The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (SIMS) at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries is pleased to announce the 14th Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age.
Engaging with pre-modern books and manuscripts necessarily involves reckoning with the paradox of loss. While a historical document from the distant past is the material survivor of a singular attempt to hedge against the disappearance of an idea, image, or text, the extant specimen always has to be considered alongside missing exemplars, damage and erasure, lost comparanda, and the vanished life-worlds that produced the object in the first place. This symposium will interrogate the notions of loss, survival, and recuperation in manuscript studies, so often in the background but rarely acknowledged as defining features of the field.
Bringing together scholars, librarians, curators, and conservators, we will investigate losses unknowable and quantifiable, ancient and recent, large and small, physical and digital. How have chance survivals shaped literary and linguistic canons? How might the topography of the field appear differently had certain prized unica not survived? What are the ways in which authors, compilers, scribes, and scholars have dealt with lacunary exemplaria? How do longstanding and emergent methodologies and disciplines—analysis of catalogs of dispersed libraries, reverse engineering of ur-texts and lost prototypes, digital reconstructions of codices dispersi, digital humanities, cultural heritage preservation, and trauma studies to name a few—serve to reveal the extent of disappearance? How can ideologically-driven biblioclasm or the destruction wrought by armed conflicts — sometimes occurring within living memory — be assessed objectively yet serve as the basis for protection of cultural heritage in the present? In all cases, losses are not solely material: they can be psychological, social, digital, linguistic, spiritual, professional. Is mournful resignation the only response to these gaps, or can such sentiments be harnessed to further knowledge, understanding, and preservation moving forward?
The online program will take place in morning and afternoon sessions (EST) from Wednesday, November 17, to Friday, November 19. The symposium will end with a keynote address by Professor Elaine Treharne, Stanford University.
Other speakers include:
- Matt Aiello, University of Pennsylvania
- Olivia Baskerville, Institute for English Studies, University of London
- Federico Botana, Institute for English Studies, University of London
- Georgios Boudalis, Museum of Byzantine Culture, Thessaloniki
- Laura Cleaver, Institute for English Studies, University of London
- Kate Crosby, King’s College London
- Eyob Derillo, The British Library
- Siân Echard, University of British Columbia
- Susan Einbinder, University of Connecticut
- Natalia Fantetti, Institute for English Studies, University of London
- Joanna Fronska, Institute de Recherche et d’histoire des textes (CNRS), Paris-Aubervilliers
- Kathryn Gerry, Bowdoin College
- Elina Gertsman, Case Western Reserve University
- Dot Porter, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, Penn Libraries
- Sana Mirza, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
- Hannah Morcos, Institute for English Studies, University of London
- Pierre-Louis Pinault, Institute for English Studies, University of London
- Angéline Rais, Institute for English Studies, University of London
- Heghnar Watenpaugh, University of California, Davis
- Yunxiao Xiao, Princeton University
Program details are available via the tab above. Registration is open to all but required for the zoom link. To register, click here.
We are also planning an open round of pre-recorded 5-minute Lightning Round Talks treating manuscript loss in or as a consequence of digital projects. Stay tuned for further details and a call!
For more information on the Schoenberg Symposium Series, click here.
Conference Programme
Wednesday, 17 November 2021 (EST): Loss of and in Manuscripts
10:00 -10:15 am
10:15 am -12:15 pm
12:15 – 1:00 pm
1:00 – 2:30 pm
2:45 – 3:30 pm
Welcome & Introduction:
- Sean Quimby, Director, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Penn Libraries
- Lynn Ransom, SIMS, Penn Libraries
- Joanna Fronska, Institute de Recherche et d’histoire des textes (CNRS), Paris-Aubervilliers: The Loss and Survival of Manuscripts from Chartres. For a History of the Cathedral Chapter Library
- Eyob Derillo, The British Library: The Lost Library of Maqdala
- Kate Crosby, King’s College London: TBA
Break
- Elina Gertsman, Case Western Reserve University: Image and Loss: Sites of Generation
- Georgios Boudalis, Museum of Byzantine Culture, Thessaloniki: TBA
Dot Porter, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, Penn Libraries: Manuscript Loss in Digital Contexts
Thursday, 18 November 2021 (EST): Recovering and Remediating Loss
10:00 am – 12:00 pm
12:00 – 1:30 pm
1:30 – 3:00 pm
- Yunxiao Xiao, Princeton University: Reconstructing from the Disappeared: On the Recent Discovered Tsinghua Manuscripts
- Kathryn Gerry, Bowdoin College: Put It in Writing (and Drawing): Issues of Loss and Preservation in the Work of Matthew Paris
- Natalia Fantetti, Institute for English Studies, University of London: Forgotten but Not Gone: Writing Women into the History of the Medieval Manuscript Trade
Break
Discussion Panel, with responses by:
- Susan Einbinder, University of Connecticut: Preaching in Times of Plague: Solomon Marini in the Paduan Ghetto (1630-31)
- Sana Mirza, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution: Tracing Transregional Resonances: Harari Qur’anic Manuscripts as Testaments
- Siân Echard, University of British Columbia: ‘Secure from the Ravages of Time’: Antiquarian Avatars of Medieval Manuscripts
Friday, 19 November 2021 (EST): Workshop Session
10:00 am – 11:30 am
Laura Cleaver, Olivia Baskerville, Federico Botana, Hannah Morcos, Pierre-Louis Pinault, Angéline Rais, Institute for English Studies, University of London: Lost provenance and What it Reveals about Manuscript Studies: Lessons from the CULTIVATE MSS Project
11:45 am – 1:15 pm
Reflections on Loss, Trauma, and Conflict
- Matt Aiello, University of Pennsylvania: Expanding the Scope of Traumatic Testimony in Early England (and Beyond)
- Heghnar Watenpaugh, University of California-Davis: Survivor Objects: How the Destruction of Art Shapes the History of Art
1:15 – 2:00 pm
2:00 – 3:00 pm
Break
Keynote Address: Elaine Treharne, Stanford University: The Senses and Seduction of Loss
Medieval Art Research 