• News
    • News & Views
    • Reviews
    • Highlights
  • Blogs
    • Manuscript Studies
      • Manuscript Studies: Contents List
    • International Congress on Medieval Studies
      • Abstracts of Congress Papers
        • Abstracts of Papers Listed by Author
        • Abstracts of Papers Listed by Year
  • About
    • Mission
    • People
      • Mildred Budny — Her Page
      • Adelaide Bennett Hagens
    • Activities
      • Events
      • Congress Activities
        • Sponsored Conference Sessions (1993‒)
          • Panels at the M-MLA Convention
        • Co-sponsored Conference Sessions (2006‒)
    • History
      • Seals, Matrices & Documents
      • Genealogies & Archives
  • Bembino
    • Multi-Lingual Bembino
  • Congress
    • Sponsored Conference Sessions (1993‒)
    • Co-sponsored Conference Sessions (2006‒)
    • Abstracts of Congress Papers
      • Abstracts Listed by Author
      • Abstracts Listed by Year
    • Kalamazoo Archive
    • Panels at the M-MLA Convention
      • Abstracts of Papers for the M-MLA Convention
  • Events
    • The Research Group Speaks: The Series
    • Seminars, Workshops, Colloquia & Symposia (1989–)
      • Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Symposia on ‘The Transmission of the Bible’
      • The New Series
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Program: The Roads Taken
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration Open
    • Abstracts of Papers for Events
      • Abstracts of Papers for Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Abstracts of Papers for Symposia, Workshops & Colloquia
    • Receptions & Parties
    • Business Meetings
    • Photographic Exhibitions & Master Classes
    • Events Archive
  • ShelfLife
    • Journal Description
    • ShelfMarks: The RGME-Newsletter
    • Publications
      • “Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge” (1997)
        • Mildred Budny, ‘Catalogue’
        • The Illustrated Catalogue (1997)
      • The Illustrated Handlist
      • Semi-Official Counterfeiting in France 1380-1422
      • No Snap Decisions: Challenges of Manuscript Photography
    • History and Design of Our Website
  • Galleries
    • Watermarks & the History of Paper
    • Galleries: Contents List
    • Scripts on Parade
    • Texts on Parade
      • Latin Documents & Cartularies
      • New Testament Leaves in Old Armenian
    • Posters on Display
    • Layout Designs
  • Donations and Contributions
    • 2019 Anniversary Appeal
    • Orders
  • Contact Us
  • Links
    • Catalogs, Metadata, and Databases: A Handlist of Links
    • Manuscripts & Rare Books
    • Maps, Plans & Drawings
    • Seals, Seal-Matrices & Documents

  • News
    • News & Views
    • Reviews
    • Highlights
  • Blogs
    • Manuscript Studies
      • Manuscript Studies: Contents List
    • International Congress on Medieval Studies
      • Abstracts of Congress Papers
        • Abstracts of Papers Listed by Author
        • Abstracts of Papers Listed by Year
  • About
    • Mission
    • People
      • Mildred Budny — Her Page
      • Adelaide Bennett Hagens
    • Activities
      • Events
      • Congress Activities
        • Sponsored Conference Sessions (1993‒)
          • Panels at the M-MLA Convention
        • Co-sponsored Conference Sessions (2006‒)
    • History
      • Seals, Matrices & Documents
      • Genealogies & Archives
  • Bembino
    • Multi-Lingual Bembino
  • Congress
    • Sponsored Conference Sessions (1993‒)
    • Co-sponsored Conference Sessions (2006‒)
    • Abstracts of Congress Papers
      • Abstracts Listed by Author
      • Abstracts Listed by Year
    • Kalamazoo Archive
    • Panels at the M-MLA Convention
      • Abstracts of Papers for the M-MLA Convention
  • Events
    • The Research Group Speaks: The Series
    • Seminars, Workshops, Colloquia & Symposia (1989–)
      • Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Symposia on ‘The Transmission of the Bible’
      • The New Series
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Program: The Roads Taken
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration Open
    • Abstracts of Papers for Events
      • Abstracts of Papers for Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Abstracts of Papers for Symposia, Workshops & Colloquia
    • Receptions & Parties
    • Business Meetings
    • Photographic Exhibitions & Master Classes
    • Events Archive
  • ShelfLife
    • Journal Description
    • ShelfMarks: The RGME-Newsletter
    • Publications
      • “Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge” (1997)
        • Mildred Budny, ‘Catalogue’
        • The Illustrated Catalogue (1997)
      • The Illustrated Handlist
      • Semi-Official Counterfeiting in France 1380-1422
      • No Snap Decisions: Challenges of Manuscript Photography
    • History and Design of Our Website
  • Galleries
    • Watermarks & the History of Paper
    • Galleries: Contents List
    • Scripts on Parade
    • Texts on Parade
      • Latin Documents & Cartularies
      • New Testament Leaves in Old Armenian
    • Posters on Display
    • Layout Designs
  • Donations and Contributions
    • 2019 Anniversary Appeal
    • Orders
  • Contact Us
  • Links
    • Catalogs, Metadata, and Databases: A Handlist of Links
    • Manuscripts & Rare Books
    • Maps, Plans & Drawings
    • Seals, Seal-Matrices & Documents

Log in

Archives

Featured Posts

2023 Pre-Symposium on “Intrepid Borders” before the Spring Symposium
Photograph of the stems and white blooms of Snowdrops emerging from a patch of bare ground in the sunlight. Photograph Ⓒ Mildred Budny.
2023 Spring Symposium: “From the Ground Up”
Façade of the Celsus library, in Ephesus, near Selçuk, west Turkey. Photograph (1910): Benh LIEU SONG, via Creative Commons.
2023 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program
Barbara Heritage on Charlotte Brontë’s Fair Copy of “Shirley”
2023 Pre-Symposium Call for Papers: Intrepid Borders Lightning Talks
ShelfMarks Issue 2 (Volume 2, Number 1 for Winter 2022–2023)
Two Pages from a Roman Breviary in Gothic Script
Donncha MacGabhann at work on his close study of letter forms in the Book of Kells. Photograph via his publisher, Sidestone Press (Leiden 2022)
Donncha MacGabhann on the Making of “The Book of Kells”
2022 Autumn Symposium Program Booklet
How to Be Tarzan in the Catalog, Or, Tarzan-Moves of the Mind
Verso of Leaf from the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, Book III, chapter 7. Photography by Mildred Budny
2023 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Preparations
The Weber Leaf from “The Warburg Missal” (Otto Ege Manuscript 22)
Folio 4 with Latin Blessings for Holy Water and an Exorcism for Salt
Portfolio 93 of Ege’s “Famous Books in Eight Centuries” in the Collection of Richard Weber
A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 214’ in the Collection of Richard Weber
Two Ege Leaves and Two Ege Labels in the Collection of Birgitt G. Lopez
2022 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program
2022 Spring Symposium on “Structures of Knowledge”
Two Old Testament Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’ at Smith College
Catalogs, Metadata, and Databases (Part I)
I Was Here . . .
Lead the People Forward (by Zoey Kambour)
The Curious Printing History of ‘La Science de l’Arpenteur’
A Leaf in Dallas from “Otto Ege Manuscript 14” (Lectern Bible)
How to Be Indiana Jones in the Catalog
Southern Italian Cuisine Before Columbus
Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, Anonymous, Still Life of an Illuminated Book, German School, 15th century. Oil on Wood. Opened book with fanned pages. Image via Wikimedia, Public Domain.
Barbara Williams Ellertson and the BASIRA Project, with a Timeline
An Illustrated Leaf from the Shahnameh with a Russian Watermark
J. S. Wagner Collection, Leaf from Ege Manuscript 22, verso, bottom right: Ege's inscription in pencil.
Another Leaf from the Warburg Missal (‘Ege Manuscript 22’)
More Leaves from a Deconstructed Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript
Otto F. Ege: Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Leaf 40, Printed Label, Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries.
Otto Ege Manuscript 40, Part II: Before and After Ege
rivate Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege's Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Front of Leaf. Reproduced by permission.
Otto Ege’s Portfolio of ‘Famous Books’ and ‘Ege Manuscript 53’ (Quran)
Grapes Watermark in a Selbold Cartulary Fragment.
Selbold Cartulary Fragments
Smeltzer Collection, Subermeyer (1598), Vellum Supports Strip 2 Signature Surname.
Vellum Binding Fragments in a Parisian Printed Book of 1598
Church of Saint Mary, High Ongar, Essex, with 12th-Century Nave. Photograph by John Salmon (8 May 2004), Image via Wikipedia.
A Charter of 1399 from High Ongar in Essex
J. S. Wagner Collection. Leaf from from Prime in a Latin manuscript Breviary. Folio 4 Recto, Initial C for "Confitimini" of Psalm 117 (118), with scrolling foliate decoration.
A Leaf from Prime in a Large-Format Latin Breviary

You are browsing the Blog for Midwest Modern Language Association

2019 M-MLA Panel Program

August 18, 2019 in Announcements, M-MLA, Manuscript Studies, Midwest Modern Language Association, Uncategorized

Bust of the God Janus. Vatican City, Vatican Museums. Photo by Fubar Obfusco via Wikimedia Commons.

Bust of the God Janus. Vatican City, Vatican Museums. Photo by Fubar Obfusco via Wikimedia Commons.

“Duality and Manuscript Evidence”

2019 Panel Sponsored by the
Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
at the
Midwest Modern Language Association (M-MLA)

2019 Convention
Chicago, Illinois
November 14–17, 2019

[Posted on 17 August 2019, with updates]

Poster announcing the Call for Papers for the Permanent Panels sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, to be held at the 2019 MMLA Convention in Chicago in November. Poster set in RGME Bembino and designed by Justin Hastings.

Poster designed by Justin Hastings

The Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, in keeping with the MMLA conference’s theme of “Duality, Doubles, and Doppelgängers” for the 2019 Convention in Chicago, sponsors a panel on duality in manuscripts, broadly conceived.

Following the conclusion of our Call for Papers for the Panel, we announce its Program.

Poster 2 for 219 Anniversary Symposium, with symposium information and 2 images of cropped initials, from 12th-century Latin manuscripts, from the Princeton University Art Museum.

Poster 2 for 2019 Symposium

And now, on 14 November, we announce its successful accomplishment.  Hurray!

This event in Chicago formed part of our activities during 2019, a landmark Anniversary Year for the Research Group on Manuscript [and Other] Evidence.  Others include:

  • Specially Guided Tours for the RGME at the the Princeton University Exhibition on Gutenberg and After (November and December)
  • 2010 International Medieval Studies (May)
  • 2019 Anniversary Symposium on “The Roads Taken” (April)

“Duality and Manuscript Evidence” at the M-MLA

Thursday, 14 November 2019, 4:00–5:15 pm

Chair: Justin Hastings (Loyola University Chicago)

1. Morgan Aronson (US Naval Observatory Library)
“A Text Twice Born: Exploring the Origin of a Scientific Manuscript”

Namely the treatise on hydrodynamics by Abbé Edme Mariotte (1620–1684), posthumously published in French in 1686, with a second edition in French in 1700, and with an English translation in 1718 by John Theophilus Desaguliers.  Morgan’s paper introduces a manuscript of another English translation, dated apparently to 1690, also with illustrations.

Abstract of Paper

By Edme Mariotte - [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2565164

Title Page of Oeuvres de Mr. Mariotte (Leiden, 3 volumes: 1717). Via Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

Title-page for the First Printed English Translation

Title-page of first printed English translation of Mariotte's treatise (1718). Collection of Ronald K. Smeltzer.

Title-page of first printed English translation of Mariotte’s treatise (1718). Collection of Ronald K. Smeltzer.

Some of the Illustrations

Plate I in the first printed English translation of Mariotte's treatise. Collection of Ronald K. Smeltzer.

Plate I in the first printed English translation of Mariotte’s treatise (1718). Collection of Ronald K. Smeltzer.

Plate IIII [IV] in the first printed English translation of Mariotte's treatise (1718). Collection of Ronald K. Smeltzer.

Plate IIII [IV] in the first printed English translation of Mariotte’s treatise (1718). Collection of Ronald K. Smeltzer.

2. Emily Sharrett (Loyola University Chicago)

[Former Title]

“Generating London out of Roman Remains:
(1598, 1603)”

Namely the Survey of London (1598) by John Stow (1524/25 – 5 April 1605).

Church of St Andrew Undershaft, City of London,. Monument with effigy of John Stow, with arms of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors, and with Latin inscription: "Either act by writing or write by reading". Image via Wikipedia Commons.

Church of St Andrew Undershaft, City of London,. Monument with effigy of John Stow, with arms of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors, and with Latin inscription: “Either act by writing or write by reading”. Image via Wikipedia Commons.

[Update:   Final Title]

“Moral Guidebook from Medieval Bohemia:  A Study of Newberry Library MS 31.1”

3. Justin Hastings
“Emily Dickinson’s Choosing:
Biblical Intertext and Fascicle 33”

Namely the poems assembled in Fascicle 33 (of 40 Fascicles assembled between 1858–1865) by the American poet Emily Dickinson (1830–1886).

Abstract of Paper

Handout for Paper

mons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21206329. Amherst, Massachusetts, Amherst College Archives, Special Collections, Daguerreotype taken at Mount Holyoke, December 1846 or early 1847; the only authenticated portrait of Emily Dickinson after childhood. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Amherst, Massachusetts, Amherst College Archives, Special Collections, Daguerreotype taken at Mount Holyoke, December 1846 or early 1847; the only authenticated portrait of Emily Dickinson after childhood. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

We thank Justin and Morgan for providing detailed handouts for the session and for the Research Group, as projection during the session proved unfeasible.  Their resourcefulness and generosity are gratefully recognized.

Likewise, we thank our Associate, Ronald H. Smeltzer, dedicated collector of books on the history of science, for his generosity in providing photographs, displayed here with permission, of his copies of the first French edition and the first printed English translation of Mariotte’s treatise.

*****

Information about the 2020 M-MLA Convention appears on the MMLA website: MMLA Convention.

*****

We renew our thanks for the expert initiatives by our Associate Justin Hastings.  This will be the 4th year that the Research Group sponsors Permanent Panels at the Annual Convention of the Midwest Modern Language Association.

  • 2018 M-MLA Panel on “Consuming Cultures and Manuscript Evidence”
  • 2017 M-MLA Panel on “Artists, Activists, and Manuscript Evidence”
    2017 M-MLA Panel Report
  • “Marginalia in Manuscripts and Books” for the 2018 M-MLA
    2016 M-MLA Report

As customary for our Sessions at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, we publish the Abstracts of the Papers for our Panels at the M-MLA Convention in our Panel Announcements and Reports.

It is a special pleasure that our panel at this year’s Convention form part of our current anniversary celebrations. 2019 marks the 20th anniversary of our nonprofit educational corporation based in Princeton, New Jersey, and the 30th anniversary of our international scholarly society founded at the Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

*****

The continuation of the tradition of Permanent Panels at the M-MLA Convention is most welcome, and we thank our organizer, Justin Hastings, and the Midwest Modern Language Association. We congratulate Justin for his expert organizational skills and outstanding collegiality, and we applaud his willingness to continue to organize the panels for the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.

*****

Further information about the Convention and the Call for Papers for Permanent Panels can be found on the M-MLA website:

  • M-MLA Convention
  • M-MLA Convention Permanent Section Call for Papers .

Please Contact Us with your questions and suggestions.  We prepare for further activities.

*****

Tags: Anniversary, Edme Mariotte, Emily Dickinson, History of Hydraulics, John Stow, John Theophilus Desaguliers, Midwest Modern Language Association, Survey of London
1 Comment »

2019 M-MLA Call for Papers

March 3, 2019 in Announcements, Conference, Conference Announcement, Events, M-MLA, Manuscript Studies, Midwest Modern Language Association

Call for Papers

“Duality and Manuscript Evidence”

2019 Theme for the

Permanent Panels sponsored by the
Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
at the
Midwest Modern Language Association (M-MLA)

2019 Convention
Chicago, Illinois
November 14–17, 2019

[Posted on 2 March 2019]

Poster announcing the Call for Papers for the Permanent Panels sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, to be held at the 2019 MMLA Convention in Chicago in November. Poster set in RGME Bembino and designed by Justin Hastings.

Poster designed by Justin Hastings

The Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, in keeping with the MMLA conference’s theme of “Duality, Doubles, and Doppelgängers” for the 2019 Convention in Chicago, is sponsoring panels on duality in manuscripts broadly conceived.

Information about the conference appears on the MMLA website: MMLA Convention.

For our panels, possible senses of duality include, strictly by way of example, textual variants, recensions, and copies.  It also includes more figurative senses of duality, like the dialectic between text and marginal glosses.

We invite all approaches — including hermeneutical, textual, art historical, codicological, and paleographical — as well as all time periods. Despite the RGME’s traditional medieval focus, which has expanded, not least through these panels at the MMLA, we declare that all proposals considering the material evidence contained in handwritten documents are warmly welcomed.

Interested panelists should send brief abstracts of no more than 300 words to

jhastings@luc.edu by Monday, 01 April 2019.

*****

Thanks to the expert initiatives by our Associate Justin Hastings, this will be the 4th year that the Research Group sponsors Permanent Panels at the Annual Convention of the Midwest Modern Language Association.

It is a special pleasure that our panels at the 2019 Convention form part of our anniversary celebrations.  2019 marks the 20th anniversary of our nonprofit educational corporation based in Princeton, New Jersey, and the 30th anniversary of our international scholarly society founded at the Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

  • 2018 M-MLA Panel on “Consuming Cultures and Manuscript Evidence”
  • 2017 M-MLA Panel on “Artists, Activists, and Manuscript Evidence”
    2017 M-MLA Panel Report
  • “Marginalia in Manuscripts and Books” for the 2018 M-MLA
    2016 M-MLA Report

As customary for our Sessions at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, we publish the Abstracts of the Papers for our Panels at the M-MLA Convention in our Panel Announcements and Reports.

Poster for CFP RGME Sponsored Panels for 2017 M-MLA Convention*****

The continuation of the tradition of Permanent Panels at the M-MLA Convention is most welcome, and we thank our organizer, Justin Hastings, and the Midwest Modern Language Association.  We congratulate Justin for his expert organizational skills and outstanding collegiality, and we applaud his willingness to continue to organize the panels for the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.

*****

Further information about the Convention and the Call for Papers for Permanent Panels can be found on the M-MLA website:

  • M-MLA Convention
  • M-MLA Convention Permanent Section Call for Papers .

Please Contact Us with your questions and suggestions.  See you there!

*****

Tags: Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts, Midwest Modern Language Association
No Comments »

2018 M-MLA Panel

October 17, 2018 in Abstracts of Conference Papers, Announcements, Midwest Modern Language Association, Uncategorized

© The British Library Board. Harley MS 628, folio 160 verso. the initial 'd' for 'Domini'.

© The British Library Board. Harley MS 628, folio 160 verso, detail. Psalm 101 begins with the initial ‘d’ for ‘Domini’.

“Consuming Cultures and Manuscript Evidence”

2018 Permanent Panel
sponsored by the
Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
at the
Midwest Modern Language Association (M-MLA)
2018 Convention

Kansas City, Missouri
November 15–18, 2018

[Posted on 30 August 2018, with updates, now with a change to the Program.  An earlier version of this announcement appeared as Consuming Cultures and Manuscript Evidence 2018.]

The Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, in keeping with the M-MLA’s theme of “Consuming Cultures” for its 2018 Convention, sponsors a panel on the “Consumption of Manuscripts”.  After the completion of the Call for Papers, we now announce the Program for the Panel, which will take place on 15 November. The Program for the Convention in full is now available in preview through the M-MLA website: 2018 Program Booklet.

Food for Thought

In our design for the Panel, both in its proposal (as circulated in the Call for Papers) and in the selected design for its Program, we recognize that consideration of “consumption” can be literal, metaphorical, or both.  For example, the process and product could mean the destruction wrought by bookworms, fires, and biblioclasts, and/or the consumption effected by textual transmission and reception more broadly.

Accordingly, we have invited all approaches, including textual, art historical, codicological, and paleographical.  Also invite subjects from all periods.  Nice.

Year 3 of Our Panels at the M-MLA

Thanks to the expert initiatives by our Associate Justin Hastings, this will be the 3rd year that the Research Group sponsors Permanent Panels at the Annual Convention of the Midwest Modern Language Association.

The plan to sponsor the 2018 Panels draws inspiration from the success of our Panels at the M-MLA in the past 2 years. Details here:

2017

2017 M-MLA Panel on “Artists, Activists, and Manuscript Evidence”
2017 M-MLA Panel Report

2016

“Marginalia in Manuscripts and Books” for the 2016 M-MLA
2016 M-MLA Report

Chandelier and Ceiling Murals at the Netherland Plaza Hotel. Photography by Mildred Budny.

“Seeing the Light”. Chandelier and Ceiling Murals at the Netherland Plaza Hotel.

As customary for our Sessions at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, we publish the Abstracts of the Papers for our Panels at the M-MLA Convention in our Panel Announcements and Reports.

*****

The continuation of the tradition of Permanent Panels at the M-MLA Convention is most welcome, and we thank our organizer, Justin Hastings, and the Midwest Modern Language Association. We congratulate Justin for his expert organizational skills and outstanding collegiality, and we applaud his willingness to continue to organize the panels for the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.

*****

Program

Session 21. Friday 8:30–9:45 a.m.

“Consuming Cultures and Manuscript Evidence”

© The British Library Board. Harley MS 628, folio 160 verso. Psalms 101 begin.

© The British Library Board. Harley MS 628, folio 160 verso. Psalms 101 begin.

Panel Sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
at the Midwest Modern Language Association Convention
15 November 2018

Panel Chair:  Justin Hastings, Loyola University Chicago

[Note the recent change in Program, by which the paper by Jessie McDowell will be replaced by Justin’s.]

Chikako D. Kumamoto, College of DuPage, Addison, Illinois
“ ‘The Press and the Fire’ and ‘Discretion’:
Distributing Cognition and Its Reception through Paratextual Apparatus in Print and Manuscript Culture”

Abstract of Paper

Two sources inspire my title.

Portrait of John Donne as a young man, circa 1595. London, National Portrait Gallery, via Wikipedia Commons in the Public Domain.

Portrait of John Donne as a young man, circa 1595. London, National Portrait Gallery, via Wikipedia Commons in the Public Domain.

Its first part comes from the letter by John Donne (1572–1631) to Robert Ker (1570? – 1650), wherein he included his manuscript of Biathanatos, while instructing Ker to “publish it not, but yet burn it not, and between those do what you will with it” (Gosse, 2:124).  In this letter, Donne places his writing between the rigid visual fixity of print ([“Press”]) and the complete destruction of his words in the manuscript ([“the Fire”]), and asks Ker to use his “discretion” (“do what you will with it”) to guard against the potential misreading by readers.  The second part refers to Edwin Hutchins’s 1995 study of maritime navigation, Cognition in the Wild, which argues that cognition is “always situated in a complex sociocultural world” (Hutchins, page xiii) and that “thinking and action occur as individuals mobilize a range of external resources and representations” (xii).

Viewing Donne and Hutchins at the trans-epochal threshold of cognition/knowledge-making and its distribution and reception from writer to reader, I seek to examine how Donne’s misgivings about a potential loss of his actual voice in manuscript predictively signal readers’ mental activities occurring during their print-oriented, socially-networked reading — the process to which Hutchings’s cognitive systems, composed of multiple social agents in the material world, can be applied.  For both writers provoke an epistemic dialectics of textual reading as culturally-constituted, collaborative activities (writing and publishing manuscripts, and their paratextual apparatus such as title pages, prefaces, images), impacting on the reader’s thinking, knowing, and interpreting outside the writer’s manuscript culture.

By also analyzing title pages of Quarto 1 and Quarto 2 of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, I exemplify how their paratextual apparatus transmits the play’s central message which  Shakespeare’s, as well as our contemporary, readers will receive collaboratively from the “discrete” dialogue between writer and reader, between a manuscript text and its paratextual apparatus.

Tentative Bibliography

Donne, John. The Life and Letters of John Donne. Ed. Edmund Gosse.  2 vols. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1899;  rprt. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1959.

Halio, Jay I. ed. Romeo and Juliet: Parallel Texts of Quart 1 (1597) and Quart 2 (1599). Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2008.

Hutchins, Edwin. Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press, 1995.

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Folger Library Shakespeare. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Washington Square Press, 1992.

Title Page of "Romeo and Juliet" in the First Folio (1631). Folger Shakespeare Library., via Wikipedia Commons.

Title Page of “Romeo and Juliet” in the First Folio (1631). Folger Shakespeare Library., via Wikipedia Commons.

[This paper has been withdrawn:

Jessie McDowell, Loyola University Chicago
“Medieval Manuscripts and Interoperability:
Scholarly Editing, Collaboration, and the Digital Artisan”]

Justin Hastings, Loyola University Chicago
“Sexual Consumption and Paratextual Restraint in Lady Margaret Cavendish’s ‘The Convent of Pleasure’:
Newberry Library Case Y 135.N43”

Abstract:

Portraits of Margaret Cavendish and her husband, William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Oil on canvas, attributed to Gonzales Coques (between 1614 and 1618 - 18 April 1684). Image via Wikipedia Commons.

Portraits of Margaret Cavendish and her husband, William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Berlin, Gemäldegalerie. Oil on canvas, attributed to Gonzales Coques (between 1614 and 1618 – 18 April 1684). Image via Wikipedia Commons.

In “The Convent of Pleasure” by Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673), Duchess of Newcastle, the play’s protagonist Lady Happy, finding herself her father’s sole heir, proposes to encloister herself with “so many Noble Persons of my own Sex, as my Estate will plentifully maintain, such whose Births are greater then their Fortunes, and are resolv’d to live a single life and vow Virginity” (2.2).  Lady Happy’s rationale for this is that it is impossible for a woman to be happy in marriage, since under the contemporary legal doctrine of Coverture, a wife not only surrendered her wealth to her husband, but her very selfhood was legally consumed as well.

Lady Happy, consequently, removes both herself and a coterie of similar wellborn women from a system of economic exchange in which an aristocratic women serves simply as the financial instrument by which wealth and power may pass from a hegemonic male to his heir. The fourth act of the play interrupts the otherwise subversive thrust of the play to present a reimagined fertility ritual accompanied by a pair of verse passages written by William Cavendish (1592–1676), 1st Duke of Newcastle, that serve to reinscribe the very system of aristocratic marriage that the rest of the play seeks to complicate: coats of arms are offered up as the prize for the maypole dance, and “holy Hymen’s Law” is reinstated and reinforced (4.1).

Unlike the 1662 edition of the play, the 1668 edition, as attested by Chicago, Newberry Library, Case Y 135.N43, explicitly ascribes authorship of these passages via a pair of pasted-down strips of paper imprinted with “VVritten by my Lord Duke.”  Other extant copies of the 1668 edition preserve this feature along with a sequence of hand-corrections throughout the volume.

This paper will examine these and other codicological features, including an interruption in the regular quire construction at the play’s fourth act, to argue that the 1668 edition’s explicit attribution of authorship of these verse passages is tied to shifts in William Newcastle’s political fortunes and a renewed need to be seen to curb his wife’s literary aspirations, which were understood as a form of marital unchastity that diminished the Duke’s social reputation.

*****

Further information about the Convention can be found on its website. See also the M-MLA Convention Permanent Section Call for Papers .

Please Contact Us with your questions and suggestions. See you there!

For our other events, please see our News & Views”, and the reports of our activities at the annual International Congress on Medieval Studies and elsewhere.

© The British Library Board. Harley MS 628, folio 160 verso. the initial 'd' for 'Domini'.

© The British Library Board. Harley MS 628, folio 160 verso, detail. Psalm 101 begins with the initial ‘d’ for ‘Domini’.

*****

Tags: "The Convent of Pleasure", Conference, Conference Announcement, Edwin Hutchins, John Donne, Margaret Cavendish Dutchess of Newcastle, Midwest Modern Language Association, Newberry Library, Robert Ker, Romeo & Juliet, Shakespeare, William Cavendish 1st Duke of Newcastle
No Comments »

“Consuming Cultures & Manuscript Evidence” – 2018

August 30, 2018 in Conference, Conference Announcement, M-MLA, Midwest Modern Language Association, Uncategorized

“Consuming Cultures and Manuscript Evidence”

2018 Permanent Panel
sponsored by the
Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
at the
Midwest Modern Language Association (M-MLA)

2018 Convention
Kansas City, Missouri
November 15–18, 2018

[Posted on 30 August 2018, with updates, now with a change to the Program.  Now see a newer version of this post: 2018 M-MLA Panel.]

The Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, in keeping with the M-MLA’s theme of “Consuming Cultures” for its 2018 Convention, sponsors a panel on the “Consumption of Manuscripts”.  After the completion of the Call for Papers, we now announce the Program for the Panel, which will take place on 15 November. The Program for the Convention in full is now available in preview through the M-MLA website: 2018 Program Booklet.

Food for Thought

In our design for the Panel, both in its proposal (as circulated in the Call for Papers) and in the selected design for its Program, we recognize that consideration of “consumption” can be literal, metaphorical, or both.  For example, the process and product could mean the destruction wrought by bookworms, fires, and biblioclasts, and/or the consumption effected by textual transmission and reception more broadly.

Accordingly, we have invited all approaches, including textual, art historical, codicological, and paleographical.  Also invite subjects from all periods.  Nice.

© The British Library Board. Harley MS 628, folio 160 verso. Psalms 101 begin.

© The British Library Board. Harley MS 628, folio 160 verso. Psalms 101 begin.

Year 3 of Our Panels at the M-MLA

Thanks to the expert initiatives by our Associate Justin Hastings, this will be the 3rd year that the Research Group sponsors Permanent Panels at the Annual Convention of the Midwest Modern Language Association.

The plan to sponsor the 2018 Panels draws inspiration from the success of our Panels at the M-MLA in the past 2 years. Details here:

2017

2017 M-MLA Panel on “Artists, Activists, and Manuscript Evidence”
2017 M-MLA Panel Report

2016

“Marginalia in Manuscripts and Books” for the 2016 M-MLA
2016 M-MLA Report

Chandelier and Ceiling Murals at the Netherland Plaza Hotel. Photography by Mildred Budny.

“Seeing the Light”. Chandelier and Ceiling Murals at the Netherland Plaza Hotel.

As customary for our Sessions at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, we publish the Abstracts of the Papers for our Panels at the M-MLA Convention in our Panel Announcements and Reports.

*****

The continuation of the tradition of Permanent Panels at the M-MLA Convention is most welcome, and we thank our organizer, Justin Hastings, and the Midwest Modern Language Association. We congratulate Justin for his expert organizational skills and outstanding collegiality, and we applaud his willingness to continue to organize the panels for the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.

*****

© The British Library Board. Harley MS 628, folio 160 verso. the initial 'd' for 'Domini'.

© The British Library Board. Harley MS 628, folio 160 verso, detail. Psalm 101 begins with the initial ‘d’ for ‘Domini’.

*****

Program

Session 21. Friday 8:30–9:45 a.m.

“Consuming Cultures and Manuscript Evidence”

Panel Sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
at the Midwest Modern Language Association Convention
15 November 2018

Panel Chair:  Justin Hastings, Loyola University Chicago

[Note the recent change in Program, as the paper by Jessie McDowell will be replaced by Justin’s]

Chikako D. Kumamoto, College of DuPage, Addison, Illinois
“ ‘The Press and the Fire’ and ‘Discretion’:
Distributing Cognition and Its Reception through Paratextual Apparatus in Print and Manuscript Culture”

Abstract of Paper

[Jessie McDowell, Loyola University Chicago
“Medieval Manuscripts and Interoperability:
Scholarly Editing, Collaboration, and the Digital Artisan”]

Justin Hastings, Loyola University Chicago
“Hic Littera Patet:  Medieval Commentaries on Horace’s Satires and Patterns of Textual Consumption”

*****

Further information about the Convention can be found on its website. See also M-MLA Convention Permanent Section Call for Papers .

Please Contact Us with your questions and suggestions. See you there!

*****

Tags: M-MLA, Manuscript studies
No Comments »

  • Top


is proudly powered by WordPress. WordPress Themes X2 developed by ThemeKraft.