Seminars in the History of Material Texts

Thursdays at 5.30 pm, SR-24 (second floor), Faculty of English, 9 West Rd

9 October — [no seminar, but please come to the Centre for Material Texts Welcome Party, English Faculty Social Space, 4-5.30]

23 October — James Daybell (University of Plymouth) ‘Gendered Archival Practices and the Future Lives of Letters’

6 November — Discussion of David Trotter, Literature in the First Media Age: Britain Between the Wars (2013)

Respondents: Clare Pettitt and Mark Turner (King’s College, London)

20 November — Lori Anne Ferrell (Claremont Graduate University), ‘Creating a “National” Archive of the English Reformation: The Parker Society and its Legacy’

All welcome.

The Cambridge Medieval Palaeography Workshop is a forum for informal discussion on medieval script and scribal practices, and on the presentation, circulation and reception of texts in their manuscript contexts. Each workshop focuses upon a particular issue, usually explored through a pair of short presentations and general discussion. All are welcome.

Convenors: Teresa Webber, Orietta Da Rold, Suzanne Paul and David Ganz

For further details, email mtjw2@cam.ac.uk

Friday 2 May 2014, Cambridge University Library (Keynes Room), 2-4pm

Scribal Identification and its Hazards

Benjamin Pohl, ‘The hand of Robert of Torigni: methods of scribal identification’

Richard Beadle, ‘CUL MS Ee.1.12: the hand(s?) of James Ryman’

Friday 16 May 2014, Cambridge University Library (Milstein Seminar Room), 2-4pm

Transcription and its Hazards: Interpreting Scribal Practice

This workshop will focus upon various signs and penstrokes traced by scribes that are, by convention, either ignored in transcription or interpreted and recorded in a standardised form despite uncertainties about their function. Two informal presentations will focus upon vernacular manuscripts of the later middle ages, but it is hoped that discussion will broaden to include any such issue, whether encountered in copies of Latin or vernacular texts, and in manuscripts of any period.

Anna Dorofeeva: on diacritical marks and other problems of transcription posed by manuscripts of the twelfth-century Kaiserchronik and its later re-workings (for the Kaiserchronik project, see http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/german/staff/kaischron.html)

Daniel Wakelin: on the use, possible function(s), and editorial treatment of the ‘otiose strokes’ with which scribes completed certain letters or letter combination in late-medieval copies of Middle English texts

Friday 23 May 2014: please note the Inaugural Colloquium of the Network for the Study of Caroline Minuscule to be held in the Cambridge University Library, Milstein Seminar Room, 9 am – 6 pm. Full details and information about registration may be found at http://carolinenetwork.weebly.com/

Seminars in the History of Material Texts

Thursdays at 5.30 pm, SR-24 (second floor), Faculty of English, 9 West Rd

24 April — Mark Towsey (History, Liverpool)

1 May — Peter Mandler (History, Cambridge)

‘Good Reading for the Million: The Advent of the Mass-Market Non-Fiction Paperback’

15 May — Laura Moretti (AMES, Cambridge)

‘Broadsides in Early Modern Japan: The Osaka Publisher Shioya Kihei and his ‘Kobanzuke”

29 May — Hildegard Diemberger and Stephen Hugh-Jones (Social Anthropology, Cambridge)

‘Palm-leaf, paper, Digital Dharma; Exploring the Materiality of Tibetan Buddhist Texts and their Transformations’

All welcome.

For more information, please contact Jason Scott-Warren (jes1003@cam.ac.uk), Andrew Zurcher (aez20@cam.ac.uk) or Dunstan Roberts (dcdr2@cam.ac.uk)

Seminars in the History of Material Texts 2014

Thursdays at 5.30 pm, Faculty of English, 9 West Rd

30 January, Faculty Board Room — Cristanne Miller (SUNY Buffalo)

6 February, SR24 — Mark Towsey (Liverpool)

‘Community Libraries: Connecting Readers in the Atlantic World, 1650-1850’

Please note that this seminar has been cancelled due to UCU strike action.

20 February, SR24 — Simon Franklin (MML, Cambridge)

‘In Praise of Old Blank Forms (Especially in Russia)’

All welcome.

For more information, please contact Jason Scott-Warren (jes1003@cam.ac.uk), Andrew Zurcher (aez20@cam.ac.uk) or Dunstan Roberts (dcdr2@cam.ac.uk)

Seminars in the History of Material Texts

Thursdays at 5.30 pm, room SR-24, Faculty of English, 9 West Rd

17 October Alison Knight (CRASSH/Emmanuel)

‘“The Margent Profitable”: The Marginal Note in the Early Modern Bible’

31 October Hildegard Diemberger and Stephen Hugh-Jones (Social Anthropology, Cambridge)

‘Palm-leaf, Paper, Digital Dharma: Exploring the Materiality of Tibetan Buddhist Texts and their Transformations’

14 November Ruth Abbott (English, Cambridge), ‘George Eliot’s Poetry Notebook’

All welcome. Wine & soft drinks will be served at the start of the seminar.

For more information, please contact Jason Scott-Warren (jes1003@cam.ac.uk), Andrew Zurcher (aez20@cam.ac.uk) or Dunstan Roberts (dcdr2@cam.ac.uk)

Easter Term 2013, Fridays 2-4 (10 May, 17 May and 24 May)

Trinity College, Junior Parlour

The Cambridge Medieval Palaeography Workshop is a new forum for informal discussion on medieval script and scribal practices, and on the presentation, circulation and reception of texts in their manuscript contexts. It is hoped to hold a series of workshops annually in the Easter Term, each focusing upon a particular issue, and usually explored through a pair of short presentations and discussion.

10 May           Liturgical texts in their manuscript contexts

Henry Parkes   ‘Visual hierarchy in eleventh-century “liturgical” texts’

Erik Niblaeus ‘Twelfth-Century Breviary Fragments in the Swedish National Archives’

17 May            The process of development in script

David Ganz     ‘Irish cursive script: scribes, styles and development’

Chris Voth      ‘The manuscript evidence for the beginnings of English Square Minuscule’

24 May            The palaeography of musical notation

Eduardo Aubert ‘The notions of pure and mixed (neumatic) scripts in the light of tenth- and eleventh-century sources from Burgundy’

Giovanni Varelli ‘Ransacking the “toolbox” of tenth-century Italian music scribes: reflections on a first survey’

All welcome. For further information, contact the workshop convenors, Tessa Webber (mtjw2@cam.ac.uk) and David Ganz (ganz.palaeography@gmail.com)

The Junior Parlour is on T staircase, Blue Boar Court, located on the opposite side of Trinity Street from the main entrance to the College (next door to Brora). Enter from Trinity Street through the covered archway; go up steps on the right. The entrance to T staircase is half-way up the steps on the right.

Thursdays at 5:30pm, room SR-24, Faculty of English, 9 West Road

Thursday 2 May

Robert Priest (History, Cambridge), ‘Writing to Ernest Renan: Fan Mail, Hate Mail and the Historical Jesus in Nineteenth-Century France’

Thursday 16 May

Lucy Razzall (English, Cambridge), ‘Thinking Inside the Box: Containers and the Materiality of Early Modern Texts’

All welcome. Wine & soft drinks will be served at the start of the seminar.

For more information, please contact Jason Scott-Warren (jes1003@cam.ac.uk), Andrew Zurcher (aez20@cam.ac.uk) or Dunstan Roberts (dcdr2@cam.ac.uk)

Thursdays at 5:30pm, room SR-24, Faculty of English, 9 West Road

Thursday 24 January

Bob Groser (Bibles Production Manager, Cambridge University Press), will talk about materials and processes used in modern Bible manufacture

Thursday 21 February

Elizabeth Upper (Munby Fellow, Cambridge University Library) and Ad Stijnman (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), ‘Cycles of Invention: The Historical Developments of ‘New’ Innovations in Colour Printing, ca. 1600-1700′

All welcome. Wine & soft drinks will be served at the start of the seminar.

For more information, please contact Jason Scott-Warren (jes1003@cam.ac.uk), Andrew Zurcher (aez20@cam.ac.uk) or Dunstan Roberts (dcdr2@cam.ac.uk)

Thursdays at 5:30pm, room SR-24, Faculty of English, 9 West Road

Thursday 11 October

Andrew Zurcher, ‘Spenser’s Vomit: Imitation, Language, Materiality’

There are three short optional pre-readings for this seminar–download them here, here and here

Thursday 8 November

Abigail Brundin and Dunstan Roberts, ‘Italian books in an English great house library: The case of Belton House in Lincolnshire’

All welcome. Wine & soft drinks will be served at the start of the seminar.

For more information, please contact Jason Scott-Warren (jes1003@cam.ac.uk), Andrew Zurcher (aez20@cam.ac.uk) or Dunstan Roberts (dcdr2@cam.ac.uk)

Thursday 31 May, 12.30-2, Faculty of English (room tba)

Professor Sukanta Chaudhuri (Jadavpur University) will give a paper entitled

‘Tagore’s Text: An Online Variorum’

Sukanta Chaudhuri is the author of numerous books, including The Metaphysics of Text (Cambridge, 2010). He was a co-founder and Director from 2004-2010 of the Jadavpur School of Cultural Texts and Records.