Rare Book School: Recent Episodes
Rare Book School Lectures
Since 1972, the Book Arts Press and Rare Book School have offered more than 600 public lectures on a wide variety of bibliographical topics.
Indigenous Sovereignty in Amherst for Rare Book School and he just completed teaching the online RBS course G-90v: Indigenous Agency and Intervention in the Bibliographical Record.
on 8 July 2026.About the Talk:Printed newspapers have become endangered as digital distribution has transformed the news business and the ways that people access information. This talk returns to the decades in our previous century when the printed newspaper thrived as the center of the news cycle, and it highlights some of the hidden landscapes, labor, and infrastructures enabling that. Twentieth-century newspapers were not just outlets for news but were also the material products of industrial capitalism manufactured by business firms organized like those in other mass production industries. These firms drew upon natural raw materials and developed infrastructures of production and distribution gathering large and diverse human labor forces including lumberjacks, paper mill operators, and newsboys. We often think about printed texts as relationships between authors and readers, but this talk draws attention to some of the hidden materials, people, and infrastructures involved in producing and circulating printed newspapers.About the Speaker:Michael Stamm is Professor of History at Michigan State University. He received his B.A. in English from UC Berkeley in 1994 and his Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago in 2006. He has been at MSU since 2008, and he has served as Chairperson of the History Department since 2022. He is a political, cultural, and environmental historian specializing in media and journalism history. His first book, Sound Business: Newspapers, Radio, and the Politics of New Media (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), traced how American newspapers have responded to competition from “new media,” which in the decades after 1920 meant radio broadcasting. His most recent book is Dead Tree Media: Manufacturing the Newspaper in Twentieth-Century North America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018), which offers a history of the printed newspaper tracing its production from the forest to the reader. In 2019, the book received Canadian Business History Association’s Best Book Prize. He is currently completing a book entitled Communicating with Nature: Agriculture, Materiality, and the Industrial Information Age, which traces the use of farm crops in the manufacturing of paper and ink and in the circulation of public information.
on 6 July 2026.About the Talk:By the turn of the millennium, the word “text” had become a verb. Three-and-a-half years ago, ChatGPT was released into the wild, decisively severing the link between writing and human expression. In 2025, Merriam-Webster’s word of the year was “slop.” This talk will offer an attenuated archaeology of what someone we know once called the textual condition. And not to give away the game, but that condition is not good: today, text functions as something much more like a fossil fuel or other extractable resource than a medium for communication and expression. Nonetheless, the talk also asks how we can still make some good old fashioned material messes in a world of slop. Examples will be provided. Refreshments will be served. There may even be a book or two.About the Speaker:Matthew Kirschenbaum rejoined UVA in 2025 as Commonwealth Professor of Artificial Intelligence and English after 25 years at the University of Maryland, where he finished as a Distinguished University Professor. He considers himself a student of texts and textual technologies in all their social and material forms, and his scholarship and teaching have explored literary intersects with printing and bookmaking, archival science, media archaeology, digital humanities, and now artificial intelligence.He is the author of three books, most recently Bitstreams: The Future of Digital Literary Heritage from the University of Pennsylvania Press (2021). His first book, Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination (2008) was the winner of multiple awards, including the MLA Prize for a First Book. Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing (2016) enjoyed widespread public media attention. Recent articles have appeared in PMLA, Critical Inquiry, and ELH; and he frequently writes for popular outlets, which have included the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Slate, Los Angeles Review of Books, Public Books, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Kirschenbaum is an active member of the Modern Language Association’s task force on AI in Research and Teaching, and a member of the teaching faculty at Rare Book School. He has been a Guggenheim and an NEH Fellow, and is a practicing letterpress printer.Current projects includes two books, the first on the political economy of text in the present moment and the second on the weaponization of AI in what some have called a full-blown epistemic crisis. You can find him on Bluesky at @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social.
Wax Book Collecting Prize for young women collectors. She currently serves on the faculty and board of the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS-Minnesota), the Council of the Bibliographical Society of America, and the Yale Library Associates Trustees. She is a member of the American Antiquarian Society, and writes about book history for the 𝘕𝘦𝘸 𝘠𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘙𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸 𝘰𝘧 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴.
on 10 June, 2026.Women’s book collections appear in a wide range of forms: as catalogued libraries; as groups of surviving books linked by inscription and family use; or as volumes dispersed but still traceable through the historical record. In some cases, a woman’s library may never have existed as a traditional collection. Women’s commonplace books record reading lives—and can produce something like a library in manuscript form. Considered together, these collections are not always bounded or stable. Some are large and well-documented; others survive only in small clusters or scattered traces.Drawing on examples ranging from the seventeenth century through the early nineteenth century, this lecture examines how these different modes of creation and survival complicate familiar ideas about what a library can be. Looking for such associations—and for the ways book collections are formed, dispersed, and remade—offers insight into how women and girls lived with books, and into the limits and possibilities of collecting these materials.𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿:Elizabeth Canning is a collector of early modern books and manuscripts, with a focus on how women used books to shape their intellectual, social, and professional lives. Her collection brings together printed and manuscript materials that document women as authors, readers, and participants in the book trade, with particular attention to evidence of ownership and use.Canning has studied book history at Rare Book School, London Rare Book School, and the Harvard Extension School, and holds a BA in English from Reed College. She serves on the board of the Book Club of Washington, where she helped launch a scholarship program supporting Washington students at Rare Book School. Her writing has appeared in the 𝘑𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭 of the Book Club of Washington and the 𝘑𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘰𝘧 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘉𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘤 𝘚𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴, and she has presented on book collecting at the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair and early midwifery books at Bastyr University.
Paper: Making Space as an Art Collective (2022). His most recent article, “English Graffiti and the Printed Image,” will appear shortly in the journal 𝘈𝘳𝘵 𝘏𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺
RBS faculty member Paul Needham (Princeton Univ.) gave a public lecture on "The Catholicon Press Revisited: The Evidence of Nailheads" on 29 July 2025. You can watch the full recording of the lecture on YouTube at https://youtu.be/o4aMEB38slw?feature=shared.𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸:The 𝘊𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘰𝘯, whose colophon states that it was printed in Mainz, 1460, has been the subject of controversy for more than fifty years. Paul Needham argues that it was printed from thin two-line stereotypes, used for three typographically identical impressions, dating to 1460, 1469, and 1472-73. Others maintain that it was printed directly from movable types, like all other incunables; that the colophon date is wrong; and that all copies were printed in 1469. Needham, working with Eric White, has recently discovered new evidence which strongly supports the stereotype hypothesis.𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿:Paul Needham became Scheide Librarian at Princeton University in 1998 and retired in 2020. Before coming to Princeton, he worked at Sotheby’s and at the Pierpont Morgan Library. Among his books is 𝘛𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦 𝘊𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘣𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨: 400–1600 (1979). He has given Rare Book School courses on early printed books both at the Morgan and at the Huntington.
Christopher N. Warren delivered the 2025 Sol M. and Mary Ann O’Brian Malkin Lecture, “What is Computational Bibliography?”, on 30 July 2025. You can watch the full recording of the lecture on YouTube at https://youtu.be/ElvNacFyoWQ?feature=shared.𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸:Book historians have long faced a methodological dilemma. Do we want to study particular material objects in granular detail, or are we primarily concerned with more general patterns connected to larger questions about politics, economics, censorship regimes, or ideology? While not strictly mutually exclusive, these two approaches nevertheless exist in tension, and scholars frequently orient themselves toward one side or the other. In this talk, Christopher N. Warren will explore how the new field of computational bibliography is helping to resolve this dilemma through its ability to connect granular, material details to larger, more consequential patterns. Computational bibliography, Warren argues, makes it newly possible to move fluidly between scales—bringing into focus material features like individual type sorts and paper stocks while also uncovering large-scale clandestine printing campaigns and historical print networks. Warren’s talk will show how such dynamic scaling is not merely a technical convenience but a methodological breakthrough—one that enables book historians to ask and answer fascinating new questions.𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿:Christopher N. Warren is Professor of English and History and incoming Head of English at Carnegie Mellon University. Warren is the author of 𝘓𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘢𝘸 𝘰𝘧 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴, 1580–1680 (2015), which was awarded the 2016 Roland H. Bainton Prize for Literature. A former member of the Modern Language Association’s executive committee for 17th-Century English, Warren co-founded 𝘚𝘪𝘹 𝘋𝘦𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘍𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘴 𝘉𝘢𝘤𝘰𝘯 and directed the National Endowment for the Humanities-funded digital humanities project “Freedom and the Press before Freedom of the Press,” which used machine learning and artificial intelligence to discover and center the anonymous craftsmen and -women responsible for printing controversial clandestine materials.
Rachael DiEleuterio gave the inaugural Sue Allen Lecture for Women in Book History, on “Curious and Creative Women,” on 28 July 2025. She was joined by Daphne Sawyer, who endowed the lecture in memory of her mother, Mary Sawyer (1925–2024), and of longtime RBS faculty member Sue Allen (1918–2011). You can watch the full recording of the lecture on YouTube at https://youtu.be/2YurCWdLYIo?feature=shared.About the Talk:What do mother-and-daughter book collectors, nineteenth-century book cover designers, and an art museum librarian have in common? Rare Book School, of course! But there's more to the story. All of them are women, deeply passionate about the history of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century publishers' book bindings. These bindings, many of which were designed by women, are stunning works of art. As the commercial book market boomed in the latter half of the nineteenth century, decorative bindings became an essential part of book production. These publishers' bindings showcased technological advancements in mass production while reflecting contemporaneous artistic movements. Book cover design was one of few creative professions open to women, whose innovations transformed the field until the more cost-effective paper dust jacket took over in the 1920s. By the 1960s, these beautiful covers had fallen out of fashion, relegated to attics and basements, and even destroyed. However, a few dedicated individuals began collecting these bindings as works of art, gradually identifying their unique design styles, designers, and histories. This presentation will focus on a few RBS alumnae who have made it their mission to preserve these remarkable bindings for posterity.About the Speaker:Rachael DiEleuterio has been Librarian and Archivist at the Delaware Art Museum since 2008, where she singlehandedly oversees the Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives. She is a Certified Archivist and has B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Delaware and an M.S.L.S. from Clarion University of Pennsylvania. She first became fascinated with decorative book bindings in 2011, when she attended Sue Allen’s class at Rare Book School and hasn’t stopped talking about them since.
James H. Marrow gave a public talk on “Iconographic Disjunction in the Ruskin Psalter/Hours: A Flemish Illuminated Manuscript of ca. 1470–80,” on 23 July 2025, as part of Rare Book School's 2025 Summer Lecture Series. You can watch the full recording of the lecture on YouTube at https://youtu.be/LxIPOQ6ehss?feature=shared.𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸:Illustrated by a cycle of nine historiated initials of scenes from the Old Testament, which function typologically as prefigurations of events from the life of Christ, and by ten full-page miniatures of events from Salvation History, the Ruskin Psalter/Hours appears at first glance to be a sophisticated example of Flemish manuscript illumination from the turn of the third to the fourth quarters of the fifteenth century. On closer examination, the cycles of illumination are not correctly synchronized. In this lecture, James H. Marrow will discuss the iconographic “slippage” or disjunction found in the cycles of illustration of the Ruskin Psalter/Hours and propose a novel explanation for the striking anomalies in what otherwise appears to be a refined and deluxe manuscript of the period. Marrow suggests that the example of the Ruskin Hours can be viewed against the backdrop of the growing production of relatively high-end illuminated manuscripts at this time, qualified in this case by the exigencies of an atypical commission.𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿:James H. Marrow is Professor Emeritus of Art History at Princeton University and Honorary Keeper of illuminated Manuscripts (former Acting Keeper) at The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge (UK). He has published widely on northern European art of the late Middle Ages, with special attention to questions of meaning in works of religious art, and on manuscript illumination in the Low Countries, Germany, and France.
This NEH-SHARP Living American History in Primary Documents Lecture by E. M. Rose was part of Rare Book School's 2025 Summer Lecture Series. You can watch the full recording of the lecture on YouTube at https://youtu.be/VaN2qqFnPto?feature=shared.𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸:What did American colonists need to know? What should they believe? The Virginia Company had clear ideas about such things as demonstrated by the significant sums spent on books for the use of the colonists. A recently unearthed list details 50 titles the Company purchased in December 1620 for shipment to America, most likely for a public library. E. M. Rose has been able to identify the author, title, edition, number of copies purchased, and cost per copy for most of the titles acquired for the benefit of the newest Americans. In this talk, Rose will review the assortment of religious texts for what they indicate about conventional Anglican orthodoxy in this period and will examine the agricultural and scientific texts intended for use in the colonies to get a sense of the technological interests and capabilities of the new Americans. Additionally, she will consider the books as a collection and library in contrast with other such collections and donations, discussing the medium of the printed book as an object for the light it throws on contemporary readers, book history, and the book trade. This lecture will further consider the role of the Virginia Company as an important publisher as well as a consumer of books and other printed ephemera.𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿:E. M. Rose is a scholar of medieval and early modern Europe, whose work has been hailed as “a model of thoroughgoing historical scholarship presented to a general audience and should be studied by scholars who wish to bring the humanities to the public square." Rose has taught at five universities in America and is currently Visiting Fellow at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge University. For the past three years, she was a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University. Her previous work in book history, “Books owned by a Renaissance Queen,” an essay on 80 books sent by James I to his daughter, appeared in 𝘋𝘦𝘳 𝘎𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘗𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘳 (2020). Rose’s articles have appeared in 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘏𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺, the 𝘏𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘵𝘰𝘯 𝘓𝘪𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘘𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘺, the 𝘝𝘪𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘢 𝘔𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘏𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺, 𝘚𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘶𝘤𝘦𝘳, the 𝘑𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘌𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘎𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘤 𝘗𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺, and 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘕𝘦𝘸 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘈𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯. Her most recent essay on America’s first chart maker will appear in 𝘔𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘏𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 this summer. Rose’s first book, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘶𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘞𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘮 𝘰𝘧 𝘕𝘰𝘳𝘸𝘪𝘤𝘩 (2015) was named one of the “Ten Best History Books of the Year” by the 𝘚𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴 of London and described by the 𝘞𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘑𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭 as “a landmark of historical research.” The 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘏𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘙𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸 called it “a significant achievement” and the 𝘈𝘑𝘚 𝘙𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸 described it as “a truly excellent book. It deserves to be read and studied by scholars in many if not all fields of medieval studies.”
Rare Book School's 2025 Kenneth Karmiole Endowed Lecture on the History of the Book Trades featured a talk by Mark McConnell on “Publishing in the Renaissance: Christophe Plantin’s Business Strategy." The event took place on 9 July 2025. You can watch the full recording of the lecture on YouTube at https://youtu.be/QFmRSz-laUE?feature=shared.About the Talk:Printing technology accelerated the forces of the Renaissance and the Reformation. But it also created a major new business problem: publishing risk. A publisher had to spend large sums of money to print a book before knowing how well it would sell. The publisher’s decision whether to accept this risk was a gateway through which all printed books had to pass. Mark McConnell has been investigating Christophe Plantin’s business records from the 1560s, still intact after 460 years. These records document in remarkable detail the activities of Europe’s largest printer at the time and make it possible to quantify the cost of individual books and the risk taken in publishing them. Applying modern business concepts to the data, McConnell will offer insights on key issues in publishing strategy: what types of books were printed, why books were produced in the forms we now see, how production costs shaped competition in the marketplace, and the steps that publishers took to control and reduce risk.About the Speaker:Mark McConnell comes to his historical research from his legal career, which he spent as a partner with the global law firm Hogan Lovells. McConnell specialized in international trade disputes, where he litigated questions like the competitive dynamics of industries and the efficiency of industrial processes. He applies the tools he developed in legal disputes to Christophe Plantin’s business records, examining Plantin’s operations from the perspective of modern business strategy. McConnell holds both a law degree and a master’s in business administration from Stanford University and did his undergraduate work in economics at Johns Hopkins University. He is now affiliated with Johns Hopkins again, where he is Associate Research Fellow at the Virginia Fox Stern Center for the History of the Renaissance Book.
Mindell Dubansky, "A Parallel History of Books and Blooks" by Rare Book School Lectures
Richard B. Sher, “New Light on the Early Publication History of Boswell's Life of Johnson," Karmiole Lecture, 10 July 2024 by Rare Book School Lectures
Ashley Cataldo, “Collecting Daily Life in Early American Manuscripts," NEH-SHARP Lecture, 31 July 2024 by Rare Book School Lectures
Li Wei Yang, “Yongle Dadian: An Emperors' Encyclopedia,” Malkin Lecture, 29 July 2024 by Rare Book School Lectures
Aaron Pratt, “Buying a Book in Early Modern England,” 22 July 2024 by Rare Book School Lectures
G. Scott Clemons, "De Motu Librorum: On the Movement of Books," Rendell Lecture, 8 July 2024 by Rare Book School Lectures
Deborah Parker, "A Librarian Like No Other: Belle da Costa Greene and Self-Invention," 12 June 2024 by Rare Book School Lectures
Stephen Karian, "Scholarly Editing and the Challenges of Attribution," 10 June 2024 by Rare Book School Lectures
LeRonn Brooks, "Archive of the People: The Johnson Publishing Company, 3 June 2024 by Rare Book School Lectures
Kailani Polzak, "Pacific Encounters in Print," The Kress Foundation Lecture, 31 July 2023 by Rare Book School Lectures
Craig Welsh, "The Typesetting & Designs of the Declaration of Independence Broadsides," 26 July 2023 by Rare Book School Lectures
Christy S. Coleman, "A Nexus of Learning—Museums and the Importance of Public History," 24 July 2023 by Rare Book School Lectures
Jeffrey Makala, "Lives (& Afterlives) of Stereotype Plates," Karmiole Lecture, 12 July 2023 by Rare Book School Lectures
Walter O. Evans, "Why Collect?" The 2023 Kenneth W. Rendell Lecture, 14 June 2023 by Rare Book School Lectures
Barbara E. Mundy, "Books in the Contact Zone," Malkin Lecture, 12 June 2023 by Rare Book School Lectures
Leah Price, "Reader=Inessential Worker: Book History After Lockdown," 7 June 2023 by Rare Book School Lectures
S. Max Edelson, "The Surveyor's Eye," NEH-SHARP Lecture, 5 June 2023 by Rare Book School Lectures
Mary Catherine Kinniburgh is the co-director of Granary Books, an independent publisher and archives/rare book dealer. As a scholar of postwar American poetry and an archives broker, her activities occur at the intersection of research and praxis, and her writing often focuses on the poetics of archival work. In particular, her research explores making sense of high volume in literary collections. In this talk, Kinniburgh discusses her ongoing series "Messy Archivist," which explores the interstitial qualities of working on archives through prose, poetry, and images. Published by her experimental imprint TKS Books, each "Messy Archivist" is a handmade chapbook that is often organized around a keyword, such as messy, or need. For the fourth volume and this talk, the premise is surface: what might be interpreted as an archival surface, and how does our attentiveness to the relationship between surface and depth inform our understanding of archives, especially at scale? Drawing on Sharon Marcus and Stephen Best’s concept of “surface reading” in literary texts, the physics of surfing, what puts the “relief” in relief printing, and Kinniburgh’s experiences working on specific archives at Granary Books, this talk will contextualize the concept of surface as a lens for the information overload that necessarily comes with archival work, and a critical approach for the toolkits of fellow scholars and archivists of twentieth century American poetry and beyond.
Rezek, Joseph - "Ideologies of the Codex in Hakluyt and Smith" - NEH-SHARP Lecture, 1 Aug 2022 by Rare Book School Lectures
Marcus, Hannah - "Characterizing the Elderly across Formats in Early Modern Italy" - 27 July 2022 by Rare Book School Lectures
McNamee, Megan - "Significance of a Concertina-Fold Almanac" - Kress Lecture - 25 July 2022 by Rare Book School Lectures
Roldán Vera, Eugenia - "Book Trade in the Anglo-Iberian Atlantic" - Karmiole Lecture - 13 July 22 by Rare Book School Lectures
White, Eric - "A History of the Gutenberg Bible (continued)" - Malkin Lecture, 11 July 2022 by Rare Book School Lectures
Wisecup, Kelly - "Making and Reading Indigenous Archives" NEH-GBHI - 15 June 2022 by Rare Book School Lectures
Rogers, Beverly - "Victorian Connections: Books and Stories" Rendell Lecture - 13 June 2022 by Rare Book School Lectures
Wong, Dorothy - “Making Merit: East Asian Buddhist Material Culture” NEH-GBHI Lecture - 6 June 2022 by Rare Book School Lectures
“Lost Archives and Paper Reuse in the Medieval Islamic World”
Marina Rustow, Khedouri A. Zilkha Professor of Jewish Civilization in the Near East, and Director of the Geniza Lab, Princeton University
A Rare Book School lecture, 20 July 2021
“He Lau Nā Moʻolelo: The Challenge and Promise of Hawaiian Language Textual Archives” Noelani Arista, Director, Indigenous Studies Program, and Associate Professor, Department of History and Classical Studies, McGill University A Rare Book School lecture29 June 2021
"Subscription Publishing in America over Three Centuries" by Michael Winship - Rare Book School’s inaugural Kenneth Karmiole Endowed Lecture on the History of the Book Trades, presented on Tuesday, 13 July 2021
Goldsby and McGill - "What is 'Black' about Black Bibliography?" - 3 August 2021 by Rare Book School Lectures
Yale, Elizabeth - "Paper-Keeping: Women, Family, Knowledge Work..." - 27 July 2021 by Rare Book School Lectures
Nishikawa, Kinohi – "From Poet to Publisher: Reading Gwendolyn Brooks by Design" - 16 July 2020 by Rare Book School Lectures
Ramachandran, Ayesha – "An Alternative History of the Atlas" - 2 July 2020 by Rare Book School Lectures
Trettien, Whitney - "A Hornbook for Digital Book History" - 18 June 2020 by Rare Book School Lectures
Full title: "Superheroes and Shocking Affairs, or, Adventures in Cataloging Popular Literature"
RBS-Mellon lecture by Pamela Klassen (Professor in the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto), given at Franklin & Marshall College on 25 October 2017.
See https://rarebookschool.org/all-programs/events/protest-on-the-page/ for more information on this event.
RBS-Mellon lecture by Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir (Research Associate Professor, Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, University of Iceland), given at the University of Maine on 30 March 2017.
See https://rarebookschool.org/all-programs/events/njals-saga/ for more information about this event.
This recording is of conference Session 2:
Towards a Critical Bibliography of the Handwritten Chair: Dale Billingsley, University of Louisville
“Messy Writings: Unraveling Korean Manuscript Books” Hwisang Cho, Emory University
“Citational and Citationless: Reading the Development of Indian Yunani Medicine in the Margins of Arabic and Persian Manuscripts” Deborah Schlein, Princeton University
“Blanks, Paperwork, Racialization” John Garcia, California State University – Northridge
“Transcription of Early Modern Handwriting and the Slow Reading Movement: Notes from the Field” Heather Wolfe, Folger Shakespeare Library
See https://rarebookschool.org/all-programs/events/the-futures-of-handwriting-sofcb/ for more information about this event.
Featuring "The Message & the Messengers: Artistic Illustrations of the Qur’an and the Prophets in Islamic Manuscripts"
Betts Auditorium, Architecture Building, Princeton University
Dr. Tehseen Thaver, Assistant Professor of Religion, Princeton University
Dr. Christiane Gruber, Professor and Associate Chair, History of Art, University of Michigan
See https://rarebookschool.org/all-programs/events/muslims-manuscripts-sofcb/ for more information about this event.
Lecture 510 (9 July 2008)
Full title: "More Baby Books than You Can Shake a Rattle At: Building a New Collection for Research in the History of Infant Development"
Lecture 509 (7 July 2008)
Full title: "Alice’s Top Ten List: Rare Maps: Keeping Them Under Control, Letting Them Go Public"
Lecture 506 (9 June 2008)
Full title: "John Feely Meets Samuel Dodd: The Use of Internet Databases in Studying the History of the American Book Trades"
Lecture 502 (23 July 2007)
Full title: "Scissors, Prints and Paste: Frederick and Amelia Lock Make a Scrapbook at Norbury Park in 1791"
Lecture 501 (18 July 2007)
Full title: "Brave New World or Mere Anarchy? Reflections on the Revolution in National Research Librarianship"
Lecture 497 (4 June 2007)
Full title: "The Pattern Book of Samuel Dodd, 19th-Century New Jersey Engraver of Binding Stamps: A Remarkable Discovery"
Lecture 493 (24 July 2006)
Full title: "‘Take Things Always by Their Smooth Handle,’ and Other Advices for a New Director"
Lecture 489 (5 June 2006)
Full title: "Pitching Theoretical Tents: A Lecture Celebrating RBS’s Acquisition of Its 100th Copy of John Greenleaf Whittier’s 'Tent on the Beach' (1867)"
Lecture 484 (18 July 2005)
Full title: "Quixotic Typography: Composing Maps and Illustrations Using Special Letterpress Fonts"
Lecture 474 (11 March 2004)
Full title: "Typographical Monstrosities: Public Opinion and New Letterforms in Late Georgian London"
Lecture 464 (5 August 2002)
Full title: "MA and LW and Us: The Growth of the Rare Book School Pedagogical Collections, 1972–2002"
Lecture 458 (27 May 2002)
Full title: "‘Farewell! Thou art too dear for my possessing’: Shakespeare’s First Folio and the Rare Book Marketplace"
Lecture 456 (7 January 2002)
Full title: "Westward the Course of Books Takes Its Way: English Books and American Collectors in the Later 19th and Earlier 20th Centuries"
Lecture 451 (16 July 2001)
Full title: "From Bibliography to Book History: the Massey College Press and Other Special Collections of the Massey College Library"
Lecture 448 (12 March 2001)
This talk was repeated with slight variation as lecture 448.
Lecture 446 (8 January 2001)
Full title: "Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s 'The Ox-Bow Incident': A Case Study in the Complexities of Book History"
Lecture 439 (7 May 2000)
Similar versions of this talk were given as lectures 435 and 436.
Lecture 433 (5 August 1999)
Similar versions of this talk were given as lectures 424, 427, and 430
Lecture 419 (6 August 1998)
Similar versions of this talk were given as lectures 410, 413, and 416.
Lecture 402 (7 August 1997)
Similar versions of this talk were given as lectures 393, 396, and 399.
Lecture 389 (8 August 1996)
Similar versions of this talk were given as lectures 380, 383, and 386.
Lecture 382 (24 July 1996)
Full title: "Pirates, Shipwrecks, and Comic Almanacs: Charles Ellms Packages Books in 19th-Century America"
Lecture 377 (10 August 1995)
Similar versions of this talk were given as lectures 365, 368, 371, and 374.
Lecture 375 (7 August 1995)
Full title: "How a Novice Book Collector Decided to Catalog His Lord Byron Collection and Went Mad in the Process"
Note: the beginning of this lecture is omitted.
Lecture 364 (11 July 1995)
Full title: "Lucile‘s Adventures in America, 1860–1910: Orchids, Gold Leaf, and Padded Leather"
Lecture 359 (4 August 1994)
Similar versions of this talk were given as lectures 350, 353, 356, and 362.
Lecture 339 (14 July 1993)
Full title: "Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Visual and Verbal Encounters"
Lecture 335 (6 July 1993)
Full title: "Scholarly Editing in Virtual Space, With Special Reference to the Work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti"
Lecture 328 (20 April 1992)
Full title: "‘Some Strange Ways of Making a Living’: Augustus Toedteberg of Brooklyn and the Art of Extra-Illustration"
Lecture 310 (25 February 1991)
Full title: "From Prison to LC: Meditations and Reflections on the Administration of Diverse and Special Collections"
Lecture 341 (20 July 1993)
Full title: "From the Margins to the Center: The Coming ‘Mainstreaming’ of Rare Books and Special Collections"
Lecture 294 (16 April 1990)
Full title: "The Role of the History of the Book in the Humanities: The History of the Book … and the Study of … Change"
Lecture 284 (25 September 1989)
This is only a partial recording, but the topic is of such interest we thought it best to post it as is.
Lecture 270 (30 January 1989)
Full title: "Time Sanctified: The Book of Hours; or How an Exhibition of Illuminated MSS Nearly Killed Its Curator"
Lecture 268 (24 October 1988)
Note: The audio on this recording is mono only, on the left side.
Lecture 267 (17 October 1988)
Note: The audio on this recording is mono only, on the left side.
Lecture 265 (30 June 1988)
Note: The audio on this recording is mono only, on the left side.
Lecture 263 (22 June 1988)
Note: The audio on this recording is mono only, on the left side. The lecture ends abruptly, but as the recording is nearly complete, we offer it as at least a partial recording.
Lecture 261 (14 June 1988)
Note: The audio on this recording is mono only, on the left side.
Lecture 260 (13 June 1988)
Note: The audio on this recording is mono only, on the left side.
Lecture 255 (12 April 1988)
Note: The audio on this recording is mono only, on the left side.
Lecture 253 (28 March 1988)
Note: The audio on this recording is mono only, on the left side.
Lecture 250 (23 November 1987)
Note: The audio on this recording is mono only, on the left side.
Lecture 249 (26 October 1987)
Note: The audio on this recording is mono only, on the left side.
Lecture 248 (19 October 1987)
Note: The audio on this recording is mono only, on the left side.
Lecture 247 (12 October 1987)
Note: The audio on this recording is mono only, on the left side.
Lecture 246 (5 October 1987)
Note: The audio on this recording is mono only, on the left side.
Lecture 242 (23 July 1987)
Note: The audio on this recording is mono only, on the left side.
Lecture 241 (21 July 1987)
Note: The audio on this recording is mono only, on the left side.
Lecture 637 (29 July 2019)
Full title: "Cheap and Bad Books: A Social History of Printing and Publishing in Colonial India"
An NEH-GBHI Lecture
Lecture 636 (22 July 2019)
Full title: "Revolutionary Spirits: Typescript Books, DIY Zines, and Other Forms of Unsanctioned Publishing in Maoist and Post-Mao China"
An NEH-GBHI Lecture
Lecture 635 (13 July 2019)
Delivered after the July 2019 meeting of the RBS Board of Directors.
Lecture 633 (8 July 2019)
Apologies for the quiet audio on this lecture; you may need to turn up the volume higher than usual.
Lecture 631 (10 June 2019)
Full title: "Despite Hostile Terrain: Witness to Racism in the Artists’ Books of Primrose Press"
Lecture 628. Delivered at the RBS-UVA Fellowship Luncheon, 10 May 2019. Rare Book School founding director Terry Belanger introduces Neal Curtis as the winner of the 2019 Betsy and Stuart Houston Prize.
Welcoming remarks by Michael F. Suarez, S.J. (Executive Director, Rare Book School) & John Unsworth (University Librarian and Dean of Libraries, University of Virginia)
Session 1: Access — 9:15–10:45 a.m.
Panelists:
“Spatial Narratives of the Historic Tibetan Capital of Lhasa with 3D GIS” – Guoping Huang (Assistant Professor, Department of Urban and Environmental Planning, University of Virginia School of Architecture); Will Rourk (Information Visualization Specialist, Scholars’ Lab, University of Virginia); & Kurtis R. Schaeffer (Frances Myers Ball Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies, University of Virginia)
“The Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal: A Model for Ethical Access to Cultural Heritage” – Trevor James Bond (Co-Director, Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation and Associate Dean for Digital Initiatives and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries)
“Introducing the Digital Library of the Middle East” – Peter Herdrich (Co-Founder, The Antiquities Coalition and CEO, Cultural Capital Group, LLC); Houra Kadivar (Assistant to the Middle East Studies Librarian, UNC Chapel Hill Libraries); & Bethany Nowviskie (Executive Director, Digital Library Federation)
Moderator: Donna Sy (Mellon Society Administrative Director, Rare Book School)
Session 2: Storytelling & Memory — 11:15 a.m.–12:45 p.m.
Panelists:
“Wakanda Forever: Three Opportunities for Legacy Making” – Aaisha Haykal (Manager of Archival Services, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston)
“Preservation: The HistoryMakers Story” – Julieanna Richardson (Founder & Executive Director, The HistoryMakers)
“Moving Memorials” – María Verónica San Martín (Artist, Whitney Museum Independent Study Program & Booklyn, Inc.) Moderator
Holly Robertson (Exhibitions Coordinator and Registrar, University of Virginia Library)
[Please note that due to travel difficulties, Aaisha Haykal spoke during this session and Samip Mallick spoke during Session 3]
Session 3: Community Archives & Outreach — 1:45–3:15 p.m.
Panelists:
“The Missing Stories: How Stories Become Lost and How They Can Be Recovered” – Samip Mallick (Executive Director, South Asian American Digital Archive)
“Archiving Counter-Culture: Problems and Solutions” – Johan Kugelberg (Owner and Curator, Boo-Hooray gallery)
“Charlottesville: Our Streets” – Brian Wimer (Director, Amoeba Films)
Moderator: Krystal Appiah (Instruction Librarian, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia)
[Please note that due to travel difficulties, Samip Mallick spoke in this session and Aaisha Haykal spoke during Session 2]
Session 4: Roundtable Discussion: Cultural Heritage, Social Justice, and Individual Responsibility — 3:45–5:15 p.m.
Panelists:
Brenda Gunn (Associate University Librarian for Special Collections and Preservation, University of Virginia)
Aaisha Haykal (Manager of Archival Services, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston)
Johan Kugelberg (Owner and Curator, Boo-Hooray gallery)
Samip Mallick (Executive Director, South Asian American Digital Archive)
Bethany Nowviskie (Executive Director, Digital Library Federation)
Julieanna Richardson (Founder & Executive Director, The HistoryMakers)
Moderators: Danielle Culpepper (Director of Budget & Finance, Rare Book School); Barbara Heritage (Associate Director & Curator of Collections, Rare Book School)
Lecture 626 (30 July 2018). The 2018 Sol. M. and Mary Ann O’Brian Malkin Lecture
Full title: "New Research into John Baskerville’s Virgil (1757): Its Wove Paper and Typographical Variants"
Lecture 625 (25 July 2018)
Full title: "Presenting the Yoshiwara in Monochrome and Full Color: The Annual Events of the ‘Azure Towers,’ Illustrated"
This roundtable discussion included the following featured speakers:
Cynthia Marsh, Professor of Art, Founder of the Goldsmith Press & Rare Type Collection, Austin Peay State University (Clarksville, TN); Rebecca Michaels, Associate Professor of Photography, Tyler School of Art (Philadelphia, PA); Patty Smith, artist, printmaker, book artist, and professor of Fine Arts, Printmaking at The University of the Arts (Philadelphia, PA).
Moderated by Tony White, the Florence and Herbert Irving Associate Chief Librarian at the Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, will serve as moderator.
Co-presented with the Center for Book Arts; the New York City Chapter of the American Printing History Association (APHA); Small Editions Artist's Books; and Theta Chapter, Beta Phi Mu Honor Society, Pratt Institute School of Information.
Lecture 620 (4 June 2018)
Full title: "Reconstitute the World: Machine-reading Archives of Mass Extinction"
Text available at http://nowviskie.org/2018/reconstitute-the-world/
Lecture 234 (27 April 1987)
Full title: "This Dish is Cheap But Delicious: Academic Publishing in the Late 20th Century"
Note: This recording is not in stereo, so be sure you have both your headphones in.
Lecture 229 (23 March 1987). Full title "Printing and Typefounding in the Late 17th-Century 'Description of Trades' of the French Academy of Science"
Note: This recording is not in stereo, so be sure you have both your headphones in.
Lecture 228 (9 February 1987)
Note: This recording is not in stereo, so be sure you have both your headphones in.
Lecture 225 (1 December 1986)
Note: This recording is not in stereo, so be sure you have both your headphones in. It also ends abruptly in the 46th minute, but the remainder is so interesting we thought it might be of interest, its incompleteness notwithstanding.
Lecture 224 (24 November 1986)
Note: This recording is not in stereo, so be sure you have both your headphones in.
Lecture 223 (10 November 1986)
Note: This recording is not in stereo, so be sure you have both your headphones in.
Lecture 220 (6 October 1986)
Note: This recording is not in stereo, so be sure you have both your headphones in.
Lecture 214 (15 July 1986)
Full title: "Wheel of Fortune; or, Strategic Planning in a Small Research Library and a Popular TV Game Show Compared"
Lecture 201 (19 November 1985)
Note: The audio on this one is a little wobbly in places, and not in stereo for a stretch in the middle.
Lecture 200 (18 November 1985). Full title: "The Development of Conservation and Bookbinding at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center"
Note: The audio for the Q&A portion is very quiet.
Short Presentations 6: The Book and Its Time: Developing a ‘Period Eye’
Session Organizer: Marie-Stéphanie Delamaire (Winterthur Museum) Moderator: Catharine Dann Roeber (Assistant Professor of Decorative Arts and Material Culture at the Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library)
Gabriella Angeloni (University of South Carolina) & Molly Bruce Patterson (Newport Historical Society) “William Ellery as Reader at the Newport Historical Society”
David Brewer (Ohio State University) “Objects under Pressure”
Brad Eden (Valparaiso University) “The Library of Michael H. R. Tolkien: A Snapshot of Twentieth-Century British Politics and Culture”
Alea Henle (Western New Mexico University) “Books and their Histories: Sources Survival in Historical Scholarship”
Eric Holzenberg (The Grolier Club of New York) “The Aesthetic Movement in Print & Beyond”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Short Presentations 5: Dynamics of Digital Collections
Session Organizer: Paul Fyfe (North Carolina State University) & Zachary Hines (The University of Texas at Austin) Moderator: Alex Gil (Digital Scholarship Coordinator, Humanities and History Division, Columbia University Libraries)
Lindsay DiCuirci (University of Maryland) & Molly Hardy (American Antiquarian Society) “Serials Cataloging and Alternative Access in the Classroom, or the Making of Mill Girls in Nineteenth-Century Print”
Fenella France (Library of Congress) “The Digital Cultural Object: New Digital Layers for Document and Object Archaeology”
Margaret Hagerty Gamm (University of Iowa) “The Global Manuscript and the Digital Boutique”
Jessica Savage (Princeton University) “Dynamics of a Digital Art History Collection: Index of Christian Art 2.0”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Short Presentations 4: Teaching Global Book History
Session Organizers: Devin Fitzgerald (Harvard University) & Ben Nourse (University of Denver) Moderator: Joseph Howley (Associate Professor of Classics, Columbia University)
Devin Fitzgerald (Harvard University) “Stone, Wood, Copper, Lead: The Multimedial Adventures of the Xi’an Nestorian Stele in the 17th-Century World”
Florence C. Hsia & Robin Rider (University of Wisconsin, Madison) “Traduttore, Traditore: What’s in a Translation?”
Chris Hunter (California Institute of Technology) “The American Instructor: Teaching Minds and Hands in Colonial America”
Bryan C. Keene (J. Paul Getty Museum and Courtauld Institute of Art) “Manuscripts and the Global Middle Ages”
Holly Shaffer (Brown University) “Edward Moor’s The Hindu Pantheon (1810)”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Short Presentations 3: Hands-on Demonstration – Teaching with Stuff: Building Bibliographical Collections at Rare Book School with Limited (or no) Financial Resources; or, Necessity Is the Mother of Invention
Session Presenter: Terry Belanger (Founding Director, Rare Book School, University of Virginia), with Barbara Heritage (Rare Book School)
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Short Presentations 2: Innovative Pedagogy with Material Objects
Session Organizer: Elizabeth Yale (University of Iowa) Moderator: Michael F. Suarez, S.J. (Director, Rare Book School; Professor of English, University Professor, Hon. Curator of Special Collections, University of Virginia)
Rhae Lynn Barnes (University of Southern California; Princeton University) & Stephanie Elizabeth Beck Cohen (Indiana University) “Stitched Histories of Government & Grief: Teaching Quilts as Texts in the Black Transatlantic”
Kyle Dugdale (Yale School of Architecture) “Bibliographical Architectures”
Adam Hooks (University of Iowa) “How Does It Work and Why Is It Here? Teaching Text as Technology”
Rebecca Wingfield (Stanford University) “Hearing the Voices of the Past: Teaching with Audio Recordings of Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Short Presentations 1: Tools for Data Analysis & Visualization
Session Organizer: Ryan Cordell (Northeastern University) Moderator: Meredith L. McGill (Associate Professor of English, Rutgers University)
Kathryn Desplanque (Duke University) “Accountable Note-Taking: Qualitative Data Analysis Software as an Augmented Personal Research Tool”
Alessandra Panzanelli Fratoni (University of Oxford; The British Library) & Matilde Malaspina (University of Oxford, Lincoln College) “Visual Recognition, Image-matching and Digital Annotation: Early Printed Book Illustrations within the 15cBOOKTRADE Project”
Elyse Graham (The State University of New York, Stony Brook University) “Database Thinking and Deep Description: Designing a Digital Archive of the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS)”
Rebecca Hankins (Texas A&M University) “A Catalyst for Social Activism: The Digital Black Bibliographic Project at Texas A&M University”
Dot Porter (University of Pennsylvania) “VisColl: Visualizing the Physical Structure of Medieval Manuscripts”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Roundtable 6: Ethics & Responsibility in the Bibliosphere
Session Organizer: Claire Eager (University of Virginia) Moderator: Katherine Reagan (Assistant Director for Collections & Ernest L. Stern Curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts, Cornell University)
Jeremy Dibbell (Rare Book School) “Announcing Major Acquisitions: A Responsibility”
Eliza Gilligan (University of Virginia) “Through the Fold: Choices in Book Conservation and the Impact on the Social History of the Book”
Nina Musinsky (Musinsky Rare Books) “Artifacts or Time Machines? Examples from the Field”
Elizabeth Ott (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) “Ethical Collecting in Special Collections Librarianship”
Todd Pattison (Northeast Document Conservation Center) “A Profitable Examination: The Binding of Six Months in a Convent”
Setsuko Yokoyama (University of Maryland, College Park) “Negotiating Open Access for All Interested Parties”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Roundtable 5: Materiality as a Sustainable Humanistic Discourse
Session Organizers: Dahlia Porter (University of Glasgow) & Elizabeth Yale (University of Iowa) Moderator: Heather Wolfe (Curator of Manuscripts, Folger Shakespeare Library)
Erika Mary Boeckeler (Northeastern University) “The Linguistic Biases of Descriptive Bibliography”
Raina Joines (University of North Texas) “The Scholar’s Art: Making & Mining Material Artifacts”
Robert Riter (University of Alabama) “Engaging and Representing Scientific Data through Book Art”
Todd Victor Samuelson (University of Utah) “Lexical Substrate: The Materiality of Language in the History of the Book”
Leslie Smith (Winston-Salem, NC) “From Wonder to New Artwork”
Simran Thadani (San Francisco, CA) “Rare Books Beyond the Ivory Tower”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Roundtable 4: Digitization, Representation & Access
Session Organizers: Paul Fyfe (North Carolina State University) & Sonia Hazard (Franklin & Marshall College) Moderator: Rebecca Hankins (Associate Professor and Archivist/Librarian of Africana Studies and Women’s & Gender Studies, Texas A&M University)
Dan Blim (Denison University) “The Complete Package: Reissuing Albums, Reshaping Histories”
Eleanor Jane Reeds (University of Connecticut) “Digitizing the Corpus: Responsible Representations of Female Bodies in Literary Archives”
Charles R. Welsko (West Virginia University) “Raising the Buried Voices: Nineteenth-Century African-Americans and Digital Archives”
Sarah Werner (Rockville, MD) “Collaborating for an Accessible Past”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Roundtable 3: Authorship
Session Organizers: András Kiséry (The City College of New York) & Caroline Wigginton (University of Mississippi) Moderator: Matt Cohen (Associate Professor of English, University of Nebraska-Lincoln)
Katy Chiles (University of Tennessee) “Alternative Black Authorship”
Molly Des Jardin (University of Pennsylvania) “Rethinking the Oeuvre: Modern Japanese Periodicals as Corporate Authors”
Sonja Drimmer (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) “Undeciding the Author in the Illuminated Manuscript of Middle English Verse”
Zachary Lesser (University of Pennsylvania) “Shakespeare as Author and Apocrypha”
Michelle Levy (Simon Fraser University) & Kandice Sharren (Simon Fraser University) “Beyond Authorship: Professional Networks and the Women’s Print History Project”
Chad Wellmon (University of Virginia) “Print and the Invention of Philosophy Around 1800”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Roundtable 2: Performance, Textuality & Orality
Session Organizer: Glenda Goodman (University of Pennsylvania) Moderator: Kate van Orden (Dwight P. Robinson Jr. Professor of Music, Harvard University)
Bethany Cencer (Crane School of Music, State University of New York at Potsdam) “Imagining Aurality in Smart’s Vocal Pocket Companion”
Andrew Ferguson (University of Virginia) “Catching Them All: Videogame Performance and the Bibliography of Play”
Leslie Gay, Jr. (University of Tennessee) “Shadows of Black and White: Materialities and Medialities in May Irwin’s ‘Frog Song’”
Laura Helton (Pennsylvania State University) “The Bibliographical Afterlives of ‘Unwritten Histories’”
Jesse Karlsberg (Emory University) “Surfacing Race, Place, and Modernity in the Performance of Shape-note Musical Texts through an Ethnobibliographical Approach”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Pop-Up Session 1: Critical Bibliography and Social Justice (Roundtable)
Please note: due to a technical difficulty (the recorder got unplugged, we only have audio of the question and answer session for this panel)
Organizer & Moderator: Caroline Wigginton (University of Mississippi)
Melissa Adler (Western University) Rhae Lynn Barnes (University of Southern California; Princeton University) Alex Galarza (Haverford College) Chris Hunter (California Institute of Technology) Dorothy Kim (Vassar College) Clare Mullaney (University of Pennsylvania) Priyasha Mukhopadhyay (Harvard University)
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Paper Session 12: Reappraising the Redundant: The Value of Copies in the Study of Textual Artifacts
Session Organizer: Katherine Mintie (DePauw University) Moderator: David Whitesell (Curator, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia)
Kristin Jensen (University of Virginia) “Discovering Unique Specimens in Print Collections: Lessons from Book Traces @ UVA”
Jim Kuhn (Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin) “Portraits and Principles in Multiples”
Adrienne Lundgren (Library of Congress) “Rewards of Redundancy: Recognizing the Research Value of Nineteenth-Century Photograph Manuals”
Bryan Sinche (University of Hartford) “Redundancy is the Point: Nineteenth Century African American Literature in Motion”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Paper Session 11: Comparative Histories of the Book
Session Organizers: Megan McNamee (Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts) & Caroline Wigginton (University of Mississippi) Moderator: Will Noel (Director of the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts and Director of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, University of Pennsylvania)
Melissa Adler (Western University – London) “A Book is Being Cataloged”
Paul Dilley (University of Iowa) “Cultural and Textual Exchanges: The Manuscript Across Pre-Modern Eurasia”
Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa (Occidental College) “Decentering Himalayan Buddhist Book History: The Influence of Location and Peripherality in the Creation of Innovations in Book Technology”
Birgit Brander Rasmussen (Binghamton University) “From History of the Book to History of the Awikighan: A Native American Studies Approach to Comparative Book History”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Paper Session 10: Reading the Whole Book: Object Interpretation
Session Organizers: Lauren Jennings (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) & Elizaveta Strakhov (Marquette University) Moderator: Stephen Nichols (Professor Emeritus and Research Professor; James M. Beall Professor Emeritus of French and Humanities, Johns Hopkins University)
Ellen Handy (The City College of New York, CUNY) “The Art of Ethnography in Photogravure: Reading Julia Peterkin and Doris Ullmann’s Roll, Jordan, Roll in Material Terms”
Sarah Peters Kernan (Independent scholar) “Reading the Whole Book: Cookbooks in Late Medieval English Professional Manuscripts”
Douglas Mark Klahr (University of Texas at Arlington) “Ambiguous Containers of Propaganda: Paradoxes of Nazi Stereoscopic Photo Books”
Tara Lyons (Illinois State University) “Reading the Whole Play Collection: Seneca Beyond the Commonplace”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Paper Session 9: Manuscript in the Age of Print
Session Organizers: Rachael King (University of California, Santa Barbara) & Marissa Nicosia (Penn State University, Abington College) Moderator: Margaret J.M. Ezell (Distinguished Professor of English and John and Sara Lindsey Chair of Liberal Arts, Texas A&M University)
Mimi Ensley (University of Notre Dame) “Manuscript, Romance, and the Visual Language of Print”
Emily Friedman (Auburn University) “Manuscripts and Metadata: Taxonomizing Manuscript Fiction in the Age of Print”
Samyak Ghosh (Columbia University) “The Past in the Scriptorium: Manuscripts, Print, and Literacy in Colonial Northeast India”
Alex Hidalgo (Texas Christian University) “Bicephalous Between the Pages”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Paper Session 8: Books as Agents of Contact
Session Organizers: Hansun Hsiung (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science), András Kiséry (The City College of New York), Yael Rice (Amherst College) Moderator: Isabel Hofmeyr (Professor of African Literature, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; Global Distinguished Professor of English, New York University)
John R. Blakinger (University of Southern California) “The Book as Agent of Interstellar Contact: The Voyager Record/The EchoStar XVI Artifact”
David Mervart (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain) “A Kyūshū Warlord’s Favorite French Anthology: The Many Lives of a Text”
Priyasha Mukhopadhyay (Harvard University) “Plagiarism as Cultural Contact: The Case of the Theosophical Society”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Paper Session 7: The Social Life of Books: Uses of Text & Image Beyond Reading & Viewing
Session Organizers: Aaron M. Hyman (Johns Hopkins University), Hannah Marcus (Harvard University), Marissa Nicosia (Penn State University, Abington College) Moderator: Leah Price (Francis Lee Higginson Professor of English Literature, Harvard University)
Melissa Reynolds (Rutgers University) “Consuming the Word: Late Medieval Medical Charms and the Curative Power of Writing”
Kathryn Rudy (University of St. Andrews) “Touching Skin: Why Medieval Readers Rubbed and Kissed their Manuscripts”
Fan Wang (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) “The Uses, Abuses, and Misuses of Books in Early Modern China”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Paper Session 6: Materiality of Digital Objects
Session Organizer: Ryan Cordell (Northeastern University) Moderator: Matthew G. Kirschenbaum (Professor, Department of English, University of Maryland)
Meaghan Brown (Folger Shakespeare Library) & Jessica Otis (Carnegie Mellon University Library) “Name That Book: Identifying Digital Objects During Research and Discovery”
Alan Galey (University of Toronto) “Bibliography for a Used Future: What Bibliographical Methods Can Teach Us About Digital Artifacts (and Vice Versa)”
Rieke Jordan (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) “The Analog/Digital File”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Paper Session 5: Degradation, Loss, Recovery & Fragmentation
Session Organizer: Jane Raisch (University of York) Moderator: Arthur Bahr (Associate Professor of Literature, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Niv Allon (Metropolitan Museum of Art) “Gem wesh (found missing): Representing Ancient Fragmentary Texts and Their Lacunae”
Kristopher Driggers (University of Chicago) “Manuscript Alteration and Stylistic Evolution: Why Codex Durán Kept its Changes Visible”
Megan Heffernan (DePaul University) “‘Filthy, Tattered, and Torn’: Disbound Manuscripts and the History of Waste”
Clare Mullaney (University of Pennsylvania) “Dickinson’s Fragments: Limitation, Constraint, and an Early History of Print Disability”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Paper Session 4: Transmission & Transfer of Images
Session Organizer: Aaron M. Hyman (Johns Hopkins University) Moderator: Kathryn Rudy (Director of Research, School of Art History, University of St. Andrews)
David A. Brewer (Ohio State University) “Copies, Transfers, and Excerpts; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Derivative”
Elizabeth Bacon Eager (Southern Methodist University) “John Jenkins’s Ingenious Mechanics: The Visual and Physical Construction of Authorship in Early America”
Roger Gaskell (Roger Gaskell Rare Books) “Newton and Cotes; London and Cambridge”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Paper Session 3: Questions of Scale, Production & Labor
Session Organizer: Juliet Sperling (University of Pennsylvania) Moderator: Suzanne Karr Schmidt (George Amos Poole III Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, The Newberry)
Megan Cook (Colby College) “Craven Ord’s Brass Rubbings: Size, Scope, and Scale in Antiquarian Practice”
Will Hansen (The Newberry) “Extra-Illustrated Editions: The Case of Irving’s Life of George Washington, 1889”
Lauren Williams (University of Toronto) “Uncovering the Saint Cuthbert Gospel Binding”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Paper Session 2: Textual Instruments
Session Organizer: Nick Wilding (Georgia State University) Moderator: Ann Blair (Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor of History and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Harvard University)
Ivana Horacek (University of Minnesota) “Instrumental Images and Gifts of Knowledge: Stars, Books, and Instruments”
Jennifer Nelson (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) “Basilischco, Elifanntto, Tiruno: The Holzschuher War Machines Revisited”
Suzanne Karr Schmidt (The Newberry) “Making Time and Space: Collecting Early Modern Printed Instruments”
E.R.Truitt (Bryn Mawr College) “The Necessity of Invention: Roger Bacon’s Speculative Technology”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Paper Session 1: Graphic Representation: Illustration & Diagrams
Session Organizer: Claire Eager (University of Virginia) Moderator: Michael Sappol (Independent scholar, Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study)
Holly Borham (Princeton University) “Itinerant Images: Crossing Boundaries of Confession, Geography, and Media in Early Modern Germany”
Michael Patrick Kuczynski (Tulane University) “Imaging Monasticism: The St. Gall Plan as a Meditative Object”
Meekyung MacMurdie (University of Chicago) “Proven Recipes: Text, Image, and Diagram in Arabic Medical Manuscripts”
Fabienne Moore (University of Oregon) “Gustave Doré’s Histoire de la Sainte Russie (1854): The Invention of Graphic Rhetoric or the Artist At War”
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Plenary Session 3: “Bibliography Among the Disciplines” Community Plenary
Session Organizers: András Kiséry (The City College of New York) and Marissa Nicosia (Penn State University, Abington College)
Note that this session also includes closing remarks to the conference by Rare Book School Executive Director Michael F. Suarez, S.J., by conference co-chairs Barbara Heritage and Donna Sy, and by Mellon Society of Fellows President Stephanie Ann Frampton.
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Plenary Session 2: The Future of the Past: Cultural Heritage in the Digital Age
Nancy Y. McGovern (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) “Making Digital Practice Work for Our Collections”
W. Brent Seales (University of Kentucky) “Emergent Practices for Non-Invasive Analysis of Artifacts”
Session Organizer: Stephanie Ann Frampton (MIT)
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Plenary Session 1: "Historicizing Critical Bibliography"
Anthony Grafton (Princeton University): “Bio-Bibliography in Early Modern Europe: Towards a History of Practice”
François Deroche (Chair in the History of the Qur’an, Text and Transmission, Collège de France): “From One Giant to Another: Bio-Bibliographical Practice in the Islamic World (10th–17th Centuries)”
Session Organizers: Vera Keller (University of Oregon), Yael Rice (Amherst College)
Note that this session also includes general welcoming remarks to the conference by Rare Book School Executive Director Michael F. Suarez, S.J. and by conference co-chairs Barbara Heritage and Donna Sy.
See the conference website at http://rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017/ for more information about the conference.
Lecture 619 (1 November 2017), celebrating the 25th anniversary of Rare Book School's arrival at the University of Virginia
Lecture 616 (24 July 2017)
Speaker: Meredith L. McGill, Associate Professor of English, Rutgers University
Lecture 612 (12 June 2017). Beinecke Library, Yale University
Speaker: Kathryn James, Curator of Early Modern Books and Manuscripts & the Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University
Lecture 611 (12 June 2017). Watch the accompanying video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bggttPftmVs
Lecture 610 (5 June 2017). Full title "Hunting for Textual Bodies: Rethinking the Relationship between the Poetic Voice and Manuscript Matter"
Lecture 609. Delivered at the RBS-UVA Fellowship Luncheon, 10 May 2017. Barbara Heritage introduces Rare Book School founding director Terry Belanger, who introduces Samantha Wallace as the winner of the 2017 Betsy and Stuart Houston Prize.
Why are modern day readers still responsive to "Jane Eyre," and how do their readings influence the life of the text? UVA's Linden Kent Memorial Professor Karen Chase (Brontë scholar and author of "Eros & Psyche") leads a discussion with author Patricia Park ("Re Jane") and RBS curator Barbara Heritage (“Shaping Eyre”) about the enduring influence of Charlotte Brontë’s nineteenth-century novel, "Jane Eyre."
This program, held on 23 March 2017, is part of the 2017 Virginia Festival of the Book, and is sponsored by Rare Book School and the UVA Libraries.
Lecture 601 (11 July 2016). Full title: "Print Cultures and Protest in (Southern) Africa: Bibliography, Anthropology, Ideology, and Aesthetics"
Lecture 600 (15 June 2016). The lecture is followed by a presentation in honor of Mary Gilliam, recently elected president of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America
Lecture 595 (18 May 2016). Delivered at the RBS-UVA Fellowship Luncheon. Terry Belanger introduces Peter Miller as the winner of the 2016 Betsy and Stuart Houston Prize.
Lecture 454 (30 July 2001). Full title "Hawthorne and the Scribbling Women: Publishing 'The Scarlet Letter' in the 19th-Century United States"
Lecture 199 (28 October 1985). Full title "The Flowering of Typography: The Development of Printers’ Flowers with Special Reference to French Rococo Ornament"
Lecture 186 (15 April 1985). Full title "Digging in the Dumpster and Other Cautionary Tales of Modern Manuscript Collecting"
Lecture 169 (24 September 1984). Full title "Three Years Out: Reflections of a Young [But Rapidly Aging] Rare Book Librarian"
Lecture 162 (1 August 1984). Full title "Stereotyping in the Ancien Regime: F. I. J. Hoffmann and the 37th Parisian Printing Press"
Lecture 152 (11 July 1984). Full title "The Making of Little King Pippin: John Locke and Education and Children’s Books"
Lecture 148 (23 April 1984). Full title "Hoeing Out the Augean Stables: Special Collections at the University of California, San Diego"
Lecture 111 (3 January 1983). Full title "Life with Father: Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of San Francisco"
Lecture 106 (10 November 1982). Full title "The American Antiquarian Society: Independent Research Libraries, Present and Future"
Lecture 76 (7 April 1981). Full title "The Whole Picture: The Role of the Rare Book Library and Museum in Collecting Early Children’s Books"
Lecture 591 (29 July 2015). Full title "How to Destroy Special Collections with Social Media in 3 Easy Steps: A Guide for Researchers and Librarians"
Lecture 589 (24 July 2015). Full title "Who’s Hiding Here? Artists and their Signatures in Persian Manuscripts of the Early Modern Period"
Lecture 587 (22 July 2015). Full title "Scholarly Publishing at the Crossroads: or, How Do We Move Forward Without Getting Run Over?" The 2015 Sol. M. and Mary Ann O’Brian Malkin Lecture
Lecture 580 (9 June 2015). Full title "‘Pray gentlemen compositors …’: Boswell’s 'Life of Johnson' from Manuscript to Book"
Lecture 572 (9 July 2014). Full title "Teaching American Book History: Perspectives after Two Decades." The 2014 Sol. M. and Mary Ann O’Brian Malkin Lecture
Lecture 548 (2 July 2012). Full title "Documenting Counter-Culture: Problems and Solutions in the Preservation of Unpopular Historical Narratives"
Lecture 547 (13 June 2012). Full title "A Most Fascinating and Dangerous Pursuit: Rare Books at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum"
Lecture 540 (25 July 2011). Full title "Parallel Lines Never Meet: Dolphins and Anchors and Aldus || Book Historians and Numismatists and Roman Coins"
Lecture 535 (15 June 2011). Full title "Victorian Serials: Essential Parts of the 19th-Century Imagination." The 2011 Sol. M. and Mary Ann O’Brian Malkin Lecture
Lecture 531.5 (10 January 2011). Full title "Books by Rail: The Baltimore & Ohio Employees’ Free Circulating Library"
Lecture 522 (7 June 2010). Full title "The Heavyweight Bout: Linotype vs Monotype. The Two Dominant Technologies of Hot-Metal Typesetting Square Off"
Lecture 516 (22 June 2009). Full title "B. H. B. in Retrospect: Bernard H. Breslauer, Bookseller of the World"
Lecture 515 (8 June 2009). Full title "‘Exit, pursued by a bear': Reflections on Libraries, Wall Street, and Things that Last"
Lecture 514 (6 January 2009). Full title "Bookbindings: Depicted and Real, On Chemise and Girdle Bindings, and Other Special and Plain Bindings from the 15th to the 19th Centuries"
Lecture 511 (21 July 2008). Full title "The Future of Research and Rare Book Libraries (and What It Will Take for Them to Have a Future)." The 2008 Sol. M. and Mary Ann O’Brian Malkin Lecture
Lecture 499 (12 June 2007). Full title "‘Thou Shall Not Sit with Statisticians': Bibliography, Book History, and the Difficulties of Counting to Three"
Lecture 500 (18 July 2007). Full title "‘All Sorts of Printing at reasonable Rates': Franklin’s Way to Wealth as a Job Printer." The 2007 Sol. M and Mary Ann O’Brian Malkin Lecture
Lecture 477 (26 July 2004). Full title "Oaks from Acorns? The Historical Turning Points of American Learned Libraries"
Lecture 453 (25 July 2001). Full title "The Origins of the Second-Hand Book Trade: The Market for Antiquarian Books in England between the Middle Ages and 1726." The 2001 Sol. M. Malkin Lecture
Lecture 441 (19 June 2000). Full title "Mastering the Machines: Special Collections Librarians, Technology, and the Future"
Lecture 379 (17 July 1996). Full title "The Changing World of Manuscripts and Rare Books: or Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be." The 1996 Sol. M. Malkin Lecture
Lecture 287 (18 December 1989). Full title "The Scenery Has Changed: Purpose and Potential of the Rare Book Trade." The 1989 Sol. M. Malkin Lecture
Lecture 269 (12 December 1988). Full title "‘Put a Resolute Hart to a Steep Hill': William Gowans, Antiquary and Bookseller." The 1988 Sol. M. Malkin Lecture
Lecture 226 (15 December 1986). Full title "The Gentle Invasion: The Impact of the Immigration of German and Austrian Booksellers in the 1930s." The 1986 Sol. M. Malkin Lecture
Lecture 222 (20 October 1986). Full title "Innovation, Imitation, and Piracy: The Books of Peter Parley and His Creator, Samuel Goodrich"
Lecture 219 (29 September 1986). Full title "Bibliotheca Lindesiana: The Lives and Collections of the 25th and 26th Earls of Crawford"
Lecture 181 (18 February 1985). Full title "The Hitler Diaries and the Information Industries: The Failure of Professionalism"
Lecture 126 (20 July 1983). Full title "In Which Cities Were They Bound? The Identification of 18th-Century American Bookbinding"
Lecture 121 (11 April 1983). Full title "‘The Farmer and the Cowboy Should be Friends': What Rare Book Librarians Should Know about the Antiquarian Book Trade"
Lecture 93 (12 April 1982). Full title "The Library of Robert Hooke: A Microcosm of the Restoration Book Trade"
Lecture 91 (31 March 1982). Full title "On NOT Being in London: The English 18th-Century Provincial Book Trade"
Lecture 89 (8 March 1982). Full title: "Deaccessioning at Cambridge in the 1860s: Henry Stevens of Vermont and His American Customers"
Lecture 70 (20 November 1980). Full title "From Codex to Silicon Chip: An Overview of Developments in Communications from the 4th to the 21st Centuries, or So"