2025 Spring Symposium: “Makers, Producers, and Collectors of Books”
March 12, 2025 in Conference, Conference Announcement, Event Registration, Manuscript Studies, RGME Symposia
2025 RGME Spring Symposium
“Makers, Producers,
and Collectors of Books:
From Author/Artist/Artisan
to Library”
Friday to Sunday, 28–30 March 2025
(Online by Zoom)
Part 1 of 2 in the Pair of
2025 Spring & Autumn Symposia
dedicated to “Agents and Agencies”
London, Welcome Collection, 45097i, image via Public Domain Mark https://wellcomecollection.org/works/g7kj7b2f/images?id=kkakxfdz
[Posted on 10 March 2025, with updates]
Following the extraordinary success of our 2024 Spring and Autumn Symposia, the central events during our 2024 Anniversary Year having the Theme of “Bridges”, we turn to our 2025 pair of symposia under this year’s Theme of “Thresholds and Communities”.
About the theme, see:
2025 Spring and Autumn Symposia:
“Agents and Agencies”
Parts 1 and 2
For the plan for the pair, see:
- 2025 Spring and Autumn Symposia “Agents and Agencies”
The 2025 Symposia explore the subject of Agents and Agencies regarding books.
As Part 1 of 2, the Spring Symposium (28–30 March 2025) addresses:
“Makers, Producers, and Collectors of Books:
From Author/Artist/Artisan to Library”
Friday to Sunday, 28–30 March 2025
As Part 2 of 2, the Autumn Symposium (17–19 October 2025) considers:
“Readers, Fakers, and Re-Creators of Books:
From Page to Marketplace and Beyond”
Friday to Sunday 17–19 October 2025
Making
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Ms-638 réserve, fol.17v. Image Public Domain via https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55008559f/f38.item.
For the two Symposia, we examine aspects of “Agents and Agencies” for books, mainly by human forces. These aspects can range from the processes whereby the initial inspiration comes to take shape on the pages of manuscripts or printed books, combining words as well as images (including the image of the words themselves). Once created, the books enter the world by various agents/agencies, then perhaps to experience or encounter additional ones which might transform them or re-create them decisively.
We propose to explore these factors, in multiple cases and approaches giving recognition to their variety, impact, and significance in the history of books as they pass through time to the present and beyond. Without being limited to a particular period, genre, or type of agent/agency, we might examine a wide range of phenomena, their challenges, and their delights.
RGME tradition produces illustrated Program Booklets for the Symposia, with participants’ abstracts and selected accompanying illustrations, to grant insider-glimpses for our audience (at the event and after) not necessarily familiar with the wide range of subjects and materials under discussion. A recent example can be downloaded from the RGME website:
2025 Spring Symposium Poster 1
Posters
We offer posters for this event.
They are laid out in RGME Bembino, our own multi-lingual digital font. (See RGME Bembino.)
We circulate the printed version in both quarto (8 1/2″ × 11″) and larger size (11″×17″).
The poster can be downloaded in digital form. You are welcome to circulate them.
- Spring Symposium Poster 1: Save-the-Date
- Spring Symposium Poster 2: Announcement
2025 Spring Symposium Poster 2
Program
There are 7 Sessions. They will provide presentations, conversations, roundtable discussions, and the opportunity for interactive Q&A.
Program Overview
Edgar Allan Poe (1848) Daguerrotype taken by W.S. Hartshorn, Providence, Rhode Island, November, 1848. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Day 1. Friday 28 March 2025
Session 1
1:30 – 3:00 pm EDT (GMT-4)
“Books Come to Life, Part I: Authorship”
Break
3:00 to 3:30 pm EDT
Session 2.
3:30-5:00 pm EDT
“Books Come to Life, Part II: Artistry from the Creator’s Perspective”
Day 2. Saturday 29 March
Session 3
9:00-10:30 am EDT
“Life, Death, Afterlife, and Rebirth of Books”
Break
10:30 – 11:00 am
Session 4
11:00 am – 12:30 pm
“Picture This: Books into Being”
Lunch Break
12:30-1:30 pm
Session 5
1:30-3:00
“Books and Written Records as Repositories of Knowledge and Wonder”
Neuchâtel, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Neuchâtel, Les automates Jaquet-Droz Automata: The Writer. Photograph by Rama (2005), via the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 France license.
Break
3:00-3:30 pm
Session 6
3:30-5:00 pm
Roundtable Discussion
“Agents and Agents: Processes, Products, and Inspiration”
Day 3. Sunday 30 March
Session 7
10:30 am – 12:00 noon
“Writing Materials as Agents and Agencies”
Concluding Remarks
“From Spring Forward to Autumn Back Again:
A Preview of Part 2 on “Agents and Agencies”
Detailed Program
For details, with speakers and titles, see the 8-page illustrated Program Booklet.
It is available in 2 versions, according with your preferences for printing and viewing.
1) As consecutive pages (8 1/2 by 11 in. sheets)
2) As a foldable booklet (11″ by 17″ sheets)
Soon we will issue the 2025 Spring Symposium Booklet with Abstracts.
For registration for the symposium, see below.
Participants
Speakers, Panelists, and Presiders include (in alphabetical order):
Phillip Bernhardt–House (Independent Scholar)
Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)
Hannah Goeselt (RGME and Massachusetts Historical Society)
Justin Hastings (Independent Scholar)
Antony Henk (University of Bochum)
Michael Ian Hensley (University of Hamburg)
Eve Kahn (Independent Scholar)
Michael Allman Conrad (University of Saint-Gallen)
Richard Kopley (Penn State University DuBois Emeritus)
Laura Morreale (Independent Scholar)
Beppy Landrum Owen (Rollins College)
Jaclyn Reed (Independent Scholar)
Anna Siebach–Larsen (University of Rochester)
David W. Sorenson (Allen G. Berman, Numismatist)
Maro Vandorou (Visual Artist)
N. Kıvılcım Yavuz (University of Leeds)
Subjects range from antiquity to the present day, as represented by manuscripts, printed books, and other media.
Examples include (in proposed program order):
- Richard Kopley‘s introduction to his ground-breaking new book, published in March:
Edgar Allan Poe: A Life (University of Virginia Press, 2025) - Maro Vandorou, book-artist and visual artist, in conversation with Beppy Landrum Owen
about her projects, from the gleam in the eye to the words gleaming on the page (see her website: Atelier Vandorou) - Justin Hastings‘ cumulative reflections on the contested authorship of
“The Whitby Life of Gregory the Great“ - Beppy Landrum Owen‘s haunting exploration of
“Life After Life: Tales from the Making of the Icones Anatomicae” - Eve Kahn‘s continuing discoveries about the life and work of “The Irish American Imagemaker:
Anna Frances Levins (1876-1941)” - Mildred Budny, “Last or Best Resort: When Authors Turn Publishers/Producers”
- Michael Ian Hensley, “Sold and Traded, Dismembered and Hidden:
The Many Fates of Medieval Ethiopian and Eritrean Libraries” - Laura Morreale on her Pop-Up Exhibition on the Riant Collection at the Houghton Library:
The Crusades Come to Cambridge - Michael Allman Conrad, “Mechanized Inspiration from Raymond Lull to ChatGPT”
- Hannah Goeselt, “Discoverability and the Pre-Modern Manuscripts of the Massachusetts Historical Society“
- David W. Sorenson, “When Watermarks Tell Tall Tales:
Watermarks in Exotic Destinations and Why They Can Be Unreliable”
Registration
To register for the Symposium, please visit the RGME Eventbrite Collection.
Advance registration for the Autumn Symposium (17–19 October 2025):
Optional Donation
- Registration with Optional Donation: Voluntary donations for the RGME are welcome. Your donations , which may be tax-deductible, support our mission, work, and activities, for our Section 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational corporation endowed with few few resources, but powered mainly by volunteers and by your volunteer donations or contributions in kind.
- See RGME Contributions and Donations
- 2025 Annual Appeal
Images as Inspiration:
Agents and Agencies
As food for thought, we offer some images as reference points for the range of agents and agencies at work in the realms of books.
In the Study, Surrounded by Books
I. Evangelist as Scribe
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Ms-638 réserve, fol.17v. Evangelist Matthew as scribe. Book of Hours in Latin, 15th century. Image Public Domain via https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55008559f/f38.item.
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Ms-638 réserve, fol.17v. Book of Hours in Latin, 15th century. Saint Matthew writing at his desk accompanied by his symbol the angel, in an illustration above the text of Matthew 2:1-3 (stellam eius) enclosed within a border containing branches, foliage, flowers, and birds. Image via https://iiif.biblissima.fr/collections/manifest/0418e3c989d996266c02656f7390b8283b440ead
See also:
- https://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cc79846r
- https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55008559f/f38.item
II. Scholar/Practitioner/Alchemist as Scribe
In visual representations, the author or scribe seated at the task of writing may occupy a larger study than the previous illustration and have secular rather than divine assistants, as well as more and larger books. Such is the case in some early-modern views of an alchemist at work.
View 1
London, Welcome Collection, Painting by a follower of Thomas Wijck/Wyck (circa 1616 – 1677). Interior with an alchemist-type scholar seated at a large table and desk. Oil on canvas within frame. Wellcome Collection 45097i, image via Public Domain Mark https://wellcomecollection.org/works/g7kj7b2f/images?id=kkakxfdz
Note on the Image
London, Wellcome Collection. Oil on canvas within frame. Painting by a follower of Thomas Wijck/Wyck (circa 1616 – 1677). Interior with window and curtains at the left, drapery hanging at the top, and an alchemist-type scholar seated at work writing at a desk beside a central table piled with unrolled papers and large books opened and closed. Behind them is a globe; at the right another person sits at a table among chemical apparatus. In the foreground appear large books, a jar, and other apparatus. Given their size, central position, and the light shining upon them, the written materials on the table seem to be the principal subjects of attention.
Wellcome Collection 45097i, image via Public Domain Mark: https://wellcomecollection.org/works/g7kj7b2f/images?id=kkakxfdz . See also: Interior with an alchemist seated at a table, writing.
View 2
London, Wellcome Collection 36093i. An alchemist peacefully writing in a room strewn with papers. Engraving by V.A.L. Texier after F. Giani after T. Wyck. Wellcome Collection. Source: Wellcome Collection; Public Domain Mark.
Note on the Image
London, Wellcome Collection, Victor André Louis Texier (1777–1864) after Felice Giani (1760–1823) after Thomas Wijck/Wyck (ca. 1616–1677). “An alchemist peacefully writing in a room strewn with papers (L’alchymiste en méditation) (n.d.).” .
Intaglio on paper. Wellcome Collection 36093i, image via Public Domain Mark
https://wellcomecollection.org/works/y873ctep/images?id=wsxqstpc
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The Series of RGME Symposia
-
- “Structures of Knowledge”
- “Supports for Knowledge” (Autumn)
- 2023 Spring and Autumn Symposia on “Materials and Access”
- 2024 Anniversary Symposium in Thanks to Jesse Hurlbut
- 2024 Spring and Autumn Symposia on “Between Past and Future”
- 2024 Spring Symposium at Vassar College:
“Between Past and Future:
Building Bridges between Special Collections and Teaching for the Liberal Arts” - 2024 Autumn Symposium
“At the Helm: Spotlight on Special Collections as Teaching Events”
In 2024, the RGME Symposia returned to the in-person format with our 2024 Spring Symposium, having online participation as well, in hybrid form.
Now we welcome you to the 2025 Spring and Autumn Symposia on “Agents and Agencies”
More Information
Watch this space for more information as it unfolds. This site serves as the ‘Home Page’ for the Symposium. Here you can find updates.
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2025 RGME Events, with the Theme of “Thresholds and Communities”
Other Events are planned for the Year. See:
- 2025 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program
- 2025 International Medieval Congress at Leeds: Program
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Donations and contributions, in funds or in kind, are welcome and easy to give.
We look forward to hearing from you.
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Neuchâtel, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Neuchâtel. Jaquet-Droz Automata: Draughtsman, Musician, and Writer. Photograph: Rama (2005) via Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 France.
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