This collection is located on-site.
The RBML cannot provide access to original time-based media material which has not been first been reformatted for preservation. Researchers are welcome to examine archival time-based media items and decide whether they wish to place an order for Audio/Video reformatting. If copyright and/or condition restrictions apply, it may not be possible to digitize a requested item. Please note that A/V reformatting is handled by an outside vendor and typically takes 6-8 weeks.
Manuscripts and recordings of lectures on the subjects of literature, art, politics, psychoanalysis, philosophy, linguistics and education presented at the Lionel Trilling Seminars, 1976-2001. The speakers have included major scholars such as historians Jacques Barzun, Edmund S. Morgan, and C. Vann Woodward; literary critics Frank Kermode and Richard Ellman; and philosophers Arthur C. Danto and Sir Isaiah Berlin. The collection also contains administrative files which include correspondence with participants, event arrangements, programs, text of lectures, meeting minutes and guest lists.
Series I: Lecture Transcripts, 1976-1999
This series consists of the texts of lectures delivered by various scholars as part of the Lionel Trilling Seminars. The speakers have included major scholars such as historians Jacques Barzun, Edmund S. Morgan, and C. Vann Woodward; literary critics Frank Kermode and Richard Ellman; and philosophers Arthur C. Danto and Sir Isaiah Berlin. In some cases only the title page of a lecture is in a listed folder with a note that the manuscript was to be delivered at a later date. The manuscripts are arranged chronologically and, where noted, discussants for particular lectures are listed. This series consists of the initial accession of lecture manuscripts which is why there will be some duplication of lecture manuscripts in Series II: Administrative Files.
Series II: Administrative Files, 1932-1998
This series consists of files maintained by the office staff responsible for arranging the annual Lionel Trilling Seminars. Materials consist of correspondence with speakers and participants, mailing lists, guest lists, meeting minutes, event programs, transcripts of lectures, event flyers, comments by discussants on specific lectures, correspondence concerning event arrangements, newspaper clippings, seating charts and curriculum vitae of participants. The material dated prior to 1976 consists exclusively of compiled lists of classes and students taught by Lionel Trilling during his academic career at Columbia University. The files in this series are mostly arranged chronologically. Some manuscripts listed in Series I can also be found in this series.
Series III: Recordings, 1979-2001
This series consists of 112 audio cassettes and 1 VHS tape of Lionel Trilling Seminars dating from 1979 to 2001. Many of these recordings have a corresponding manuscript text in the files, but in some cases there is only a recording of a lecture and no paper transcript. Where there are duplicate copies of recordings, it is noted.
This collection is arranged in three series.
You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.
This collection is located on-site.
The RBML cannot provide access to original time-based media material which has not been first been reformatted for preservation. Researchers are welcome to examine archival time-based media items and decide whether they wish to place an order for Audio/Video reformatting. If copyright and/or condition restrictions apply, it may not be possible to digitize a requested item. Please note that A/V reformatting is handled by an outside vendor and typically takes 6-8 weeks.
No photocopying of the lecture manuscripts is permitted. No duplication of the audiocassettes without permission.
Single photocopies of materials, other than the lecture transcripts, may be made for research purposes. The RBML maintains ownership of the physical material only. Copyright remains with the creator and his/her heirs. The responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Lionel Trilling Seminars Records; Box and Folder; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. Contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
Source of acquisition--Provost's Office, Columbia University. Method of acquisition--Transfer; Date of acquisition--07/03/1989. Accession number--M-89-07-03. Manuscripts and audio cassettes transferred to RBML by Heyman Center for the Humanities in 1999. Additional transfer of administrative files and audio cassettes from the Heyman Center for the Humanities in August 2016 (accession number 2016.2017.M042)
Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
This collection was originally processed by RBML staff in the 1990s and the 2016 addition was processed by Andrew Benally (GS 2021) and Jocelyn Wilk in January 2019. Finding aid written by Jocelyn Wilk in February 2019.
2019-02-15 File created.
2019-05-20 EAD was imported spring 2019 as part of the ArchivesSpace Phase II migration.
The Lionel Trilling Seminars are a series of seminars delivered each academic year on areas of study ranging from literature and society, art and politics, psychoanalysis and culture, to education. Each seminar features a prominent scholar in a given field delivering a talk and two respondents. The seminars were established in 1976 in memory of Professor Lionel Trilling (1905-1975), one of Columbia's most celebrated faculty members, author and critic, to encourage intellectual speculation by bringing together major speakers and an "enlightened general audience" in order to stimulate discussion from within as well as without the speaker's own discipline. Lectures are on areas of study in which Trilling was active. Originally the series consisted of three seminars a year, but has since been reduced to two, one each semester. The seminars have been sponsored at various times by Columbia College, the Heyman Center, and supported by gifts from Prof. William Theodore de Bary and his wife, Daniel and Joanna Rose, and William H. and Weslie R. Janeway.
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
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