2022 Spring and Autumn Symposia

March 2, 2022 in International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Manuscript Studies, Research Group Speaks (The Series), Uncategorized

Spring and Autumn Symposia 2022
2 April and 15 October

2020 Symposium "From Cover to Cover" Poster 2

2020 Symposium Poster 2

The Research Group prepares a pair of Symposia in 2022. In this way, we return to our series of Symposia (formerly held in person). The series underwent an interruption with the cancelled 2020 Spring Symposium. That Symposium was planned for subjects extending From Cover to Cover:  Activities Dedicated to Manuscripts, Early Printed Materials & Beyond, From Collecting & Cataloguing to Deciphering & Beholding.  It has its record in the illustrated Program Booklet, with Abstracts of the planned presentations and workshops.  Its core and its promise inspire this renewal.

This year, each Symposium in the pair is designed as a one-day event, with sessions and workshops of about 1 and 1/2 hours, giving scope for discussion. The dates are set for Saturday 2 April and Saturday 15 October (The “Sweetest Day”). The Spring Symposium will be held online by Zoom. The Autumn Symposium would be held online, but, conditions permitting, it might be hybrid, that is, partly in person, as well as online.

These events, by request, flow in addition to — and partly from — our other activities during the year:

1) Continuing Episodes in the online series of The Research Group Speaks (2021–)

2) Our four sponsored and c0-sponsored Congress Sessions at the 57th International Congress on Medieval Studies (online) in May

“Structures of Knowledge” (Spring)
and “Supports for Knowledge” (Autumn)

The interlinked pair of Spring and Autumn Symposia examine themes of Structured Knowledge.

Some proposed presentations at these Symposia offer refreshed materials which had been planned for the cancelled 2020 Spring Symposium.

Sessions under consideration include approaches to databases and library catalogs; specific case studies and projects; issues relating to reproductions and display, research and teaching, and more.

A Monk Reflects Upon the Text. Eugene, Oregon, University of Oregon, Knight Library, MS 027, folio 34v, detail. Latin Decretals of Pope Gregory IX. Rome, 1290, folio 34v.

For example:

  • “Catalogs, Metadata, and Databases, Continued (Parts II and III)”
    — building upon our Roundtable in February on Catalogs, Metadata, and Databases, Part I.
  • “The Living Library”
  • “History and Uses of Paper”
  • “Hybrid Books, I and II”
  • “Manuscripts, Works of Art, Photography, and Facsimiles, I and II”
  • “Teaching with Manuscripts”
  • “Pattern in and on Books”
  • Etc.

Spring Symposium
(2 April 2022 online)

[Now see 2022 Spring Symposium on “Structures of Knowledge”]

Speakers and respondents for the Spring Symposium include Phillip Bernhardt-House, Linde M. Brocato, Mildred Budny, Katharine C. Chandler, Barbara Williams Ellertson, Howard German, Hannah Goeselt, Thomas E. Hill, Eric J. Johnson, Zoey Kambour, David Porreca, Jessica L. Savage, Ronald Smeltzer, and David W. Sorenson.
Presentations examine such subjects as:

Suggestions for Reading and Browsing

Vassar College, Frederick Thompson Memorial Library, Entry, Ceiling and Gobelin Tapestry Series.

Autumn Symposium
(15 October online or hybrid)

Plans for the Autumn Symposium develop some of these themes, and add more.

See 2022 Autumn Symposium on Supports for Knowledge.

Watch this space.

And There Is More . . .

Workshops, Webinars, Interviews, etc.

Subjects for episodes for The Research Group Speaks include, by request, a workshop to follow up the episode on How to be Indiana Jones in the Catalog (December 2021), with a demonstration by Linde M. Brocato:
  • “How to be Tarzan in the Catalog” (with audience requests invited ahead of time).

A Pointer to the Text. Eugene, Oregon, University of Oregon, MS 027, Latin Decretals of Pope Gregory IX, folio 3r, detail: manicle with an extended forefinger and flounced cuff.

RGME at the 2022 ICMS

Note that the RGME activities (4 Sessions and our Open Business Meeting) at the Kalamazoo Congress (online in May 2022) will provide more ways to announce the Autumn Symposium and the series of “The Research Group Speaks”, to plan further activities, and to gather their audiences.

Pre-Congress Business Meeting

Like 2021, before the online Congress in May, the RGME will precede its Open Business Meeting online at the Congress with a Pre-Congress Business Meeting, likewise online.  Thus it may gather participants from within Congress-goers and beyond, so as to prepare for the planning in the Congress Business Meeting, for example about which Sessions the RGME might wish to propose for its sponsorship and co-sponsorship at the 2023 Congress.

More details about events will follow. Watch this space.

Woodcut Illustration for the First Sunday of Advent in "Postilla" (Lyons, 1527). Photograph by Mildred Budny

Creation. Woodcut Illustration for the First Sunday of Advent (Postilla, 1527). Photograph Mildred Budny.

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