Last month, January 5th 2017, I received an email from one of the archivists at the UMass Boston library in response to a query I’d launched in December. My current research and interest in Dr. Maria Montessori stems largely from having discovered Montessori mentioned throughout the scholarship of Ann E. Berthoff. Berthoff is professor Emeritus at UMass Boston, so I figured the library might have some papers or something from her estate. I hoped to discover how it was that Berthoff came to cultivate an interest in Montessori. I found out.
Side Note: During DMAC last year I asked Cynthia Selfe if she’d ever met Ann Berthoff and what that was like. Berthoff’s writing is focused, clear, and often fierce, particularly in conversations played out in journals over time. I wondered if she would be hyper-critical in person,difficult to speak with. Cynthia assured me Berthoff was actually quite warm in person and would be great to sit down and chat with. She was right.
But not via a visit to the archives.
The archivist, after hearing of the nature of my interests, thought Dr. Berthoff would appreciate speaking with me and offered to inquire on my behalf. Ann is 93 years old! In truth I hadn’t known if she still graced the Earth. No one I know in the field seemed to know either. I couldn’t believe my luck when the archivist delivered Dr. Berthoff’s contact information and told me she would expect my call.
Truthfully I freaked out a little. At this point I’ve read a good deal of Berthoff’s work; she mentions Montessori early and often. But her writing is sharp and often pointed when critiques don’t hold substance in her view. I hadn’t prepared questions for an interview. Plus most of my recent reading has been in digital media studies, as that’s my subfield, and I’ve been out of school for some time, so I’ve needed to catch up on a lot of reading. I called anyway.
2 p.m. 06 January 2017
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