A collection of documents in The Ohio State University Libraries Rare Books & Manuscripts Library is allowing critical research in humanities and social sciences to take place at the university.
The Thomas Gregory Song Papers are a collection primarily comprised of Song’s memoirs and diaries in the form of printed essays, blog post printouts and handwritten journals. Song’s writings centered around his family history, his childhood in Manchuria and Korea and his experiences as a gay immigrant in America. The collection also includes Song’s personal and family photographs, genealogy research, correspondence with friends, family, and colleagues, travel ephemera, journals and more.
The collection fortuitously arrived at Ohio State thanks to the generosity of Song’s daughter, Anastasia, and a well-timed encounter with Ohio State’s Head of Area Studies and Japanese Studies Librarian, Dr. Ann Marie Davis.
“After my father passed away in 2014, I was left with boxes of his writings, manuscripts, and genealogical documents, along with certain personal effects,” said Anastasia. “I felt there was an interesting story here, and hoped to have the Song family history memorialized in a manner accessible to a wider audience. I also realized such an effort would require a unique, deep and multi-disciplinary bench of resources.”
“I contacted universities proximate to my home in Connecticut and wound up meeting Dr. Ann Marie Davis, who was then teaching at Connecticut College in New London, CT. A few months after our meeting, she accepted her current position with The Ohio State University and contacted me. Long story short, our reconnection culminated in the donation of my father’s papers to Ohio State in December of 2016 and the creation of the Thomas G. Song Collection.”
For Davis, the collection has presented crucial research opportunities for both herself and other scholars at the university.
“The collection documents a number of critical topics that are at the forefront of current research in the humanities and social sciences,” said Davis. “These include Asian diaspora, mobility and transnational identity, imperialism and World War II, Cold War political persecution in the US (McCarthyism) and LGBTQ experiences in the modern era.”
In addition to the donation of her father’s papers, Anastasia Song made an important monetary contribution in 2019 to help University Libraries further process, promote and support teaching with the collection. This funding has been used, in part, to create a new research fellowship for Ohio State students. In December, a selection committee awarded the first Thomas Gregory Song Research Fellowship to two recipients.
Yasuhiro Aihara, a current undergraduate History and International Studies Double Major and Korean Language Minor student, and Hanchul Bae, an MA student in East Asian Studies specializing in Japanese Imperial History, were selected to receive the inaugural fellowship and to conduct research projects using the Thomas G. Song collection.
Aihara, in consultation with Digital Humanities Librarian Leigh Bonds, is working to develop a digital exhibition highlighting the historical research he has already undertaken for his senior thesis on Thomas G. Song. Aihara has been involved with the processing of the collection since its inception, and his work in collaboration with Davis has led to a co-written conference paper on the Life and Papers of Thomas Song, which was presented at an international libraries conference held at Cornell University in 2018.
Bae is developing a research paper exploring Song’s complicated identity as an ethnic Korean, former Japanese subject and naturalized American citizen and United States military veteran. He also aims to develop a framework of “multifaceted evaluation” in order to challenge current narratives about colonialism in Japan.
In addition to important research opportunities, the Thomas G. Song collection has created four new meaningful student employee positions to date.
“Since 2017, at least seven student workers in our unit, five of whom have native foreign language skills in Japanese, Chinese and Korean, have been closely involved in the processing of this complex, multilingual Special Collection,” says Davis.
One of these student employees, Nick Castle (class of 2021), who has been active in processing the Song family materials, was invited along with Aihara and Bae to present his work to Anastasia Song during a visit to Ohio State in early February.
“I’m thrilled to have scholars pursuing research with the collection,” said Anastasia. “While the Song family story unfolded in Korea, Japan, China and ultimately the United States, I feel many of the themes are universal. My hope is that the narrative of this one family in a particular period of turbulence and wartime hardship may, in some fashion, resonate and offer inspiration to the scholars who read it.”
The fellowship recipients will make formal presentations on their research and outcomes in early April.