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Fact, Fiction and the New World: The Role of Books in the Making of America
When Cortés set out from Cuba for Mexico, he was told to look for the Amazons, a kingdom of women found in books but not in the geography of the real world. In many instances, books determined what people would look for in the New World and how they would interpret what they actually did see. These resources will set people thinking about the power of stories and the lure of new found lands.
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Exhibit
This bilingual photo-and-text panel exhibit highlights the ways in which books determined what people looked for in the New World and how they interpreted what they did see.
Panel topics include:
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- Invention of Printing
- Spread of literacy
- Columbus’s readings and writing
- Chivalric Romances
- Printing in the New World
- Erasmus
- Humanism in the New World
- Linguistic exchanges
- Maps and narratives
- Missionaries
- New World images in European literature
- New World Writers
- Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz
Exhibit format
All panels are 32” wide x 36” high. Exhibit is available in either wall-hanging or freestanding format. Freestanding version stands 78” tall.
Freestanding version: 10 double-sided panels
Shipping weight (2 wooden crates): 200 lbs.
Floor space required: 15’ x 8’
Wall hanging version: 20 single-sided panels
Shipping weight (2 wooden crates): 297 lbs.
Wall space required (running): 55’
Supplemental materials
- Brochures of 3 bilingual essays. 50 copies each. Free with exhibit.
- "Printing and Books"
- "Influence of Erasmus"
- "the New World in Old World literature"
- 5 classics of literature and cultural history, including Utopia, Don Quixote, and The Tempest. Free with exhibit (while supplies last).
- Copies of humanities program poster. 5 free with exhibit.
Optional materials (available on request)
- Audio-visual overview, bilingual slide-tape and VHS video, 23 min., free with exhibit.
Available for rental
- VHS videos
- La Conquista
- Printing Transforms Knowledge
- The Tempest (Showcase Theatre)
- Triumph of the West: New Worlds, Part I
- Voices of Latin America