First Fridays: Matters of the Heart

Let’s talk about love! From love letters to break up letters, the course of true love never did run smooth. Join us for the 2024-2025 season of First Fridays as we share matters of the heart from collections across Archives and Special Collections. This season kicks off on Friday, Oct. 4 with presentations from the Upper Midwest Literary Archives and the YMCA Archives.

Light lunch at 11:30 a.m. Presentations begin at noon. A tour of the archival caverns will take place after the event concludes. ASL interpreters will be present for all First Fridays events.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Lover

Presented by Erin McBrien, Interim Curator, Upper Midwest Literary Archives
Love can be ecstatic, complicated, and notoriously hard to describe. So what do some of the Midwest’s greatest writers have to say about love? Join us for wooing, swooning, and betrayal — for marriages, divorces, and remarriages — and the overall tumultuous love lives of poets as experienced through their poetry, love letters, and journals.

I Would Do Anything for Love (But You Shouldn’t Do That)

Presented by Ryan Bean, Archivist, Kautz Family YMCA Archives
Imagine a program that is practically guaranteed to foster love between parent and child. For nearly a hundred years, the Y-Indian Guides program fostered loving relationships within families. However, those relationships were nurtured in part by appropriating and lampooning Indigenous cultures, revealing a tragic irony in the process; that generations of children benefited at the expense of generations of children. Drawing from his book “Inappropriation: The Contested Legacy of Y-Indian Guides,” co-author Ryan Bean will share observations on the lengths parents will go to in the name of love. (Note: this presentation will present images of cultural appropriation).

About the First Fridays series

First Fridays is a series of intellectually stimulating conversations from the Archives and Special Collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries. First Fridays is made possible by a generous gift from Governor Elmer L. Andersen and Mrs. Eleanor Andersen in honor of former University Librarian Dr. Edward B. Stanford.

Event details

What: First Fridays: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Lover and I Would Do Anything for Love (But You Shouldn’t Do That)
When: Friday, Oct. 4, 2024 | Lunch at 11:30 a.m. | Presentations begin at noon
Where: Elmer L. Andersen Library, room 120 and ONLINE | Parking and directions

Notice of photography

Photographs taken at the event may be used in University of Minnesota print and online publications, promotions, or shared with the Libraries community. If you prefer not to be photographed, please let the photographer know during the event! Thank you.