Our First Report for the CARA Newsletter

The June 2015 Newsletter for CARA (Committee on Centers and Regional Associations of the Medieval Academy of America) has now appeared. In this Newsletter online, the Report for the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence appears on page 12. This year, the Research Group has become an official CARA Affiliate (as recorded on page 13).

As one of the 28 representatives present, our Director attended the Annual CARA Meeting on 15 March 2015, following the Medieval Academy of America Annual Meeting at the University of Notre Dame.  The Report of our activities for 2014-2015 is published in the CARA Newsletter.  Here we reprint the Report, with the addition of active links to its items.

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The Research Group on Manuscript Evidence exists to apply an integrated approach to the evidence of manuscripts and other written forms across the ages. It is a small organization, without buildings or paid staff, so that donations in funds and in kind principally support the activities themselves. As a sort of university without walls, it is open to the academic and wider worlds, including established as well as independent scholars and others alike.

In 2014, we celebrated dual anniversaries, marking 15 years as a nonprofit educational corporation based in Princeton, New Jersey, and 25 years as an international scholarly society founded in the United Kingdom as part of a collaborative research project at the Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. For its early years, the Group focused on a selected group of Anglo-Saxon and related manuscripts and their contexts. Based in Princeton since 1994, the Group has expanded the range of interests and activities, which our unofficial name reflects (‘Research Group on Manuscripts and Other Evidence’) and our newly updated website documents and illustrates.

During the 2014 anniversary, events took place at Princeton University, with institutional and individual sponsorship:

1) a symposium in May on
“Recollections of the Past: Editorial and Artistic Workshops from Late Antiquity to Early Modernity”

2) a colloquium in November on “When the Dust Has Settled, Or, When Good Scholars Go Back . . .”

3) and a seminar in December on “Show & Tell: Medieval Manuscripts & their Photographs” .

The Program Booklets publish the Abstracts of papers for the symposium and colloquium .

As customary, we sponsor and co-sponsor sessions at the International Congress on Medieval Studies. In 2014, there were 7 sessions, and 5 sessions in 2015, both with sessions co-sponsored by the Societas Magica and the Center for Medieval and early Modern Studies at the University of Florida. For the anniversary, we began the tradition of co-sponsoring a Reception at the Congress, which continued also in 2015. Our website reports our Congress activities through the years, with the Programs of the sessions and the Abstracts of many papers — newly with a full index of the Abstracts both by Author and by Year.

In 2014, we began the upgrade and redesign of our website — a task more complex than expected. We launched the RGME-newsletter, ShelfMarks, available in 2 forms: the online version in concise email format (ISSN 2377-4118), and the downloadable printed version (ISSN 2377-4096) with more illustrations, layout according to our Style Manifesto, and our own copyright font Bembino.

In 2015, the Group joined CARA. In time for the 2015 Congress, the Group launched its new (WordPress) official website and archived its old (Drupal) site, still available online. Our Style Manifesto has been updated. Responding to requests, we issued the next Version (1.3) of our multilingual digital font Bembino, available for FREE here.

In planning activities, the Research Group welcomes suggestions for subjects, venues, hosts, sponsorships, and contributors. We seek contributions and donations of various kinds, along with announcements, reports, questions, and news for the Newsletter. Please visit our website and our Facebook Page, Subscribe to the Newsletter, and Contact Us with requests, proposals, and comments.

— Mildred Budny, Director

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We are glad to join CARA as an Affiliate.  We look forward to its future Meetings.

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Update:
Our Second Annual Report has now appeared.  Please see the 2016 Report for CARA.

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