{"id":6981,"date":"2024-09-24T15:27:22","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T20:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/?p=6981"},"modified":"2024-09-27T09:43:06","modified_gmt":"2024-09-27T14:43:06","slug":"student-employee-spotlight-emily-wieder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/2024\/09\/24\/student-employee-spotlight-emily-wieder\/","title":{"rendered":"Student employee spotlight: Emily Wieder"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Student library employee Emily Wieder\u2019s path to the International Dada Archive<\/a> began even before she\u2019d committed to pursuing her PhD at Iowa. She\u2019d earned an BA in French here but hadn\u2019t yet settled on a PhD program when she made an exploratory visit to the University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections and Archives<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s where she met Tim Shipe, curator of the International Dada Archive, who connected with her interest in surrealism and introduced her to a sample of Dada pamphlets and periodicals from the archive. At that point, Wieder says, something clicked. \u201cThe Archive was just incredible,\u201d says Wieder. \u201cAnd all of this is happening here in Iowa. It was one of the main reasons why I came here for grad school, because I knew I would have the resources that I needed to do my research and to do it really well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it turns out, Wieder\u2019s work in the Dada Archive is in perfect alignment with her area of study. Wieder, now a third-year PhD student in the Department of French and Italian, is at work on a dissertation focused on the roles of women surrealists in the French Resistance. Surrealism shares a common art historical lineage with Dadaism, itself an avant-garde art movement that originated in the Europe of the early 20th century. Wieder concedes that Dadaism \u201cisn\u2019t for everybody,\u201d but she finds inspiration in the movement\u2019s offbeat energy. Its products include sound poems, which many find confounding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometimes I come across a piece that makes me  think, \u2018this doesn\u2019t make any sense. What am I looking at?\u2019 but I still want <\/em>to get it,\u201d Wieder says. \u201cI want to sit and work with the piece. I\u2019m drawn to the ambiguity. Even if the artists don\u2019t always try to be understood or to generate any meaning, it\u2019s still fun to take time with the piece and pick it apart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it happens, facilitating understanding is a big part of Wieder\u2019s role. Her work in the Dada Archive is mainly focused on assisting other scholars as they prepare to publish articles in the International Dada Archive\u2019s scholarly journal, Dada\/Surrealism<\/em><\/a>. She checks citations, copy-edits articles, and even draws upon her fluency in French to offer translations\u2014a service Shipe calls \u201cinvaluable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEmily has been an enormous asset to the International Dada Archive and the Department of Special Collections and Archives,\u201d says Shipe. \u201cNot only has she been able to track down and correct countless citations, but she has also been able to improve on translations by established French scholars who have expressed gratitude for her suggestions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wieder has written book reviews<\/a> for publication in Dada\/Surrealism<\/em>, and is currently working with Rich Dana of the Sackner Archive<\/a> to prepare an exhibition for spring 2025 in the Main Library Gallery<\/a>. In spring 2024, she was selected to receive a Stanley Award for International Research<\/a>, which she will use to travel to Paris in October 2024 to conduct research for her dissertation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wieder credits her work at the Libraries with stoking her interest in the interconnectedness of the Dada and surrealist movements, and she\u2019s grateful to her colleagues in Special Collections and Archives for their mentorship. After finishing her PhD, she eventually hopes to become a professor of French literature. Her work at the Libraries, she says, has helped her gain confidence as she uses the full resources of a research university. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s incredibly satisfying to be around people who are experts in their field,\u201d says Wieder. \u201cAnd then, of course, being surrounded by old books and posters and other materials\u2014I mean, it doesn’t really get better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emily Wieder\u2019s employment is supported by the Dada Fund, a philanthropic account that supports Dada and Surrealism in the Libraries.<\/em> To learn more about the International Dada Archive, visit our website<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Student library employee Emily Wieder\u2019s path to the International Dada Archive began even before she\u2019d committed to pursuing her PhD at Iowa. She\u2019d earned an BA in French here but hadn\u2019t yet settled on a PhD program when she made an exploratory visit to the University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections and Archives. That\u2019s whereContinue reading “Student employee spotlight: Emily Wieder”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":331,"featured_media":6982,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"syndication":[33,80],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6981"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6981"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7001,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6981\/revisions\/7001"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6981"},{"taxonomy":"syndication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/syndication?post=6981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}