaries. Paula chose her edition’s title, Palace-Burner, from Sarah’s poem about women’s role in the violent social unrest of the 1871 Paris Commune.  It became her pithy phrase for Sarah herself–and her insistent challenges to gender norms.

Interview date: September 9, 2017

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That New World

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In this episode, we talk to pioneering Piatt scholar Larry R. Michaels.  In 1999, Larry published the first edition of selected works by Sarah since her death in 1919, That New World: Selected Poems of Sarah Piatt, 1861-1911.  Larry discusses how he initially found Sarah; why her voice is “like none of the others” of her time; his detective quest to discover more about her; and why she stands alongside Emily Dickinson as one of the “two giants.”

Interview date: October 10, 2017

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Build It and They Will Come

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In this episode, Jolie Braun, the Ohio State University Libraries Curator of Modern Literature and Manuscripts, speaks with our podcast host and Piatt biographer Elizabeth Renker.  Elizabeth talks about how she first learned about Sarah; how the literary canon works; and why she has dedicated her efforts over more than two decades to bringing Sarah back into public memory.

Interview date: July 27, 2020

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The Archive

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In this episode, we speak with Geoffrey Smith, former Head of the Rare Books & Manuscripts Library at Ohio State. At a time when Sarah’s name was barely known, Geoff began building a new special collection of materials related to her life and work that would rival other major author collections around the nation. He explains why he identified Sarah as important as well as the challenges and choices archivists face.

Interview date: January 22, 2021

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Scholar Adventures

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In this episode, we speak with Pamela Kincheloe, who began working on Sarah while she was still in graduate school and serving as research assistant to Piatt scholar Paula Bennett.  Pamela tells us about what it was like doing groundbreaking detective work as a graduate student; about her dissertation research on Piatt; her experiences doing archival research; and her time in Ireland researching the places behind Sarah’s poems.

Interview date: April 28, 2021

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