Hi, and welcome back! My name is Julia Masur, and I am the Peer Research Specialist in the Archives and Special Collections. I’m a junior here at UPS, with a History major and a double minor in Education Studies and Sociology/Anthropology. I just returned from studying abroad in Freiburg, Germany, where I took classes on European history and politics. On campus, I am also on the club ski team, and I serve as the Assistant Director of Recruitment for the Panhellenic Council, the governing body of the sororities.
As the Peer Research Specialist, I’ll be doing double-duty this semester. On Tuesdays from 1-4pm and Fridays from 1-3pm, you can find me up in the A&SC. My responsibilities include helping our Archivist and Special Collections Librarian, Adriana Flores, and our Assistant Archivist, Laura Edgar, with projects like setting up for classes, assisting researchers during open hours, digitizing A&SC materials, and any other projects that might come up. On Thursday and Sunday nights from 9-11pm, I’ll be holding drop-in hours and working alongside the Peer Research Advisors in the Learning Commons to assist students with finding resources for classes (especially SSIs and other intro-level classes), evaluating sources, and citations.
As a history major, I obviously love primary sources, but hadn’t really used any of the resources in the A&SC until first semester of my sophomore year, when I took Hist-200: Doing History (basically a research methods class). One of our major assignments was a digital history project, involving a pamphlet titled A fuller answer to a treatise written by Dr. Ferne, entituled The resolving of conscience upon this question, whether upon this supposition or case (the King will not defend, but is bent to subvert religion, lawes, and liberties) subjects may with good conscience make resistance. This pamphlet was published in London in 1642 as part of a pamphlet war between Charles Herle (the author) and Dr. Ferne, and believe it or not, that’s a shortened version of the title. The English Civil War had begun earlier that year, and Ferne and Herle debated the role of the king and people in government, with Ferne defending King Charles I, and Herle advocating for the Parliamentarian side.
Being able to touch the pamphlet and read through the original pages from almost 400 years ago was such a great experience, and made the topic feel much less abstract. You can tell from looking at the pages how well-read this copy was, and the way in which it could have helped change people’s worldview during the English Civil War and maybe even shifted their allegiances was exciting to me. I love it when history feels personal, and that pamphlet definitely made the English Civil War feel that way while working on this project. You can find the website that my class built about this pamphlet here.
That class and that professor (Professor Katherine Smith) inspired me to apply for this job in the A&SC, and I hope that I can help you all find sources that spark your interest the way the Charles Herle pamphlet sparked mine.
The Archives & Special Collections is open on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays from 12:00-3:00 p.m. or by appointment.
By Julia Masur