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At this year’s Petershiem Academic Exposition, students participating in the Archives’ Time Machine Project got the chance to present their research they have been working on all year.

The Time Machines Project, now in its second year, offers up to 5 undergraduate students the chance to explore a wide variety of materials– including objects, rare books, periodicals, manuscripts, prints, clothing, relics, paintings, pottery, tools, and more– to create projects that showcase the importance, relevance, and appeal of these materials using contemporary media. Throughout the process, participants collaborate closely with Archives and Special Collections staff as well as a faculty mentor, refining their research and analytical skills while gaining foundational knowledge in archival practices and procedures.

Congrats to these students on their hard work and a job well done! Continue reading below for each student’s proposal:

Jacob Mudd:

Jacob Mudd is a sophomore Creative Writing and Visual and Sound Media double major with a minor in English. His project is inspired by Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, looking at the role magic played in medicine in the late medieval early Renaissance periods. It includes a creative grimoire that contains a variety of medieval illnesses and their magical cures and is accompanied by a paper that looks at answering the question of whether it would be moral to use magic in medicine from the perspective of someone living during that time.

Mickey O’Brien:

Mickey O’Brien is a senior communications major. His project was to transcribe a recording the Walsh library had of Kenneth Burke, an important communications theorist and rhetorician, speaking at Seton Hall in the 1980s. A call was made by the Kenneth Burke society to see what’s on this tape, so his research is fulfilling that call. He also planned on discussing the findings on the tape with Burke experts on campus, Dr. Radwan, Dr. Kimble and Dean Crable.

Wania Shabee:

Wania Shabee is in her second semester here at Seton Hall University who is pursuing a degree in Biology. Her project for time machines is based on Dr. Francis Monroe Hammond’s papers, who was able to pioneer Minority Academics, especially in a time in America with such great civil distress. Wania created a written piece that focuses on the life and accomplishments of Dr. Francis Monroe, which primarily focuses on his contributions to academia, diplomacy, racial injustice, and improving intercultural, and interregional connections. The format of this written piece is structured as an academic paper, which includes a thorough examination of the life of Dr. Hammond’s career including historical, social, and political elements.

Olivia Pasciucco:

Olivia Pasciucco is a senior History major and Russian & East European Studies minor. She will be graduating this May and aspires to have a career in Museum Education. Olivia’s Time Machines project is: The Sicilian Carretto: A Moving Canvas of Heritage and Storytelling. It is a YouTube video about the Sicilian carretto, what it is, historical background, and cultural significance. For the sake of this presentation, Olivia has provided a PowerPoint presentation for everyone today.

Max Kastner:

Max Kastner is a sophomore majoring in Social & Behavioral Sciences and Modern Languages. Utilizing archival copies of Seton Hall’s student newspaper, The Setonian, their project focuses on Seton Hall’s reaction to 9/11 as a Catholic Institution of Higher Education.

You will be able to view this year’s and last year’s submissions with the link here. 

Welcome to Manuscript Monday, where every week on Monday during the month of May different manuscripts in the Herbert Kraft Manuscript and Book Leaves Collection will be highlighted! The Herbert Kraft Collection consists primarily of pages from printed books, however there are a few handwritten manuscripts. In the overall collection, the dates range from 750-1950 CE, however in Manuscript Mondays Renaissance manuscripts from the 1400s-1600s will be focused on.

Manuscript Monday is a collection of blog posts written by Helen Jakubowicz, a junior anthropology and history student at Seton Hall. She interned with the Archives and Special Collections for the Spring 2025 semester, and enjoys working with material culture such as religious art and books. She was drawn to this collection not only due to their religious nature, but also because of Dr. Herbert Kraft himself, who was a professor of anthropology, as she wanted to delve deeper into his collection. She loved working with these sources and she hopes you enjoy exploring them as well!

Monday, May 5th

Leaf from a 13th century liturgical book, with “small letters, neat outlines, and the predominance of blue and gold making it unmistakably French in origin” according to Professor Kraft. To learn more about the Herbert Kraft Manuscript and Book Leaves Collection, see the link here.

Monday, May 12th

1. 1. Manuscript Breviary, 1430 CE (illuminated manuscript):Breviary: a book containing the service for each day, to be recited by those in the orders of the Roman Catholic Church (prayers of the canonical hours). This specific breviary was written in Flanders, which is a Dutch-speaking area in Northern Belgium. The pages contain large side panels decorated with bright colors of foliage such as flowers, berries, and leaves. There are also strokes of bright blue, which look like water coming out of the plants. In the text itself, the color continues. There are large illuminated drop caps of red and blue within the gothic script, all containing liquid gold.
2. From Hortus (Ortus) Sanitatis, 1491 CE (early woodcuts): This woodcut contains details of the healing properties of specific natural elements such as bread, vegetables, herbs, and minerals. A surprising inclusion is cheese! From an image on the woodcut, there could be possible religious connotations to the cheese because there are crosses on them. There are many different copies of the Hortus Sanitatis in many different archives around the world. While Seton Hall only has a few pages, the Smithsonian Library has a full copy.^[1]
3. Latin Manuscript of South Italy, 1460 CE: In these pages from a Missal, there are color coded texts signifying what the speaker should do during that part. For example, the text written in red ink indicates the speaker to read silently to themself instead of to the whole congregation. There are also red and blue drop caps sprinkled throughout the text itself, giving the pages a pop of color besides the blocks of red text in the normal black.

Works Cited:

^[1] Johann Prüss, Ortus Sanitatis, E-Book (Smithsonian Libraries, 1497), https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/ortussanitati00prss.

Classes may be coming to an end, and graduation on the horizon, but for us in Special Collections the work doesn’t stop.  Rather than bringing students into the archives, during the summer we work on the behind the scenes projects that make new collections available to to the community.  Many of these are supported by grants.  This summer, the Walsh Gallery and Field Archives have been fortunate to receive special funding from diverse institutions to pursue four projects:

1. Restoring an important landscape ink painting by renowned calligrapher and poet Bada Shanren.
2. Digitizing the archive of Italian Tribune newspapers that document Italian-American life in Newark during the mid-twentieth century.
3. Processing the papers of physicist and priest Father Stanley L. Jaki, O.S.B., including translating his letters from Hungarian.
4. Taking a deep dive into the best ways of teaching the history of the book with the specialists at Rare Book School.

The painting, attributed to Chinese artist Bada Shanren, represents a key professional interest of the late Seton Hall professor Wang Fangyu, or Fred Wang. Professor Wang was deeply interested in Bada Shanren, who was an innovative figure in Chinese art. Wang collected many examples of Shanren’s art during his career as a collector, and many of those are now part of the world-famous Freer Gallery in Washington. This example is the only one remaining in Seton Hall’s collections, and this opportunity to restore it will provide an opportunity for a specialist to delve into the details of the piece’s construction, enriching our knowledge of the piece while also repairing it so that it may be safely exhibited. 

The Italian Tribune newspaper project, a partnership with the Newark Public Library supported by the UNICO foundation, will enable Seton Hall to expand access to this key Newark publication, which documented Italian American life throughout the twentieth century. Currently people have to come in person to see the microfilmed holdings at the Newark Public Library, but once the microfilms are digitized, researchers from anywhere will be able to access them in digital form. OCR will enable keyword searching, which will be particularly valuable for genealogists. 

This spring, the American Institute of Physics provided support to process the papers of Father Stanley L. Jaki, O.S.B. Father Jaki was a Benedictine priest from Hungary who studied as a physicist with some of the most important figures in the field such as Victor Hess, and wrote extensively about the connections between science and faith. Professor Jaki won many prizes and lectured worldwide – yet his archives are not yet available to researchers, since they have not been preserved or described. With the AIP’s support, these important materials will finally be made available.

Finally, Assistant Dean Sarah Ponichtera has been admitted to the Rare Book School course “Teaching the History of the Book” taught by renowned rare book historian Michael F. Suarez, S.J. This course will focus not on book history or bibliography itself, but how to connect students with the incredible resources available in rare book collections such as Seton Hall’s. In particular the course will discuss how to incorporate the many amazing digital humanities projects based on rare books into a class on book history.

It will be a busy summer!  We look forward to sharing the results of these projects with you next fall.

You may have noticed some new posters of various objects—from vases to manuscripts, coins to magazine covers–hanging behind the Circulation Desk in Walsh Library. These twelve posters are the result of an initiative led by the Archives & Special Collections. Seton Hall University has always served a diverse demographic, with its first class including students from South America as well as North America. However, the diversity within our history is sometimes overlooked. “As a Catholic university archive, I don’t think students realize the variety of materials we have outside of the walls of Seton Hall or the Catholic faith,” says Martha Slomczewski, Special Collections Assistant who spearheaded this initiative. “I wanted a way to showcase the kinds of objects and materials we have that you might not expect.” 

 Instead of the Archives and Gallery staff choosing the objects themselves, Slomczewski sought to engage the students directly by putting the decision to a vote that was publicized on social media and in person through tabling outside of the dining hall every week throughout the semester. Thirty objects were compiled by the Archives and Gallery team. Students used a google form to cast their vote on the objects that they wanted to see, allowing them to vote for up to 10 objects at a time. After a month of casting votes, the top twelve were selected. Now students no longer have to wait for a class visit or research appointment to see these extraordinary materials.  

 The posters will remain on display for the foreseeable future. You can make an research appointment to view any of these objects by filling out the form here.   

To celebrate Black History Month we want to spotlight collection materials that relate to Black History (you can read our blog post on the papers of Dr. Francis Hammond, Seton Hall’s first Black professor, here). Today we will be highlighting the Bishop Joseph A. Francis collection, and more specifically, his pastoral letter on racism published in 1979.  

Joseph Francis was ordained as a priest in 1950 and became the fourth African American Roman Catholic bishop in the country, and the first ordained in the Northeast. Bishop Francis was a pioneering figure in the discussion of race and religion, and one of the first in the Catholic church to openly speak out against racism. In 1979, he authored a significant pastoral letter addressing the sin of racism within both the Church and broader society. In this letter, Bishop Francis unequivocally condemned racism as a sin that “divides the human family” and “violates the fundamental human dignity” of individuals. He emphasized that racism contradicts the teachings of Jesus and undermines the unity of the Body of Christ.  

The impact of Bishop Francis’s letter was profound, particularly within the African American Catholic community. It served as a catalyst for dialogue and action against racial injustice in the Church. His leadership and advocacy contributed to the establishment of initiatives aimed at promoting racial healing and inclusivity. Notably, Bishop Francis was instrumental in founding Verbum Dei High School in the Watts section of Los Angeles, a predominately Black community, demonstrating his commitment to education and empowerment. His efforts have left a lasting legacy in the fight against racism within the Catholic Church.  

You can explore Bishop Joseph A. Francis’s entire collection here and make a research appointment with the Archives by submitting the form here.  

Last fall, an archival project to digitize and preserve the student-run newspapers, The Setonian, The Diplomatic Envoy, and The Stillman Exchange was selected for funding under the Idea Hall initiative.

The Monsignor Noe Field Archives and Special Collections Center has held copies of these student-run newspapers for many years. However, certain years and issues are incomplete or missing, and they require more stabilization and support to ensure their longevity for years to come. With this project the necessary supplies can be ordered to finally rehouse the rest of the Setonians along with the Diplomatic Envoy, and the Stillman Exchange.

Jacquelyn Deppe says “it will be nice to see the newspapers receive the proper support and housing they need. They are currently in a state which is not ideal, so receiving funding for this project is great! Having worked here and with these newspapers themselves over the years, I’m happy that I’ll be able to see these newspapers receive the care they need and deserve.”

But it is not only these student-run newspapers that will be rehoused but others as well. There are other examples of newspapers that ran simultaneously with the Setonian during the 1950s-1970s and captured student life and activities at Seton Hall’s Urban Campus’s in Newark, Jersey City, and Paterson. These campuses are where the first women attended courses under the Seton Hall name and engaged in student life and activities, like writing for the newspaper and even being editors of those papers.

This project also includes completing the digitization project of the Setonian. From August 1999 to about January 2019, copies of the Setonian exist only as physical newspapers. Due to the acidic material content of newspapers, they are inherently fragile and susceptible to quick deterioration. Digitizing the Setonians allows the Archives and Special Collections Center to create access copies that can be retrieved and used by anyone.

At the conclusion of this project, a display will be created and placed on the 2^nd floor of the Walsh Library for viewing. The display will highlight the collection of student-run newspapers that have been preserved and are ready to use in research.

Thanks to the vision of

• Jacquelyn Deppe, Technical Services Archivist, University Libraries
• Quinn Christie, Public Services Archivist, University Libraries
• Sarah Ponichtera, Assistant Dean of Special Collections and the Gallery, University Libraries
• Matthew Pressman, Faculty Advisor to The Setonian
• Courtney Smith, Faculty Advisor to The Diplomatic Envoy

the voice of the students and the history of student life and activities at Seton Hall will be documented and preserved for years to come.