Don’t miss these “spectacular” exhibitions on view this spring and summer

Classes may be out, but library exhibitions are in! Visit these 7 that are on view across campus through spring and summer—featuring oral histories, Islamic manuscripts, Nigerian pamphlets, New Haven archives, “spectacles,” and more.

“Taught by the Pen: The World of Islamic Manuscripts” in Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. This exhibit presents nearly 150 manuscripts and materials from one of the oldest and largest collections in the United States, surveying the literature, art, history, philosophy, science, and medicine of Islamic civilization from the 9th to 20th centuries. Through Aug. 10

“A Cosmos of Similarity” in the Cushing Rotunda, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library. This exhibit is a curated collection of geometrical diagrams and representations of body parts, musical intervals, and architectural forms that illustrate the concepts of harmony, proportion, and time in a visual exploration of the idea that similarity is the foundation of everything. Through Aug. 20

“‘Seen with Great Delight’: Spectacle in Georgian London” at Lewis Walpole Library. This exhibit presents both historical and satirical images from the extensive Walpole collections of the various crowd-pleasing “spectacles”—including exhibitions of paintings, scientific demonstrations, exotic animal displays—that the fee-paying public of London clamored to see during the early 18th to mid-19th centuries. Through Aug. 22

“‘Street Talk’: Pamphlet Literature of the Nigerian Marketplace” in Hanke Gallery, Sterling Memorial Library. This exhibit displays the free pamphlets that circulated throughout the market place in the city of Onitsha and elsewhere in Nigeria, after years of civil war, educating and entertaining the people of an emerging post-colonial nation and helping forge their new identity. Through Sept. 14

“SENSATION! Reported Bodies in 19th-Century American Media” in the Exhibition Corridor, Sterling Memorial Library. This exhibit explores the psychological impact of print media designed to stir the reader’s senses—through language and images—when reporting on events of the day and promoting new medicines and devices. An online version of the exhibition is also available. Through Sept. 28

“Celebrating Willie Ruff as an Oral Historian” in the Poorvu Corridor, Gilmore Music Library, Sterling Memorial Library. This exhibit celebrates jazz musician and faculty member Willie Ruff ’53, ’54 MM—founding director of the Duke Ellington Fellowship Program at Yale—and featuries video clips and audio conversations between Ruff and other legendary jazz musicians and composers. Through Oct. 1

“Shining Light on Truth: Black Lives at Yale and in New Haven” at the Yale Schwarzman Center. Through archival images from Beinecke Library and other collections, spanning the 1800s through the 1960s, this exhibit tells the story of the enslaved and free Black people—within New Haven and on Yale University campus—who built community, resisted oppression, and flourished. Through March 8, 2026

—Deborah Cannarella

Image: Charles Williams, “The moving panorama, or, Spring Garden rout,” detail, [1823?]. Lewis Walpole Library