NEW AT SHIELDS LIBRARY

Two new exhibitions are up in the Shields Library lobby, one dealing with the Campus Community Book Project and the other with the culinary arts of Mexico.

The latter exhibition coincides with food historian Diana Kennedy's visit to campus later this month.

• Conversations About Race is built around this year's Campus Community Book Project: Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race, by Beverly Daniel Tatum.

The General Library Committee on Diversity prepared the exhibition, which is scheduled to stay up through spring quarter.

"As Dr. Tatum emphasizes, it is no accident that two of her published works include 'conversations' in the titles," the library coimmittee wrote. "Throughout the year, the campus will be hosting events that facilitate these very important conversations about race."

The exhibition includes selections from Tatum's list of additional resources for further reading and books that reference her  scholarship in the area of racial identity development.

For additional resources, people are invited to consult the library's Subject Guides for African and African American Studies, Education and Sociology. Researchers also are encouraged to contact David Michalski, the Social, Cultural and Behavioral Sciences Librarian, at michalski@ucdavis.edu, to learn more about available print and electronic resources in these areas of study.

Question about the exhibition may be directed to Robin Gustafson, chair, General Library Committee on Diversity, at rlgustafson@ucdavis.edu.

More information about this year's book and the events that have been scheduled can be found at the following web sites.

Other activities in the Campus Community Book Project.

• De Atole a Cuitlacoche … De Panuchos a Tlacoyos: Los Sabores de Mexico is a monthlong exhibition of many of the library’s food ethnographies, cookbooks and culinary histories of Mexico — which boasts one of the world's four greatest cuisines, according to the library's website.

The exhibition is the work of Myra Appel, head of the library's Humanities, Social Sciences and Government Information Services Department, and bibliographer for Latin American Studies.

De Atole a Cuitlacoche … De Panuchos a Tlacoyos: Los Sabores de Mexico is scheduled to stay up through October, with a special event planned on Oct. 28, the day of Kennedy's visit.

From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. that day, according to the website, the library's Special Collections Department (first floor) will host a one-day viewing of some of the library's select holdings on the food and beverage of Mexico. Darryl Morrison, head of the Special Collections Department, is preparing this exhibit.

Each part of the exhibition (the lobby display and the one-day viewing) comes with a bibliography, prepared by Appel and Morrison. The bibliographies are available online.

Based on indigenous foodways and ingredients, contemporary Mexican food reflects the varied ethnicities of the country’s native populations and its vast ecological diversity. Flavored with foodstuffs, seasonings and cooking techniques introduced by European, Arab, Asian and North American settlers and neighbors, recipes for tempting dishes ranging from the traditional to the nouvelle reflect the social, political and economic history of Mexico.

This interdisciplinary exhibit includes works by Mexican and North American food writers, cookbook authors, culinary historians, chefs and cultural ecologists, as well as teachers both renowned internationally or regarded as local experts on regional foodways.

Topics range from the pre-Hispanic foundations of Mexico’s culinary table, to the popular regional dishes and family meals enjoyed today. The extensive Cocina indígena y popular series documents the culinary diversity that exists throughout Mexico among its many different cultural groups and the infinite variety of uses for foodstuffs like maiz (corn), nopal (cactus pads) and flores (flowers).

Facsimiles of 18th- and 19th-century books of recipes complied by members of religious orders and copies of early Mexican cookbooks, Novisimo arte de cocina (1831) and Nuevo y sencillo arte de cocina, reposteria y refrescos (1836), the first Mexican cookbook compiled by a female author, reflect the increasing fusion of indigenous and European cookery.

Publications highlighting Mexican and North American chefs such as Ricardo Muñoz Zurita and Rick Bayless, whose vision and style promote the indigenous heritage infused with contemporary culinary techniques and aesthetics, look at the global exchange between Mexican and international cuisines.

Representative works by dedicated food historians including Kennedy, Cristina Barros, Jeffrey Pilcher and María Stoopen add regional and historical flavor to the exhibit.

Noteworthy reference resources, including historical dictionaries and cookery manuals, further whet one’s appetite to sample in more depth the library’s rich menu of resources.

Shields Library hours: 7:30 a.m.-midnight Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday, noon-6 p.m. Saturday and noon-midnight Sunday.

OPENING SUNDAY

The Design Museum begins the new academic year with Vanishing Traditions: Textiles and Treasures from Southwest China, an exhibition of wearable textiles and ornaments typical of the miniority population of southwest China, where the skills of such adornment are vanishing.

The exhibition's curator, Bea Roberts, shares what the museum describes as a "visually superb collection, acquired during her early visits to the region, when the villages were primarily intact in their cultural identity and before the traditions vanish in today's globalization race."

Vanishing Traditions is scheduled to open Oct. 10 and run through Dec. 5. The Design Museum is in 145 Walker Hall; hours are noon to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday.

OTHER EXHIBITIONS

• The Architecture of Thought — Ceremic works by Latika Jain, wheel throwing instructor at the Craft Center. Through Oct. 29, Craft Center Gallery, South Silo. Reception, 3-6 p.m. Oct. 23. Hours: 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday and 10 10 a.m.-6 p.m. weekends.

• Autobiographical Comics: "Sometimes a Mere Glance Will Do ..." — An exhibition and selected bibliography of autobiographical comics and associated research resources, celebrating the increasingly popular medium for artists and exploring its enduring appeal to readers of all ages. Through Oct. 31 in the main display cases in the lobby of Shields Library. Hours: 7:30 a.m.-midnight Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday, noon-6 p.m. Saturday and noon-midnight Sunday.

• Lampo Leong — Guest-curated by Katharine P. Burnett, professor, art history. Through Dec. 12, Nelson Entryway Gallery, 125 Art Building.

• Larry McNeil xhe dhé and Da-ka-xeen Mehner — Native Alaskan artists, exploring ideas that inform our times — from their ancestral and personal histories to global climate change. The artists work in photography and lithography, and, for the former, incorporate Kodachrome film in homage to its pending demise and place within the history of photography. Through Dec. 5, C.N. Gorman Museum, 1316 Hart Hall. Hours: noon-5 p.m. Monday-Friday and 2-5 p.m. Sunday. Lecture program with both artists, along with a reception, 6 p.m. Oct. 27.

• Monotypes-Mixed Media on Paper — Described by the artist, Emma Luna, as "unique impressions produced by painting oil inks onto a plate." Through Oct. 31, Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center. Hours: 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday.

• Wonderers — In guest-curating this exhibition, Matthias Geiger, assistant professor in the art department, gathered images from seven photographers and a collective whose work reflects the uprooted, peripatetic, nomadic existence that is many younger people live today. The exhibitors include Abby Banks, Richard Gilles, Justine Kurland, Joel Sternfeld, and Kyer Wiltshire, and the Cutter Collective. Through Dec. 12, Nelson Gallery, 124 Art Building. Hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday and by appointment Friday-Sunday.

• Works by Maurine (Fay) Morse Nelson — Largely overshadowed by her husband, the Nelson Gallery namesake, Fay Morse Nelson "was "clearly a talented artist in her own right," says Renny Pritikin, director of the Nelson Gallery, who curated this exhibition. It includes almost all of Fay Morse Nelson's works from the university's Fine Arts Collection — with most of the works being exhibited for the first time in 13 years. Through Jan. 21, Gallagher Hall (home of the Graduate School of Management).