Mellon Symposium on Manuscripts and Rare Books Scheduled for April 8

Artwork courtesy Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries.

Illustrated reading from the gospel of St. Matthew, folio from mid-15th c. Book of Hours, Medieval Folios Collection (MC1997). Courtesy Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia are teaming with the University of Arkansas to host the Mellon Symposium on Manuscripts and Rare Books from 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. on Friday, April 8. The schedule of speakers is available at http://fulbright.uark.edu/rarebooks.

The symposium will take place in the second-floor Honors College Study Hall in Gearhart Hall. The event, which is free and open to the public, will feature speakers on a wide range of topics and provide an opportunity to view holdings from the U of A Libraries’ Special Collections, Fine Arts Library and Mullins Library.

Weather permitting, a table will be set up outside Gearhart Hall. Scale-sized reproductions of the 13 fragments that comprise the libraries’ medieval manuscript teaching collection will be on display, along with facsimile and circulating copies of such texts.

“The originals are handmade, pre-printing press examples of medieval literature,” said Joshua Youngblood, research and outreach services librarian in Special Collections. Most are from religious texts such as the Psalter and the Book of Hours; there are also fragments from an antiphonal work and a later-era Qur’an.

Joshua Byron Smith, assistant professor of English in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, said the overall goal of the event is to interest people about the physical objects medievalists study. Smith coordinated the event.

“Before the advent of the printing press, a written work evolved as it was transcribed,” he said. “We see that even today in the margins of a book. That was space off to the side so people could add to, change or interact with the content.

 “We pull a book off a shelf and it’s there – a fixed text. For most of history, people didn’t view literature that way. It was constantly changing,” Smith said, adding that today’s online environment echoes that interactive style.

“When we copy and paste, juxtapose an interesting paragraph from one work with material from another … that’s very much how books and texts worked in the Middle Ages.”

 Smith was awarded a prestigious Scholars of Critical Bibliography fellowship from the Mellon Foundation last spring. The three-year fellowship provides seed money for at least one public symposium. Other sponsors of the event include Fulbright College, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the Department of English, and the Honors College.

The symposium will highlight new ways of working with manuscripts and rare books. Speakers represent a range of disciplines, from classical studies to literature to the Renaissance. Virginia Blanton and Nathan Oyler of the University of Missouri-Kansas City will add a scientific angle with their study of multispectral imaging of medieval and early modern texts. This digital imaging technique uses photographs taken at different wavelengths to enhance hidden characteristics of the imaged area and allows faded and unintelligible manuscripts to be read.

Other topics include Anglo-Saxon perceptions of the Hebrew language, obscenity and censorship in 15th century manuscripts, the development of the table of contents, culinary art in the writings of Shakespeare and the interventions of a 13th-century scribe known as The Tremulous Hand of Worcester.

Smith noted that there are thousands of unedited manuscripts languishing in special collections libraries in Europe and elsewhere. There is a need for new scholars interested in bringing these old manuscripts to light, a project with historical as well as literary value.

“There’s a lot of interesting work that needs to be done,” Smith said.

About the University of Arkansas: The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Arkansas among only 2 percent of universities in America that have the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Arkansas among its top American public research universities. Founded in 1871, the University of Arkansas comprises 10 colleges and schools and maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio that promotes personal attention and close mentoring.