In partnership with the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (SIMS) at the University of Pennsylvania is pleased to announce the 11th Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age.

Manuscript illumination has often been considered in relation to the texts it accompanies, but rarely in terms of its interplay with other artistic media. Historically, however, the technique was closely associated with other forms of artistic expression and served as a crucial point of contact and transfer for visual motifs across space and time. The goal of this year’s symposium is to examine cases of intermedial exchange through the lenses of technique, style, iconography, social context, and cultural geography, while also posing broader questions about the deep connections between the craft of illumination and other arts more widely. Of special interest will be insights gained from the technical examination of works in different media, new comparisons made possible by digital technology, and the discovery of linkages once obscured by strict historiographical divisions

The program will begin Thursday evening at 5:00 pm on November 15, 2018, at the Free Library of Philadelphia, Parkway Central Library, with a keynote lecture by Professor Susie Nash of the Courtauld Institute of Art. The symposium will continue November 16th-17th at the Kislak Center of Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania.
Registration is $35 ($10 for students with valid student ID). Registration is now open: click here.

For more information on the Schoenberg Symposium Series, click here.

Organized by Nicholas Herman (hermanni@upenn.edu), Curator of Manuscripts, with Lynn Ransom, Curator of Programs (lransom@upenn.edu), Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, University of Pennsylvania.

The symposium organizers wish to acknowledge the generous support of the Williams Fund of the History of Art Department at the University of Pennsylvania, and of the Wolf Humanities Center’s “Humanities at Large” program.