Earle Havens has long said there’s no such thing as “curator school.” But in a cozy sunlit room on the third floor of Johns Hopkins University’s Evergreen Museum & Library, graduate students from across Johns Hopkins University meet to explore rare books and manuscripts.
The Stern Center seminar room is, however, only one aspect — the physical space — of the Virginia Fox Stern Center for the History of the Book in the Renaissance. The center was established through an endowment in 2017 by Jolyon Fox Stern in honor of his mother, Dr. Virginia Fox Stern, a distinguished Renaissance scholar and book historian. Though he had no prior connection to Hopkins, Stern read a 2016 article in The Johns Hopkins Magazine highlighting Havens’ Archaeology of Reading digital humanities initiative, citing his mother’s influential work on manuscript marginalia in Renaissance books.
Stern reached out to Havens, the Nancy H. Hall Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Johns Hopkins University’s Sheridan Libraries, and the center’s inaugural director.
“It has been one of the joys of my life to make it possible for my late mother’s extraordinary scholarship to be recognized at Johns Hopkins University by creating a center for study in her name,” Stern says. “Earle Havens has honored her and created a haven for study, which would have made her very proud.”
The Stern Center supports an annual cohort of JHU graduate student Curatorial Fellows drawn from the many humanities departments of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. Its mission is to promote interdisciplinary scholarship based in the Sheridan Libraries’ collection of premodern and early modern rare books and manuscripts, and to share their collective discoveries with the world on the center’s website.
The fellows meet each Friday to discuss readings on the history of books and manuscripts, pursue original research, visit collections, and interact with antiquarian booksellers and private collectors. They also get hands-on exposure to the many aspects of curatorial practice — from acquisitions and conservation, to teaching from rare materials, and integrating them into the intellectual life of the university at large. A recent cohort even attended a master class in Antwerp, Belgium, one of the leading centers of printing in Europe during the sixteenth century.
“Mr. Stern’s foundational gift was transformative of nearly everything we have been able to do over the past seven years. It’s just unique to have an academic center like this within the library and dedicated to the oldest and rarest materials,” Havens says, adding that scholars outside of Hopkins have taken notice of the Stern Center’s success. “We have a strong program of acquisition, as well, bringing new research materials before our students that, in many cases, have never been written about before. These talented students develop deep skills and abilities. They benefit from being exposed to interdisciplinary research and engagement.”
The culmination of the center’s curatorial fellows program is a two-day visit to the annual New York Antiquarian Book Fair, the largest marketplace for rare books and manuscripts in the world. After honing their curatorial skills over an intensive year of work and preparation, the students are given a budget to buy rare books, and work together collaboratively to research and collectively acquire items at the fair that seem appropriate for the university library.
“Acquisition and curatorship are very much learned on the job,” explains Kelsey Champagne, A&S ’15 and the center’s postdoctoral fellow (2021-23). Champagne returned to Hopkins after completing a PhD at Yale University in history and renaissance studies. She is now on the faculty of St. Mary’s College of Maryland, where she brings her deep experience of engaging with historical materials into the classroom.
Because there is currently no permanent funding for a postdoctoral fellow, Havens applies for grant funding and works with donors to fund the position. He is hopeful it will eventually be endowed.
“This is the first program of its kind that is specifically training future leaders in the highly skills-based career path of early book and manuscript curatorship,” she says. “This type of curatorial postdoctoral fellowship does not exist anywhere in the world, so it’s really, really special.”
In addition to supervising the inaugural cohort of curatorial fellows, Champagne also worked alongside Havens to design the beautiful and inspiring space that is now the Stern Center at Evergreen, the cost of which was entirely supported by philanthropy.
Stern Center postdoctoral fellows are responsible for planning thematic master classes for faculty and students around rare book collections in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., region, teaching classes from rare materials, mounting public exhibitions, and helping to organize the Stern Center’s popular annual lecture series and other public programming. The Stern Center hosts more than 20 programs annually, drawing participants from across the Hopkins community as well as students, scholars, and curators from other area institutions.
“These programs, all focused in some way on the rare book collections at JHU, are a great way to get people talking to, and learning from, each other in dialogue with historical treasures that are unique to Johns Hopkins,” Havens says. “Rare books and manuscripts don’t belong to any one discipline; they belong to all disciplines of study.”
To keep up this pace, Havens also encourages donors to support the center’s annual programming.
The Stern Center community extends beyond Baltimore. Mark McConnell, A&S ’75, is a retired lawyer based in Washington, D.C., and an associate research fellow at the center. A collector of classical literature printed during the Renaissance, McConnell met Havens through the rare book world.
“The Stern Center involves people at all stages of life, like me, not just PhD students or postdocs. It’s very focused on assuring that the next generation that’s going to carry this tradition forward is supported,” McConnell says.
McConnell’s research at the Stern Center, which examines the economics of Renaissance publishing, combines his professional background in business and law with his personal interest in rare books and manuscripts. He says the center gives fellows the ability to bring together different subject matters in a unique way. It seems backwards, he admits, that something narrowly focused on the Renaissance book can bring many opportunities for cross-fertilization of ideas.
“You have this one thread, the Renaissance book, but in that Renaissance book can be illustrations by great artists, or a shift in the understanding of a classical author,” McConnell explains. “It gives us really a fairly openly defined opportunity to have these cross-disciplinary activities take place.”
For McConnell, the Stern Center also offers a rare opportunity to concentrate his charitable support with personal research efforts and student mentorship. He’s lending his own financial support to help propel the center’s reach.
“I can do all those things in one place. And that to me is quite rewarding,” he says. “With some luck, it helps a little.”
Topics: Alumni, Faculty and Staff, Students, Sheridan Libraries and University Museums, Fuel Discovery, Support Scholars