Previous Monthly Exhibitions

Literatura de cordel, or “string literature,” is the tradition of popular pamphlet poetry that emerged in the Brazilian Northeast at the turn of the nineteenth century. Its name is derived from the manner in which poet vendors suspend their pamphlets by strings to display them at the weekly local literary fairs (feiras) at which pamphlets are sold.  Cordel poems are notable because they catered to the diverse but specific interests of audiences with various degrees of literacy. They are also known for the woodcut illustrations featured on their covers, known as xilogravuras. First appearing in the 1920s, these images were originally meant to visually represent the stories of each poem for illiterate folheto buyers, and to make cordel pamphlets more perceptibly-enticing. As such, they depict as diverse a range of topics as their textual counterparts, and appear in a variety of dynamic styles. Today, these “images of everything for everyone” serve as the visual representatives of cordel culture as a whole, and long been the focus of positive attention from viewers and critics around the world. These illustrations are the primary focus of this month’s display, which highlights the Fisher’s collection of over 2,000 cordel pamphlets published from the early-twentieth century to the present.

Display curated by Philippe Mongeau, TALint student, Fisher Library

For the month of April, the Fisher will be highlighting a small collection of recently acquired phrenology material. Phrenology was a set of pseudo-medical theories and practices that developed in the nineteenth century, based on the notion that a person’s character was reflected in the size and shape of their skull. Phrenologists spread their ideas across Europe and Britain through public lectures and demonstrations using skull measurements and charts. Part science, part moral philosophy, part quackery, phrenology was controversial yet important moment in the history of the study of the human mind and brain. The Fisher collection includes printed and manuscript material from Orson and Lorenzo Fowler, American phrenologists who popularized phrenology across North America, plus works by earlier theorists Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Spurzheim. Also on display are original phrenological heads produced by the Fowler brothers.

2018 marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of Rochdale College. Rochdale College was first established in 1964 as a solution to the student housing problem at the University of Toronto. It became an experiment in student-run alternative education and community living when Campus Co-Op’s Howard Adelman discovered that the $175,000 annual property tax could be avoided if the building had a functioning educational system.

In 1968 the building opened as a free university, where students and instructors could live together and share knowledge. Rochdale was the largest co-op residence in North America, occupying an 18-storey student residence at 341 Bloor Street West (at the corner of Bloor and Huron Street). Rochdale College never used traditional professors or structured classes; the goal was free expression and a rejection of traditional education models.

The project ultimately failed when it could not cover its financial obligations and neighbours complained that it had become a haven for drugs and crime. It was closed in 1975. Currently the building exists as the Senator David A. Croll Apartments, with little to account for its storied origins. The only surviving nod to its past is “The Unknown Student,” a sculpture of a cross-legged figure hugging its knees to its chest. Some notable Rochdale participants were involved with various cultural institutions in Toronto that still exist today, such as Coach House Press, Theatre Passe Muraille, The Toronto Free Dance Theatre, the Spaced-Out Library (now the Merril Collection of the Toronto Public Library) and House of Anansi Press.

This month’s collection highlights exhibition features a selection of material from our Rochdale College archival collection.