Amato Will Have Work Preserved in the U of M Libraries

By Carl Nelson
Independent Staff Writer

MARSHALL — The collection and preservation of a writer’s life works is an academic milestone.

Though he doesn’t consider himself a writer, but more a thinker, Southwest Minnesota State University professor emeritus Joe Amato’s writings have been selected and accepted into the Manuscripts Division of the University of Minnesota libraries.

Amato’s papers — including publishing collections, journals, reviews and reading notes — are just a few of the items housed in the Elmer L. Andersen library in Minneapolis.

“I was taken aback and surprised when they chose my work,” Amato said.
He is no stranger to the research facility at the Andersen library where he’s perused other collections like the YMCA records and immigrant archives during his studies.

Amato’s works are now being cataloged in the Literary Manuscripts Collections and are in the company of other well-known writers, poets and philosophers such as Frederick Manfred and John Berryman.

Manuscripts curator and professor Alan Lathrop indicated why Amato’s works were chosen for the collections.

“On the basis of his reputation as a writer and a historian, we chose his work...he is one of the best in the state,” Lathrop said.

“He’s an original thinker, interested in everything, and he’s engaging and witty — all the things it takes to be a writer,” he added.

Lathrop said he contacted Amato about a suitable place for his works when he heard through a friend that Amato sought a place for his writings.

At present, “Joe has turned over 20 linear feet or approximately 15 to 20 boxes of materials,” Lathrop said.

“He’s included his early works and notes from his book ‘Dust (A History of the Small and the Invisible)’ — there are also teaching materials.”

Through writing, an opportunity to research and gather information is appealing to Amato.

“When I write, I’m taking on a subject to come to terms with it,” he said. He is trained in philosophical thought more so than in writing, he added.

“I wasn’t trained as a writer, but I had a desire to understand or rethink the thoughts by which we put the world together,” he said.

Influenced by thinkers spanning cultures and time, Amato said he appreciates works by Cervantes to Thoreau and he welcomes interdisciplinary studies.
Amato is finished with a new book titled “On Foot; a History of Walking” that is now in the publishing process. Though the book will soon be available to readers, he said the work is well received by some Koreans.

“The Koreans bid on the manuscript before receiving an uncorrected proof,” he said.

“We’ll see how it’s received by others.”

In the end, the words of Elmer L. Andersen whose name is borne on the library and on his own works in the collection seems to add purpose to Amato’s works and the authors coming before and after.

"What nobler purpose can there be for a University than to gather up the
prizes of a culture — preserve them, propagate them, make them available--so that the best of what has gone before can be preserved and built on?"