Month / January 2017

by Robert Gerst

Silent Film Miracle Students Appraise The Silent Screen’s Most Famous Love Affair

Writes Professor Robert Gerst:

In Silent Film Miracles, students decode the semaphore of silent film. Above in The Son of the Sheik (1926), Rudolph Valentino (Son of the Sheik) and Vilma Bank (Jasmine) embrace. But can silent movies like this still speak to viewers today?

“Yes!” thirty-eight Spring 2016 Silent Film Miracles students appraising this movie declare. Read their (abridged and edited) assessments of this ninety year old classic movie here.

Edwin J. McEnelly’s Orchestra, “That Night In Araby,” (1926)

by Robert Gerst

Our Man in Chicago

Chicago, Easter Sunday, April 13, 1941. Photos by Russell Lee. Vocal God Bless the Child, Billy Holliday. Text, Max Grinnell,  Chicago: The City That Gives.

“They were recognizing my first book (Hyde Park: A Photographic History) and my book Walking Chicago for their contributions to a better understanding of Chicago’s cultural and social history,” Professor Max Grinnell writes.

Grinnell was one of seventy-five guest authors representing the “diversity of authors associated with Chicago’s varied literary traditions” recognized at the 2016 Carl Sandburg Literary Award ceremony at the University of Illinois at Chicago Forum on October 25, 2016. The Carl Sandberg Award of the Chicago Public Library honors Chicago-associated writers “who raise the public’s awareness of the written word.” 2016 Sandberg award winners were Erik Larson for non-fiction and Scott Turow for fiction.  Amita Gauther won the 21st Century Award.

grinnell-photo-detail

Max Grinnell (hand raised “V” for victory) and other Chicago-affiliated authors celebrate at the 2016 Carl Sandburg Award Dinner