The Art of War

by Nick Norlen

discussion and exhibit

Poet and musician Gordon Downie has referred to war as "the death of imagination." But despite its destructive consequences, war consistently breeds creative responses. In the presentation "Beyond the Book: Memory and Creative Representations of the Vietnam War," librarian and Vietnam history expert John Baky will explore the emerging theory that there is "something about the nature of survivors of particular kinds of trauma that gives them the ability to express themselves in a unique way, unlike any other." Baky is director of libraries at La Salle University and curator of its Imaginative Representations of the Vietnam War, a special collection that houses books, poetry, plays, music, films and other works. Totaling about 15,000 items, it's the world's largest collection of its kind. According to Baky, the purpose of the collection and his lecture is to aid in "realizing how memory and imagination create the way we understand the world. It's not fact that does this — it's memory and imagination. The way the man on the street understands history is from these sort of objects." Although the war's aftermath may seem far removed, artistic reactions to the conflict roll out like the names on a memorial. Baky's challenge is having to choose just a few items to illustrate an archive that ranges from A-Team comics to a negligee fashioned from parachute lining. And he says the selection is only growing. "Every week I find something somewhere. We're 35 years out. It should be leveling out; it isn't."

"Beyond the Book: Memory and Creative Representations of the Vietnam War," Wed., March 16, 6:30 p.m., free, Historical Society of Philadelphia, 1300 Locust St., 215-732-6200 ext. 412.