Events

Last updated 16 November 2009

Disclaimer: While all efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of the information included here, please check with the organisers of an event before making any special arrangements to attend.

Lectures and seminars in Oxford, Cambridge, London, Edinburgh & elsewhere

Conferences (in chronological order)

Book Fairs

Annual D.F. McKenzie lecture (2009)

5 March 2009 - 5pm
Lecture Theatre 2, St. Cross Building, Oxford

The Fourteenth Annual D.F. McKenzie Lecture

Professor Jerome McGann (University of Virginia): Philology in a New Key: Information Technology and the Transmission of Culture

Professor McGann will be giving a follow up seminar at noon on Friday 6 March 2009 in the History of the Book Room, St Cross Building.

Sponsored by The McKenzie Trust in association with the Centre for the Study of the Book, Bodleian Library

James P.R. Lyell Lectures in Bibliography (2009)

University Museum of Natural History, Parks Road, Oxford - 5pm

Dr Christopher de Hamel (Cambridge University): Fragments in Book Bindings

7 May The Ceolfrith Bible, c.700
12 May Orosius, ninth century
14 May Thomas Aquinas, late thirteenth century
19 May A Caxton indulgence, 1480
21 May A petition to Archbishop Parker, c.1571

Oxford Bibliographical Society (2009-10)

Taylor Institution, Oxford
Mondays (except where noted) - 5.15pm

9 Nov Peter Koch (Peter Koch Printers): Printing in the Shadow of Aldus: The Book as a Work of Art in the 21st Century
8 Feb Peter Parsons (Christ Church, Oxford): Artemidorus: A New Papyrus and an Old Forger
24 Feb (3pm) Visit to the Oxford University Archives. Members wishing to come are asked to inform the Secretary at least 2 weeks in advance.
1 Mar William Poole (University College, Oxford): The Chinaman and the Librarian: The Meeting of Shen Fuzong and Thomas Hyde in 1687
3 May Giles Bergel (Merton College, Oxford): From Small Books to Little Magazines: The Reformation of the Chapbook
17 May Daniela Mairhoffer (Bodleian Library): Archbishop Laud's Latin Manuscripts from Mainz
9 Jun (McKenna Room, Christ Church, 3pm) Annual General Meeting - Richard Sharpe (Wadham College, Oxford): Medieval Libraries of Great Britain
22 Jul (t.b.a.) Visit to the Getty Library in Wormsley. Introduction to the collection by the Curator. Members wishing to join the party are asked to inform the Secretary of the Society at least 3 weeks in advance.

Members may bring guests to any meeting.

Friends of the Bodleian Lunch-time Lectures (2008-9)

Cecil Jackson Room, Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford - 1pm

Free Admission. All welcome.

Wine and sandwiches will be served in Chancellor's Court after the lecture at a cost of £5 per person, for which bookings should be made and paid for in advance with the Administrator, Friends of the Bodleian, Bodleian Library, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BG. Tel: 01865 277234, email: fob@bodley.ox.ac.uk

For more information on the Friends of the Bodleian please visit our website at http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/bodley/friends

26 Nov Professor T. J. Reed (Former Taylor Professor of German Language and Literature, Queens College, Oxford and Fellow of the British Academy): Out of the labyrinth: Kafka's manuscripts
3 Dec Peter Ward Jones (Bodleian Library): Hallelujah! Reflections on a swansong exhibition

Seminar on the History of the Book 1450-1800

Wharton Room, All Souls College, Oxford
Fridays - 2.15pm

Convener: Professor I.W.F. Maclean

22 Jan Dr Neil Kenny (University of Cambridge): Functions of the title-page of learned books, c. 1550-1650
29 Jan Mme Isabelle de Conihout (Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris): The beginning of collecting printed chivalric romances in seventeenth-century France
5 Feb Dr Cristina Neagu: Albrecht Dürer's broadsheets and the emerging ars emblematica
12 Feb Dr Natalie Ferrand (CNRS, Maison Française): Reading books with eyes wide open: illustrated novels in the Enlightenment
19 Feb Dr James Willoughby: An English library in Renaissance Rome
26 Feb Professor Angela Nuovo (University of Udine): The book trade in sixteenth-century Italy and the development of the branch system
5 Mar Dr Natalia Nowakowska: Early Reformation polemic in Poland
12 Mar Dr Gillian Bepler (Herzog-August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel): Women and dynastic book collecting in early modern Germany

Masterclasses: Transmission: literary manuscripts on the move

Seminar Room, New Bodleian Library, Oxford
Mondays - 2.15pm

Admission to the library is by Oxford University Card or, if you need a visitor pass, please e-mail: bookcentre@bodley.ox.ac.uk, at least one day before the class.

19 Oct Anthony Thwaite: Philip Larkin
26 Oct Katherine Duncan-Jones: Shakespeare
2 Nov Michael Suarez: Gerard Manley Hopkins
9 Nov Pamela Clemit: William Godwin

Talk by Peter Koch

6 November 2009 - 4pm
Seminar Room, New Bodleian Library, Oxford

Peter Koch (CODEX Foundation, Berkeley, California)
The book as a work of art

Admission to the library is by Oxford University Card or, if you need a visitor pass, please e-mail: bookcentre@bodley.ox.ac.uk, at least one day before the class.

Friends of the Bodleian 30-minute lectures

Convocation House, Bodleian Library, Oxford
Wednesdays - 1pm

All welcome. To reserve wine & sandwiches, tel: 01865 277234 or email: fob@bodley.ox.ac.uk

21 Oct Robert Bruce: An ark for the nation: the Bodleian in the Second World War
4 Nov Justin Reay: 'An uninterrupted excess of satisfaction': Samuel Pepys' naval papers in the Bodleian collections

Merton History of the Book Reading Group

Merton College Breakfast Room, Merton College, Oxford

5 Mar (2pm) Primary reading - Jerome McGann, 'The Rationale of Hypertext', www.iath.virginia.edu/public/jjm2f/rationale.html
Secondary reading - Paul Duguid, 'Material Matters: The Past and Futurology of the Book', in The Future of the Book, ed. by Geoffrey Nunberg (1996), available online at http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~duguid/SLOFI/Material_Matters.htm

Contact: giles.bergel@merton.ox.ac.uk

Catherine Lewis Master Class

26 May 2009 - 5.15pm
Room 2 in the Taylor Institution, Oxford

Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies in association with the Centre for the Study of the Book, Bodleian Library

Professor Peter Gumbert (Emeritus Professor of Latin Codicology, Leiden University)
"Fixing the Quire: A book technique as Mirror of Mediterranean and Western Culture"

All welcome

Lectures and Seminars: Cambridge

Cambridge Bibliographical Society (2009-10)

Morison Room, University Library, Cambridge
Wednesdays - 5pm

18 Nov Cristina Dondi: The Venetian Book Trade in the 15th century: material evidence for the economic and social history of the Renaissance
[Further details of programme to follow]

Tea will be served at 4.30pm before the lectures

For further details, please contact the Hon. Secretary, Cambridge Bibliographical Society, The University Library, Cambridge CB3 9DR

Sandars lectures

Morison Room, Cambridge University Library, Cambridge
23, 24 and 26 February 2009 - 5pm [NB. Corrected dates!]

Professor Michelle Brown, Professor of Medieval Manuscript Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London
The book and the transformation of Britain, c.550-1050

Mon 23 Feb Conversion: the scribes of scripture and social change
Tue 24 Feb Integration and consolidation: creating communities of reading
Thu 26 Feb After Alfred: language, literature and libraries

Cambridge History of the Book seminar (2008-9)

GR04, Faculty of English, 9 West Road, Cambridge
Thursdays - 5.30pm

The seminar on the history of the book is open to all graduate students and senior members of any faculty. More information can be found at: http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/seminars/hist-book.htm; or contact Daniel Wakelin (dlw22@cam.ac.uk) or Sarah Cain (stc22@cam.ac.uk).

16 Oct Dr Ian Williams (Christ's College): 'He creditted more the printed booke': Common Lawyers' Receptivity to Print, 1550-1640
20 Nov Dr Kathleen Tonry (University of Connecticut): Reading Print’s Histories
3 Mar (Queens' College, Old SCR, 5.15pm) Prof. Dr. Thomas Kohnen (University of Köln): Commonplace-book communication: Role shifts and text functions in Robert Reynes's notes contained in Tanner MS 407 - Special Seminar: Scriptorium / History of the Book Seminar on Commonplace Books
23 Apr Dr Sebastiaan Verweij (Scriptorium project, Cambridge): Eikit addit & copeit out off ye print': Reading and Mending the Troy Book in Renaissance Scotland
30 Apr Dr Giles Bergel (Merton College, Oxford): Ballad History and the History of the Ballad: 'The Wandering Jew's Chronicle', 1630-1820
7 May (Allhusen Room, Trinity College, 5pm) Professor Roger Chartier (Directeur d'Études, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris): Written Culture and Literature in Early Modern Europe: some propositions - Special seminar in conjunction with Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Clark Lectures

All welcome.

Lectures and Seminars: London

Panizzi Lectures (2009-10)

Conference Centre of the British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB
8, 9, and 14 Dec - 6.15pm

Professor Anthony Grafton
The Culture of Correction in Renaissance Europe

This year's series of Panizzi lectures will explore the ways in which texts were prepared for publication in Renaissance Europe. Professor Anthony Grafton will recreate the practices of professional correctors--poor devils of literature whose work extended far beyond the specific task of proof correction--and the printers and authors who worked with them. Both great houses such as that of Christopher Plantin and much smaller ones will come in for examination, but the emphasis will be on the former.

To celebrate this year's Panizzi lecture series a reception will be held after the final lecture.

Tickets (free) must be obtained in advance from the British Library Box Office (telephone 01937 546 546)

8 Dec The Culture of Correction in Renaissance Europe: Practice Makes Imperfect - Professor Grafton launches this year's series with a description of the world and work of the corrector: it will trace the origins of some of their practices to the world of manuscript book production, others to the new needs of print
9 Dec The Culture of Correction in Renaissance Europe: The View from Inside The Shop - Continuing this year's Panizzi lectures, this event will explore some of the rich and revealing documents that enable us to watch correctors at work. We will pay special attention to surviving manuscripts and printed books that correctors used, and to what the traces they left behind can tell us about publication and authorship in Renaissance Europe.
14 Dec The Culture of Correction in Renaissance Europe: The View from the Author's Study - Join us for the final lecture in this year’s Panizzi series. From the Renaissance to the present, authors have fumed and cursed as they saw what happened to their work in the printing house, and have done their best to take an active part in the process of editing, design and production. We will examine some of the varieties of correction that Renaissance authors and scholars encountered, and some of their manifold responses.

Bibliographical Society (2009-10)

University College, Gower Street, London
Tuesdays - 6pm

21 Oct Annual General Meeting at the TUC Library, Learning Centre, London Metropolitan University, 236-250 Holloway Road, London N7 6PP at 5.30. Chris Coates, Librarian, will introduce the TUC Library collections following the business of the meeting.
17 Nov (Chadwick Lecture Theatre; Tea in the Jeremy Bentham Room) Janet Ing Freeman: 'Poor Ralph': The Fragile Career of a Regency Hack- The curious history of Ralph Rylance (1782-1834): poet, translator, ghostwriter, editor, and proofreader - At the meeting the Society's Gold Medal will be presented to Dr. Lotte Hellinga
15 Dec (Pearson Lecture Theatre; Tea in the Lower Refectory) Roey Sweet, Kate Loveman, Malcolm Noble, and John Hinks: Murders and Marvels: the chapbook project at the University of Leicester
19 Jan (Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre; Tea in the South Cloisters) Ceri Davies: 'Print bearing fruit for the Welshman': the books of Sir John Prise (c.1502-1555) - On the legacy of the author of the first printed book in Welsh and of Historiae Brytannicae Defensio, one of the longest printed works in Latin by a Welsh humanist
16 Feb (Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre; Tea in the South Cloisters) John Barnard: Keats and Posterity: Manuscript, Print and Readers - On Keats's canon, his uncertainties, and the interplay between manuscript and print circulation of his poems - The Presidential Address
16 Mar (Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre; Tea in the South Cloisters) Simon Horobin: Chaucer's Scribe? - This lecture assesses the implications of the identification of the professional scrivener Adam Pinkhurst as 'Chaucer's scribe' for our understanding of Chaucer's texts, their copying and circulation
20 Apr (Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre; Tea in Lower Refectory) Rupert Ridgewell: Inside a Viennese Kunsthandlung : locating Artaria in Mozart's Vienna - On the inter-relationship of the music, art, book and map trades in late eighteenth-century Vienna , with reference to the ledgers of the Artaria publishing house - Graham Pollard Memorial Lecture
18 May (Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre; Tea in the Haldane Room) Isabelle de Conihout and Pascal Ract-Madoux: Grolier, Mahieu, Laubespine. The flowering and decline of inventiveness in French decorated bookbinding, 1540-1570 - The Homee and Phiroze Randeria Lecture
The Summer Visit - Details will be announced in The Library for March 2009.

Meetings will be held in lecture theatres at University College, Gower Street, London, WC1, beginning at 6.00 p.m. Exact lecture theatres are given in the calendar above.

Tea will be served at 5.15 p.m. in one of several rooms in the main building (Wilkins) of University College; please see lecture dates for location. Members are welcome to bring guests, both to meetings and to the tea beforehand.

The AGM will take place at the Trades Union Congress Library Collections, Learning Centre, London Metropolitan University, 236-250 Holloway Road, London N7 6PP, on 21 October at 5.30. This will not be preceded by tea, but refreshments will be served after the meeting.

For further details, please contact the Hon. Secretary, Dr. Margaret Ford, The Bibliographical Society, c/o Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, Senate House, Rm. 304, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU (Tel. 020-7862-8679; fax: 020-7862-8720) e-mail: Secretary@BibSoc.org.uk or Admin@BibSoc.org.uk

The Printing Historical Society, London (2009-2010)

St Bride Printing Library, Bride Lane, Fleet Street, London EC4Y 8EE
Thursday - 6.30pm

[To be announced]

All welcome. Contact: Phil Wickens, Secretary, PHS, St Bride Printing Library, Bride Lane, Fleet Street, London EC4Y 8EE (0118 987 2878).

Open University Book History and Bibliography Research Seminar: Transatlantic Publishing (2008-9)

Institute of English Studies, Room 273, Stewart House, 32 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DN
Wednesdays - 5.30pm-7.30pm

Organised by the Book History Research Group, the Open University, and the Institute of English Studies, University of London. Sponsored by the Open University.

Organisers: Dr Shafquat Towheed (The Open University), Project Supervisor, 'The Reading Experience Database, 1450-1945'RED); Dr Rosalind Crone (The Open University), Postdoctoral Research Fellow, ‘The Reading Experience Database, 1450-1945’ (RED); Dr Katie Halsey (IES, University of London), Postdoctoral Research Fellow, ‘The Reading Experience Database, 1450-1945’ (RED).

The 2009-2010 seminar series will be on the History of Reading. Please contact the organisers if you wish to offer a paper at the seminar series.

Information about the new Stewart House seminar rooms.

22 Oct Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (University College London): 'Our Time is Time of Fairly Tales': Hans Christian Andersen's Tales across the media and the Atlantic’ - Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen is a Teaching Fellow in Danish and Scandinavian Studies at University College London. His current research centres on Hans Christian Andersen's periodical publications and on the Danish nineteenth-century illustrated magazine, Illustreret Tidende. Recent publications include articles in Scandinavian Studies and The Henry James Review, and a co-edited book about 'border-crossing literature' entitled World Literature - World Culture: Histories, Theories, Analyses (Aarhus UP, 2008)
19 Nov Amy Flanders (Institute of English Studies, University of London): Sharing the World: how British and American publishers negotiated the international Anglophone book trade, 1940-1960 - Amy Flanders studied history at the University of California, Berkeley, and book history at the Institute of English Studies, University of London, before completing a doctorate at Oxford, where her thesis examined the British publishing industry during the Second World War. In 2004 she was awarded the National Historical Publications and Records Commission Fellowship in Historical Documentary Editing, in which capacity she worked with the Margaret Sanger Papers Project at New York University; The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger: Volume 2: Birth Control Comes of Age, 1928-1939, was published last year by the University of Illinois Press. Dr Flanders now holds a postdoctoral fellowship with the History of the Oxford University Press project at the Institute of English Studies
3 Dec Eric White (Anglia Ruskin University): Modernist Journals, Transatlantic Print Culture, and the Rise of the American Avant-Garde - Eric White completed his PhD in American Literature at Clare College, University of Cambridge in 2005 and currently teaches English and American Literature at the University of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin University. In 2007, he was awarded the Gallup Fellowship in American Literature by Yale University, and has recently received a Founders’ Award from the British Association for American Studies. Eric has published articles on the American poet William Carlos Williams and his involvement modernist journals, and is contributing research to the Modernist Magazines Project. Currently, Eric is working on an edition of Williams's early prose and completing a monograph based on his doctoral thesis, provisionally titled Locating the Avant-Garde: Place, Poetics, and Print Culture in Modernist Journals
28 Jan Kate Macdonald (University of Ghent): The American editions of John Buchan, 1875-1940 - Kate Macdonald is a lecturer at the Department of English, University of Ghent, in Belgium. She is the author of John Buchan: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction (McFarland & Co, 2008), and teaches British popular culture and Anglophone poetry to Flemish students
11 Feb Claire Parfait (Université Paris 13): Transatlantic Publishing and the Anti-Slavery Debate, 1840s-1850s - Claire Parfait is Professor of American studies, as well as book history, at the University of Paris 13. She has co-directed two works dealing with book history: Histoire(s) de livres: le livre et l'édition dans le monde Anglophone (Cahiers Charles V, no 32, 2002), and Au bonheur du feuilleton (Paris Créaphis, 2007).She is the author of The Publishing History of Uncle Tom's Cabin (Ashgate, 2007)
25 Feb Caroline Copeland (Napier University, Edinburgh): Writing for her life: Katherine Cecil Thurston’s exploitation of celebrity - Caroline Copeland is Programme Leader in MSc Publishing at Napier University Edinburgh, and co-founder of the independent publishing house Ten Book Press. She has recently completed a PhD on the publishing history of the Irish novelist, Katherine Cecil Thurston
11 Mar Sara Haslam (The Open University): Publishing Parade's End - Sara Haslam is Lecturer in English at the Open University. She is the author of Fragmenting Modernism: Ford Madox Ford, the Novel and the Great War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), editor of Ford Madox Ford and the City, (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2005) and Ford Madox Ford, England and the English (Manchester: Carcanet: 2003). She is Founding Chair of the Ford Madox Ford society, and is currently editing Parade's End.

MSS: Modern Manuscript Studies Seminar series (2009-2010)

Room NG16, University of London Senate House, Malet Street, London
Wednesday - 5.30pm-7pm

Convenor: Wim Van Mierlo (institute of English Studies)

As a subdiscipline of literary history and the history of the book, modern manuscript studies is a fairly young but expanding field of study that is generating new and exciting research. The purpose of this seminar is to stimulate critical interest and encourage discussion in an area that is contributing greatly to the understanding of authorship, literary production and the nature of writing and aesthetics in the period 1750 to the present. The specific objectives of the seminar are to:

• broaden the scope of historical bibliography and the history of the book
• practice literary history as an archeology of the (literary) text
• explore a common language and demonstrate analytical methods
• encourage a cross-fertilization of national and international traditions
• exchange experiences among scholars working on different authors and within different disciplines
• widen participation and provide training for postgraduate students in modern manuscript research under the AHRC National Research Training Scheme

Seminar website - contact: wim.van-mierlo@sas.ac.uk

[To be announced]

Medieval Manuscripts Seminar Series (2009-2010)

Dr Seng T Lee Centre for Manuscript and Book Studies, Sterling Library, University of London Library, 4th Floor, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU (except where noted)
Thursdays - 5.30pm

Meetings are free and are followed by a wine reception. Organiser: Pamela Robinson (Institute of English Studies)

TBA

Seminar website: http://www.sas.ac.uk/events/visitor_events.php?page=ies_seminars&func=results&aoi_id=163

Maps and Society seminar series (2009-2010)

The Warburg Institute, University of London, Woburn Square, London WC1H OAB
Thursdays - 5pm

Lectures in the history of cartography convened by Catherine Delano Smith (Institute of Historical Research) and Tony Campbell (formerly Map Library, British Library).

Admission is free. Meetings are followed by refreshments. All are most welcome. Enquiries: +44 (0) 20 8346 5112 (Dr Delano Smith) or t.campbell@ockendon.clara.co.uk.

TBA

This programme has been made possible through the generous sponsorship of The International Map Collectors' Society, Jonathan Potter of Jonathan Potter Ltd., and Laurence Worms of Ash Rare Books. It is supported by Imago Mundi: the International Journal for the History of Cartography.

Seminar in Humanities Computing (2009-2010)

Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
Thursdays - 1pm

TBA

Contact details: cch@kcl.ac.uk

Designer Bookbinders: Lectures (2008-9)

The Art Workers Guild, 6 Queen Square, London WC1
Tuesdays - 6.30pm (except where noted)

Programme


6 Oct Paul Delrue: Binding to my Feelings A Celebration of Fifty Years of Bookbinding. Paul’s talk will include a description of two of his own innovative processes, ‘lacunose’ and Tudor style, and much else.
Monday 9 Nov Walter Bachinski: Shanty Bay Press and the Pochoir Technique The origins and rationale of the Press, devoted to publishing livres d’artistes, followed by a detailed explanation of the pochoir technique.
9 Jan (10.30 am) Gerald Fleuss: The Legacy of Calligrapher Edward Johnston Gerald Fleuss talks about the work of the Edward Johnston Foundation in maintaining the link with Johnston’s work and the significance of his legacy in the digital age.
9 Jan (12 noon) Lester Capon: Extreme Bookbinding Again A second voyage to Ethiopia, this time to repair vellum fans and repeating my visit there in 2006 to preserve the sixth century Gospels at the monastery of Abuna Garima.
9 Jan (2 pm) George Kirkpatrick The Peter Waters I Knew George Kirkpatrick reminisces on his mentor and inspirational influence, one of the great binders of the 20th century.
9 Jan (3.30 pm) Sue Doggett: 'Everything in the world exists to end up in a book' An illustrated talk on the difficult problem of leaving things out. Research, content, design and execution - how and why I make the things I do.
2 Feb Edward Bayntun-Coward: The Trade in Bindings Edward Bayntun-Coward will consider both trade binderies (past, present and future) and also the fluctuating fortune of bindings.
2 Mar Eri Funazaki: A Bookbinder’s Approach to Book Arts How I incorporate design- binding techniques in book arts and why I am involved in making artist’s books.; and Dominic Riley: A Bookbinder's Journey From student days to post-Fellowship, Dominic’s travels, teaching and working life in America and his adventures in the Lake District. Unusual requests, strange bindings, interesting folk and a little TV.

Admission: DB members £5, non-members £7, students £2.50 per lecture. Four Saturday lectures: DB members £18, non-members £26 and students £9

Further details from Julia Dummett and Rachel Ward-Sale 01273 486718 Website: www.designerbookbinders.org.uk E-mail: lectures@designerbookbinders.org.uk

London Seminar in Digital Text and Scholarship (2008-9)

Institute of English Studies, Stewart House, 32 Russell Square, London
Thursdays (except where noted) - 5.30pm-7.30pm

The London Seminar in Digital Text & Scholarship focuses on the ways in which the digital medium remakes the relationship of readers, writers, scholars, technical practitioners and designers to the manuscript and printed book. Its discussions are intended to inform public debate and policy as well as to stimulate research and provide a broad forum in which to present its results. Although the forum is primarily for those working in textual and literary studies, history of the book, humanities computing and related fields, its mandate is to address and involve an audience of non-specialists. Wherever possible the issues it raises are meant to engage all those who are interested in a digital future for the book.

The primary form of discussion is a yearly series of seminars by leading scholars and practitioners involved in the making of digital editions and scholarly textual resources, in reflecting on these productions and in examining the historical and material culture of written language as these inform practice. Running through and uniting the seminars is the single question, “What is to be done?” They are in that sense all meant to be practical investigations from which guiding theory will emerge, feed back into a revised practice and so help us to progress.

The Seminar is deeply rooted in the history of textual production and its scholarship but is preoccupied with the future. It takes as its starting point Alan Turing’s principle of computing as a scheme for constructing indefinitely many machines – from which we derive the practice of constructing indefinitely many varieties of the digital book. Its question is not how to arrive at the best successors to this or that existing form or the best configuration of libraries to house and manage the products, rather how continuously to remake the digital book and its environment so that they serve “the living condition of the human mind” (Peirce). The Seminar explores through practical experiment the changing ways in which this continuous remaking is to be done and both the challenges it poses and the opportunities it offers to our institutions.

The Seminar is sponsored by the Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London, and the Institute of English Studies, University of London.

Convenor: Professor Willard McCarty (King's College London).

Fuller details of papers.

15 Oct (Room 273) Paul Arthur (Curtin, Australia): Future History: Digital Approaches to the Past
6 Nov (Room 274/275) Martin Mueller (Northwestern): The Importance of Not-Reading?
4 Dec (Room 274/275) Joseph Raben (Queens, New York), 'Native Noon': The Quest for Hyperlinks in Poetry?
22 Jan (Room 274/275) Anouk Lang (University of Birmingham): Mediated reading across the nation
12 Feb (Room 274/275) Neven Jovanovic (University of Zagreb): What shall we do with a text collection?
19 Mar (Room 273) Kenneth M Price (Nebraska-Lincoln), “Editing Walt Whitman's Civil War Writings in Context
30 Apr (Room 274/275) Matt Kirschenbaum (Maryland): If Shakespeare Had a Hard Drive: Our Born-Digital Literary Heritage -- CANCELLED
21 May (Room 274/275) Amanda Gailey (Georgia, U.S.): Digital American Literature: Some Problems and Prospects

Further information: http://www.sas.ac.uk/events/visitor_events.php?page=ies_seminars&func=results&aoi_id=200

Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies lunchtime seminar (2009-2010)

Room NG16, University of London Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E
Wednesdays - 1pm-2pm

The first of an inaugural series of four lunchtime seminars hosted by the Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies, University of London, will meet on Wednesday 30 January 2008, at 1.00pm; room NG16, University of London Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E

TBA

Tea and coffee will be provided. Do bring your lunch.

If you would like to attend please notify:

Jon Millington
Events Officer
Institute of English Studies
University of London
School of Advanced Study
Room NG18, Senate House
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HU
Tel: +44 (0)20 7664 4859
Fax: +44 (0)20 7862 8720
Email: jon.millington@sas.ac.uk
http://ies.sas.ac.uk

Seminar on the History of Libraries (2009-10)

Room ST 275 (Stewart House), Institute of English Studies, University of London, London
Tuesdays - 5.30pm

A series of research seminars, which are freely open for anyone to attend, has been organized at the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London.

Seminar convenors: Giles Mandelbrote (Early Printed Collections, The British Library, London); Dr. Keith A. Manley (Institute of Historical Research, University of London); Professor Simon Eliot (Institute of English Studies); Professor Isabel Rivers (Queen Mary); Professor Henry Woudhuysen (University College).

Meetings will take place monthly during term-time on Tuesdays at 5.30 p.m., in Room ST 275 at Stewart House, unless otherwise stated. Stewart House is located at the Russell Square entrance to Senate House. The March and June meetings will take place in Room NG 15, Senate House North Block.

The seminars are jointly sponsored by the Institute of English Studies, the Institute of Historical Research, and the Library & Information History Group.

Information concerning the Institute of English Studies may be found on its website, or email ies@sas.ac.uk.

6 Oct Dr. Maureen Bell (University of Birmingham): Titus Wheatcroft: an eighteenth-century reader and his books In 1723 Titus Wheatcroft (1679-1762), parish clerk and schoolmaster in Ashover, Derbyshire, began to make a catalogue of his books. His collection of nearly 400 items, in both manuscript and print, provides valuable evidence of a literate but relatively poor rural reader's access to books. His four surviving manuscript volumes also give an insight into how he used some of the books he owned, and offer evidence of his engagement with printed texts beyond those listed in his catalogue.
3 Nov Prof. Simon Eliot (Institute of English Studies): Gutting Leviathan: the fall of the great circulating libraries in Britain What were the economics that powered the great circulating libraries of the later nineteenth century? How important was the three-decker novel in this process? What caused the collapse of the three-decker novel in 1894, and how were the publishers involved? Why did many of the largest circulating libraries survive 1894 and flourish for another generation, or even two? And what finally beached these monsters?
1 Dec Dr. Keith A. Manley (Institute of Historical Research): Infidel books and subscription libraries: government censorship in Europe during the Napoleonic period Many governments tried to prevent libraries from acquiring politically inflammatory and heretical literature. In Germany secret societies of freemasons infiltrated libraries to promote their own views of Enlightenment and world domination, while Hanover feared for the morals of its children if they were allowed access to circulating libraries. Germany and Austria banned subscription libraries, fearing their malignant influence. In France, officials kept libraries under close surveillance. In comparison, British libraries escaped lightly from tight supervision, though in Ulster several were ransacked by yeomanry.

William Morris and the Art of the Book

28 November 2009 - 2.15pm
Kelmscott House, 26 Upper Mall, Hammersmith, London W6 9TA

Antoine Capet will explain how Morris combined his knowledge of traditional book making with the skills of prominent artists and craft workers to produce work that met his exacting standards for the ideal book.

Sponsored by the William Morris Society.

Tickets: members and seniors £6; non-members £8; students and unemployed £4. All applications for tickets to William Morris Society office: Kelmscott House, Upper Mall, Hammersmith, London W6 9TA, marking the envelope "tickets" and enclosing a stamped addressed envelope. Please pay for visits with a separate check for each visit. For more information about any event please call the office on 020 8741 3735 or email william.morris@care4free.net.

Lectures and Seminars: Edinburgh

Edinburgh Bibliographical Society (2009-10)

Board Room, National Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh
Thursdays - 5.45pm

8 Oct Marc Lambert, Scottish Book Trust: Why Read?
10 Nov (7 p.m.) Dr Peter Arnott: Echoes of Origin: reflections on the unfinished legacy of Darwin's masterpiece - Jointly with NLS - Annual John Murray Archive Lecture
3 Dec Visit to the Scottish Storytelling Centre, 43-45 High Street, Edinburgh, followed by drinks reception - Dr Donald Smith: Writing Our Selves
21 Jan Dr Murray Simpson: On the Insidious Charms of Collecting Odd Volumes
18 Feb Ronald Black: Alexander MacDonald's Ais-Eiridh, 1751
11 Mar Prof. Ian Campbell: The Grassic Gibbon revival - Annual Business Meeting - Allan Ramsay Dinner, dedicated to Robert Fergusson (Contact the secretary by 18 February 2010)
22 Apr Prof. Roland Paxton: Wheelwright of the Heavens: James Ferguson FRS (1710-1778)
8 May (2 p.m.) Annual Visit. Edinburgh University Library Special Collections, George Square, Edinburgh (Contact the Secretary by 22 April 2010)

Tea is served from 5:15 p.m. All are welcome.

The Edinburgh Bibliographical, Society, founded 1890, promotes the study of books and manuscripts of any date, particularly Scottish, and prints bibliographical work in its Transactions and as Occasional Publications.

Society website: http://mcs.qmuc.ac.uk/EBS/

Edinburgh Bibliographical Society (2009-10)

National Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh
Thursdays - 5.45pm

Tea is served from 5:15 p.m. All are welcome.

The Edinburgh Bibliographical, Society, founded 1890, promotes the study of books and manuscripts of any date, particularly Scottish, and prints bibliographical work in its Transactions and as Occasional Publications.

Society website: http://mcs.qmuc.ac.uk/EBS/

Edinburgh Book History Seminar Series (2009-10)

5th Floor, Edinburgh University Main Library, Edinburgh
Fridays - 1-2pm (except where noted)

All are welcome to attend.

Organised by The Centre for the History of the Book and Edinburgh University Library: http://www.hss.ed.ac.uk/chb

9 Oct Jane Dawson (Divinity): The Wode Psalter
23 Oct Heather Pulliam (History of Art): Images of the Reader in The Book of Kells
6 Nov Robin Myers (Worshipful Company of Stationers): Historicising the Stationers' Company
20 Nov Peter Garside (English Literature): Illustrating the Waverley Novels: Scott, Scotland, and the London Print Trade, 1819-36
4 Dec Eyal Poleg (CHB): Memory, Performance, and Change: The Layout of the Psalms 1200-1611

Public lecture by Juliet Gardiner

19 March 2009 - 5.45pm
Board Room, National Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh

Battle of the Books: Reading in Wartime
Juliet Gardiner

Juliet Gardiner was editor of History Today in the 1980s and has subsequently been a publisher, an academic, and since 2001 a full time writer. Her most recent books include The Penguin Dictionary of British History (editor, 2001), Wartime: Britain 1939-1945 (2004) and The Children's War (2005 in association with the Imperial War Museum). Her history of Britain in the 1930s will be published this autumn by HarperCollins as will her Blitz in 2010. She is a frequent lecturer and broadcaster on radio and television and was historical consultant to The 1940s House and The Edwardian Country House (both Channel 4) for which she wrote the accompanying books, and to the film Atonement.

In her lecture, she will explore the question of what was written, published and read during the Second World War. As well as looking at the government regulation of the publishing industry, she will explore the way in which literature was transformed in the light of a need to bolster morale and reinforce national identity, while still catering to a growing democratic impulse throughout a period of severe cultural crisis.

Event organised by the Centre for the History of the Book & the Centre for the Study of the Two World Wars with support from the British Academy

Library and Information History Group and Scottish Centre for the Book Evening Seminar

13 May 2009 - 6pm
B2, Merchiston Library, Merchiston Campus, Edinburgh Napier University

Evening talk by Dr Keith Manley, Institute of English Studies, London.

With discussion over wine

Broadening readership: subscription libraries and mechanics' institutes in early 19th century Scotland

Scotland in the late 18th century was in the vanguard of book provision for the working classes. This talk will look at how a number of small subscription libraries for workers sprang up in Scotland in the 18th and early 19th centuries, preceding similar libraries in England, and eventually leading the way to mechanics' institutes. A special case study will be made of the Greenock Mechanics Library & Institution to show its development from a library with lecture room attached to chess club with swimming pool attached.

Interested parties will also have the opportunity to tour the Edward Clark Collection. The Edward Clark Collection consists of around 5000 items illustrating the development of the book from the 15th century. More specifically, it concentrates on the development of typography, the techniques of printing illustrations, and fine bindings.

For further information about this event please contact Sarah Bromage, LIHG Publicity Officer at s.bromage@napier.ac.uk

For directions to the Merchiston campus please visit http://www.napier.ac.uk/aboutus/Maps/Pages/Merchiston.aspx

Lectures and Seminars: Elsewhere

Manchester Bibliographical Society (2009-2010)

Manchester
Mondays

The Society is a group of book collectors and booksellers who meet monthly during the Winter in several different venues in Manchester. Lectures are presented by both members and invited specialists. A programme for the season is issued, details below. New members are always welcome and a modest subscription is charged (£10 sterling). Suggestions for topics or speakers are always considered. For further information please e-mail brenda.scragg at ntlworld.com

TBA

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/brenda.scragg/

Aberystwyth Bibliographical Group (2009-2010)

To be announced

Cranston Lecture (2009)

26 October 2009 - 7.30pm for 8pm
St Mary's Church, Chart Lane, Reigate, Surrey

In aid of the funds of the Cranston Library

Keith Manley: They didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition! Scottish Parochial Libraries in Cranston's time
Penelope Horsfall: Jacob Tonson 1656-1736 - Original Trustee, Secretary of the Kit Cat Club, & much more besides

Refreshments will be served in the interval and the Library will be open during the evening

The Cranston Library, founded in 1701 by the Revd Andrew Cranston, is situated in a small chamber above the Vestry in St Mary's, the Parish Church of Reigate. It was the first Public Lending Library in England and contains works of literature, history, geography, mathematics and classics as well as theology.

The Library is an independent charity, managed by a Board of nine Trustees who endeavour to maintain it as an early 18th century library. Many of the books have been there since its foundation in 1701 and funds are always needed for conservation of the books, the greater part of which are leather bound. Valuable practical assistance is given by Surrey County Council Libraries.

Keith Manley: Trustee of the Library, Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Historical Research, University of London
Penelope Horsfall: Trustee of the Library, Sociologist, and Honorary Alderman of the Borough of Reigate and Banstead

Further information from:

Hilary Ely
Libraries Virtual Services Manager
Surrey County Council
Mid Area Office, Leatherhead KT22 7SY.
Tel. 020 8541 7060 (direct) 079 68 832 419 (mobile)
e-mail: h.ely@surreycc.gov.uk

Conferences
(in chronological order)

Ireland, Britain and the Americas: the international book trade in the long eighteenth century [NB. RESCHEDULED CONFERENCE]

8 - 9 January 2009
Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Queen's University Belfast

The Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Queen's University Belfast is inviting proposals for papers or panels on any or all aspects of the book trade in the long eighteenth century (1680-1830). Papers are particularly encouraged on the themes of material culture; the concepts and constructions of readership and audience; issues such as advertising, copyright, piracy, printing history, marketing, and the international circulation of literature and music.

Keynote address: Professor James Raven (University of Essex), 'Classical transports and foreign bodies: the importation of non-English texts into North America before 1820.' Panels to include: Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies; Archival Resources and Collections. Roundtable: 'Directions for Research,' participants to include Dr John Hinks (University of Leicester) and Professor Raven (Chair). Notes and Queries and Short Reports Sessions (for ongoing projects or new research).

Deadline for proposals (250 words for papers, subject titles for 'Notes and Queries' and 'Short Reports') by 17 October 2008, to:

Dr Sarah McCleave
Lecturer, School of Music and Sonic Arts
Queen's University Belfast
Belfast BT7 1NN
Northern Ireland
s.mccleave@qub.ac.uk 

   

Participation by postgraduate students (both MA and PhD) is particularly encouraged. The School of Music and Sonic Arts is offering three bursaries (valued up to £150 each) to postgraduates from outside Northern Ireland offering papers on a music-related topic. Contact Dr Sarah McCleave, above for details.

Reading Material: Technology, Text, Interpretation (Chetham's Library Postgraduate Conference)

23 January 2009
Chetham's Library, Long Millgate, Manchester

Our keynote speaker will be Prof. William H. Sherman from the University of York.

Call for Papers
We invite postgraduate students from any discipline to submit abstracts on aspects of their book history related research. Submissions that respond to the title 'Reading Material: Technology, Text, Interpretation' in any way are welcomed; but some issues you may wish to consider include:

• The effects of technology on the material nature of texts in any historical period. Are concepts such as the 'book' losing their currency in contemporary culture and scholarship?
• The methods & approaches needed to successfully read material. How do established fields of enquiry act as a help or hindrance for interpreting text? Does reading material present a challenge to what have become established fields of study?
• The benefits of a reading of materiality. What sorts of novel interventions in critical discourse can the interpretation of material enable?

Participants might reflect on the place of texts in museums, archives and libraries and their curation, collection and interpretation; the concept of ownership, copyright & materiality; the role of multiple agencies involved in the production of texts - publishers, authors, readers and others - and how these may affect the form, function and reception of the text; the emergence of digital fictions, hypertext, e-libraries, or the implications of technology for archiving.

This one-day conference is intended to foster intellectual and social interaction and we look forward to a diverse range of responses to these themes.

Abstracts
Please send abstracts of 250-300 words to Christopher Plumb - christopher.plumb@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk and Irene Huhulea - raluca.huhulea@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk by Friday, 14 November.

Participation in this conference has been generously funded by The University of Manchester School of Arts, Histories, and Cultures and by The Bibliographical Society. Lunch will be provided at the Manchester Cathedral Refectory. Please join us after the conference for a wine reception at Chetham's.

Reading and the Age of Gladstone

23 - 25 January 2009
St Deiniol's Library, Flintshire, North Wales

Several recent and ongoing projects have sought to provide new histories of the book and examine the role and position of readers within that history. This conference not only aims to explore the issues that surround reading in the period c1830-1901, it also seeks to explore the ways in which the Victorian period is read today. Increased literacy, unprecedented developments in publishing, the widespread availability of texts through periodicals and a new library culture: all mark out the nineteenth century as one of the most active in terms of the 'reading experience'. But how did readers of the time set about their task, and how should the modern critic or teacher set about theirs? What engagement did readers in the period have with the whole machinery of producing and disseminating books, with publishing houses, with libraries, with periodicals, and how do such material considerations affect our reading of the Victorians today? What did the act of reading mean for them - and what does it mean for us?

Possible themes might include, but are not limited to:

• the Victorians and book collections, libraries, literary institutions
• the Victorian periodical
• nineteenth century bibliomania
• mass literacy
• readers at the margins, or annotators of books
• readers as editors - collation of scrapbooks/manuscript volumes
• public readings
• the publishing of Victorian literature and criticism today
• circulating libraries and the public libraries
• writers writing about reading
• book clubs/associations/exchanges between readers
• 'proper' reading/censorship of texts
• reading the Victorians in the university environment, and outside it
• how to record acts of reading - the use and suitability of new technologies in research on the history of reading/readers

Proposals (no more than 300 words) for papers of 20 minutes duration should be sent to the organisers, Dr Matthew Bradley and Dr Juliet John, via email to m.d.bradley@liverpool.ac.uk and j.john@liverpool.ac.uk by August 31st 2008. Confirmed speakers for the conference include David Bebbington, Philip Davis, Simon Eliot, and Kate Flint.

The conference will take place at St Deiniol's Library, which was founded by the Victorian statesman and polymath William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898). The Library is the National Memorial to Gladstone and is both the only residential library and purpose-built prime ministerial library in the United Kingdom. Part of the programme will consist of the official launch of the Gladstone's Reading Database. The research for this project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (2006-09), has been conducted at St Deiniol's, and the database represents a virtual recreation of Gladstone's library, and a unique and comprehensive record of his reading of each item. For further details about the database, please contact m.d.bradley@liverpool.ac.uk.

Citation, Intertextuality, Memory in the Middle Ages: Text, Music, Image

29 - 30 January 2009
University of Exeter, Streatham Campus, Reed Hall

Recent books on memory in the Middle Ages are stimulating the interest of scholars across a range of disciplines. The theme of citation and intertextuality continues to attract attention, especially that of literary studies but equally scholars from other disciplines concerned with the Middle Ages, including history, art history, religious studies, musicology. This conference’s aim is to stimulate further scrutiny of these themes with papers exploring intertextual practices and manifestations of borrowings, modellings, allusions, and other evocations of pre-existing material, and on the overall role of memory in medieval culture.

We wish to remind you all of this upcoming conference, which should be of interest to scholars and graduate students in a range of disciplines. Twenty papers will be presented by specialists in medieval literature, art, music, history, liturgy, and book history, including Sarah Kay (Princeton), Lina Bolzoni (Pisa), Anna Maria Busse Berger (UC Davis), Wim Verbaal (Ghent), Barton Palmer (Clemson), Jacques Boogaart (Amsterdam), Emma Cayley (Exeter), and Naomi Howell (Exeter).

The full programme is available here. The conference will run for two full days, and on the evening of Thursday 29 there will be a reception and a concert on the theme of 'Citation and Memory' that will present some of the musical works discussed in some of the papers, amongst others.

The Form of the Book: A one-day conference on book design

30 January 2009 - 10am–5.30pm
St Bride Library, London

The Form of the Book brings together highly acclaimed graphic designers, design critics and design historians to discuss various aspects of book design.

Themes such as materiality, typographic detailing, design historiography, artist’s books, methods of production and design ideology run throughout the day, in an exciting line-up of international speakers.

With Chrissie Charlton, Jenny Eneqvist / Roland Früh / Corina Neuenschwander, James Goggin, Sarah Gottlieb, Richard Hollis, Mevis & Van Deursen and Catherine de Smet

Curated by Sara De Bondt and Fraser Muggeridge

Tickets (please book early to guarantee a place):

• Full rate: £60 / £50 Friends of St Bride Library
• Students, over 60s: £30 / £25 Friends of St Bride Library

More details: http://www.stbride.org/events?show=theformofthebook

Medieval Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age (week-long course)

16 - 21 February 2009
Cambridge and London

The Institute of English Studies (London) is pleased to announce a new AHRC-funded course in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, the Warburg Institute, and King's College London.

The course involves six days of intensive training on the analysis, description and editing of medieval manuscripts in the digital age to be held jointly in Cambridge and London. Participants will receive a solid theoretical foundation and hands-on experience in cataloguing and editing manuscripts for both print and digital formats.

The first three days involve classes in the morning and then visits to libraries in Cambridge and London in the afternoon. Participants will view original manuscripts and gain practical experience in applying the morning's themes to concrete examples. The final three days focus on cataloguing and describing manuscripts in a digital format with particular emphasis on the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI). These three days will also combine theoretical principles and practical experience and include supervised work on computers.

The course is free of charge and open to all arts and humanities doctoral students registered at UK institutions. It is principally aimed at those writing dissertations which relate to medieval manuscripts, especially those on literature, art and history. Priority will be given to PhD students funded by the AHRC. Class sizes are limited to twenty and places are 'first-come-first-served' so early registration is strongly recommended.

For further details, including a schedule and application form, see http://ies.sas.ac.uk/study/mmsda/ or contact Dr Peter Stokes at mmsda@sas.ac.uk.

Scribal culture, literature, music and theatre in Renaissance Italy

20 February 2009 - 2pm-5pm
Old Combination Room, Trinity College, Cambridge

Building on recent interest in manuscript as a means of communication in early modern France, Great Britain and Spain, this workshop is one of a series of events that are planned to shed light on the still under-researched topic of scribal culture in Italy. Three experts in Renaissance Italian literature and music will assess the significance of scribal culture within their own fields of research. There will also be an opportunity to examine and discuss manuscripts drawn from the Puckering Collection in the library of Trinity College.

We welcome participation by all those interested in the histories of literature, music and the book in early modern Europe.

Programme

14.00 Introduction

Chair: Professor David McKitterick, Cambridge

14.05 Dr Abigail Brundin (Cambridge): Manuscript poetry in Renaissance Italy

14.35 Professor Iain Fenlon (Cambridge): Circulating novelties: Italian music in manuscript and print

15.05 Dr Lisa Sampson (Reading): Manuscript drama in Italy, c. 1480-1600

15.35 Discussion of papers and of a selection of manuscripts from Trinity College Library

16.15 Dr Angus Vine and Dr Sebastian Verveij (Cambridge): Presentation of the AHRC-funded Scriptorium Project (Faculty of English, University of Cambridge), and further discussion

17.00 Close

The workshop is open to all. There is no charge for attendance but space is limited. To reserve a place or for more information, please contact Filippo de Vivo (f.de-vivo@bbk.ac.uk) or Brian Richardson (b.f.richardson@ leeds.ac.uk).

Book History Research Network Study Day

6 March 2009 - 9am-5pm
Centre for the History of the Book at the University of Edinburgh

No charge.

Papers are invited from postgraduates, scholars, and independent researchers that address themes related to the sociology of texts, authorship, text and image, reading cultures, and printing and publishing histories.

Bill Bell, the general editor of the Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, will deliver a keynote address entitled 'Scotland in the Empire of Print'. The symposium will also feature a panel of experts in a round-table discussion, 'Practising Book History'.

Abstracts for 20 minute papers and a short biography should be sent to: Johanna.Archbold@gmail.com by Friday 23 January 2009. Speakers will be notified by Friday 30 January 2009.

The Book History Research Network is currently based at the Centre for Irish- Scottish and Comparative Studies at Trinity College Dublin. Its aim is to bring together postgraduates, academics, teachers, and independent researchers working in any area or period of ‘the history of the book’. Its hosts a web register of Book History Researchers and two Study Days a year in various locations throughout the UK and Ireland.

Conference: www.tcd.ie/ciss/bhrn

Printing Historical Society: Lecture

12 March 2009 - 6pm
St Bride Foundation, London

The Two Earliest Illustrated Books of Hours
Dr Cristina Dondi

Dr Cristina Dondi will speak to the Printing Historical Society. All welcome.

For details contact Dr Rathna Ramanathan, rrnathan@m9design.com

Publishing for Social Change

12 March 2009
Oxford Brookes University, Oxford

Publishing for Social Change is a one-day conference for people who write and publish for a fairer, more inclusive, peaceful and sustainable world. Whether you produce leaflets, books, blog posts, magazines, news-sheets, research reports aimed at influencing policy, or email postings to internet news groups, or carry out research in these areas, we hope you will come andshare your experiences and ideas. Speakers include:

• Sigrid Rausing, co-founder of Portobello Books
• Anne Beech, Managing Director of Pluto Books
• Alice Cutler, The Trapese Collective; co-author of Do it Yourself: a Handbook for Changing our World (Pluto 2007)
• Firoze Manji, founder and Director of Fahamu, the pan-African human rights information network
• Rahila Gupta, member of Southall Black Sisters; author of Enslaved: The New British Slavery (Portobello, 2007)
• Rob Cornford, Communications Manager, Oxfam
• Sarah Sexton and Larry Lohman, The Corner House research group
• Andrew Burgin, founder of the Porcupine Bookcellar at Housmans Bookshop
• Chris Brazier, co-editor of The New Internationalist, the Oxford-based social-justice magazine

The conference is sponsored by the Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies (OICPS) at Oxford Brookes University, home of Brookes's long-established BA and MA courses in Publishing.

Registration: £25 (£10 for students and unwaged) includes refreshments and a sandwich lunch.

To book, please see the conference website for a downloadable booking form http://ah.brookes.ac.uk/conference/publishing_for_social_change/

For latest information about the conference, and to be added to the announcement list, please contact Bob Hughes (the organiser of this conference): bhughes@brookes.ac.uk

Communities and Networks in the Book Trade

13 March 2009
Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester

This is the last in a series of three Workshops linked to the research, funded by the British Academy, of Dr John Hinks (Honorary Fellow at the Centre for Urban History) into book-trade networks in provincial English towns from the lapse of the Licensing Act in 1695 (which removed restrictions on provincial printing) to 1850, with a particular focus on the Midlands and East Anglia.

The Workshop will take a broad interdisciplinary approach to the history of communities and networks in the various branches of the book trade. Specific topics include pedlar networks, Samuel Pepys, publishers' booklists, and newspaper networks, plus more theoretical papers on networks in the book trade and opportunities for informal discussion. For a poster and programme see: www.le.ac.uk/urbanhist/news/news_pdfs/mar09/booktrade3.pdf

All are welcome, whether or not they attended the previous Workshops. There is no charge as the Workshop is supported by British Academy funding. A sandwich lunch will be provided for registered delegates. To reserve a place email John Hinks - jh241@le.ac.uk

Literary Transfers, France, Great Britain, North America: the transatlantic and trans-Channel circulation of novels and plays in the 20th/21st centuries (Study Day)

13 March 2009
CRIDAF (Centre de recherches interculturelles sur les domaines anglophones et francophones), Université Paris 13.

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Transferts littéraires France, Grande-Bretagne, Amérique du Nord: Circulation de romans et pièces de théâtre aux 20ème et 21ème siècles (Journée d'études)
Vendredi 13 mars 2009
CRIDAF (Centre de recherches interculturelles sur les domaines anglophones et francophones), Université Paris 13

Programme

9h: Ouverture / Opening Remarks: Claire Parfait, Directrice du CRIDAF / head of the CRIDAF

9h15-10h 45 Atelier roman / The novel (1): Editions et collections / Publishers and Collections
Présidence de séance / Chair: Marie-Françoise Cachin (Université Paris 7-Denis Diderot)
-Isabelle Olivero (Bibliothèque nationale de France): Le roman étranger dans les collections éditoriales de la première moitié du 20e siècle : regards croisés, France-Angleterre-Etats-Unis
-Michele K. Troy (University of Hartford, Connecticut): The Albatross Press : Selling English Books in France
-Stéphanie Danaux (Université de Montréal / Université de Poitiers): Le modèle français dans le renouveau de l'image et du texte aux éditions Albert Lévesque de Montréal

10h45-11h: pause café / coffee break

11h-12h 30: Atelier théâtre / theater (1): Etudes de cas Présidence de séance / Chair : Claude Coulon (Université Paris IV)
-Léontaridou, Dora (Université Paris3): Un double transfert: Des USA en France, du roman au théâtre : l'adaptation par André Roussin et Madeleine Gray d'Hélène retour de Troie, de John Erskine
-Caroline Marie (Université Paris8): Deux récentes adaptations sur la scène française de A Room of One's Own de Virginia Woolf
-Christiane Prioult (Université de Strasbourg) : L'adaptation de Requiem for a Nun, de Faulkner, pour la scène française.

12h30-13h30 : déjeuner / lunch

13h 30-15h : Atelier roman / The novel (2) : Prix, auteurs et genres / Prizes, authors and genres Présidence de séance / Chair : Françoise Bort (Université de Marne-la-Vallée)
-Susan Pickford (Université Paris 13) : Translation Rates of French and English Literary Prize winners: A Statistical Approach.
-Bertrand Ferrier (Université du Maine) : En anglais dans le texte (français) : Les transferts de la fantasy anglophone dans l'édition française pour la jeunesse.
-Laurence Cossu-Beaumont (Université de Picardie) : Richard Wright, écrivain noir américain en France: l'oeuvre en exil.

15h-15h 15 : pause café / coffee break

15h 15- 16h 45 : Atelier théâtre / theatre (2) : Approches sociologiques
Présidence de séance / Chair : Agathe Torti-Alcayaga, (Université Paris13)
-Bibiane Fréché (FNRS) : Le Vieux-Colombier, le Rideau et Broadway : le théâtre américain s'invite à Paris et Bruxelles après la Libération.
-Florent Viguier (Université Bordeaux3) : Théâtre : connaissance et reconnaissance de l'œuvre sur un territoire : Le cas emblématique de la diffusion de l'œuvre de l'Australien Daniel Keene sur le territoire aquitain.
-Pierre Banos (Directeur adjoint des Editions Théâtrales) : L'accueil des dramaturges de langue anglaise au sein des collections françaises.

16h 45- 17h 30 : table ronde / conclusion avec la participation de Claire David, Directrice de la collection Papiers des Editions Actes Sud / Round table and conclusion with the participation of Claire David (Collection Papiers, Actes Sud Ed)

Pour tout renseignement, s'adresser à / For information, please contact Claire Parfait (claire.parfait@univ-paris13.fr) ou / or Agathe Torti (agathetorti@yahoo.fr) Entrée libre mais inscription demandée avant le 2 mars pour le déjeuner (15 euros)/ please register before March 2 if you want to have lunch (15 euros). Pour s'inscrire / to register : http://www-lshs.univ-paris13.fr/Enseignants/images/4/4b/RegformMarch13.pdf

Se rendre à l'université Paris 13 / to get there : http://www.univ-paris13.fr/CRIDAF/Axc.htm

What Did Mr Miniver Read? The Fears and Aspirations of the Masculine Middlebrow Writer, 1880-1950

13 - 14 March 2009
Institute of English Studies, University of London

Call for papers
Deadline: 30 September 2008

For all other information please check the CFP on http://ies.sas.ac.uk/events/conferences/2009/Middlebrow/index.htm

Postgraduate bursaries: We are very pleased to announce that The Bibliographical Society have kindly awarded funding for postgraduate bursaries for this conference. If you are a postgraduate student, at any university, and wish to apply for a bursary (to cover the cost of the conference fees only), please mention this when you send your abstract, and attach a letter of confirmation from your supervisor.

Kate Macdonald (University of Ghent) & Mary Grover (University of Sheffield Hallam)

Walter Wilson Greg (9 July 1875-4 March 1959): Aspects of a Life - A Celebration to Mark the Fiftieth Anniversary of his Death

14 March 2009
Trinity College, Cambridge

This occasion has been supported by Trinity College, Cambridge and the Centre for Textual Scholarship, De Montfort University.

Programme

9.30: Introduction

Session 1: Chair (N. J. Barker, Editor, The Book Collector)
9.35: David McKitterick (Trinity College, Cambridge): Greg and Trinity College Library
10.00: Michael Caines (Times Literary Supplement): Greg Beyond Bibliography
10.25: Adam Green (Trinity College, Cambridge): The Differences between Greg and McKerrow

10.45: Coffee

Session 2: Chair: Germaine Warkentin (University of Toronto)
11.00: Arnold Hunt (British Library): Greg, Pollard and McKerrow
11.30: A. S. G. Edwards (De Montfort University): Greg and Medieval Literature
12.00: Laurie Maguire (Magdalen College, Oxford): Greg as Literary Critic

12.30: Lunch (in Trinity College)

Session 3: Chair: Peter Beal (University of London)
1.30: Gary Taylor (Florida State University): From Jerome to Greg to Jerome (McGann)
2.00: Trevor Howard-Hill (University of South Carolina): Greg as Bibliographer
2.30: H. R. Woudhuysen (University College London): Greg's Rationale of Transcription

3.00 Tea

Session 4: Chair: Christa Jansohn (Bamberg University)
3.15: Grace Ioppolo (University of Reading): Documenting Dramatic Documents: Greg and Early Modern Manuscripts
3.45: Sukanta Chaudhuri (Jadavpur University): W. W. Greg, Postmodernist

4.15: Concluding remarks

The fee for this Conference will be £20 (£10 for graduate students), which covers lunch and refreshments. Those wishing to attend should send a cheque for the appropriate amount to Professor David McKitterick, Trinity College, Cambridge, CB2 1TQ, made payable to him. As food etc. has to be ordered in advance Dr McKitterick needs to receive cheques not later than 10 March.

Accommodation will not be available in Trinity College during the conference.

Joseph Haydn and the business of music

14 - 15 March 2009
The British Library Conference Centre, London

Haydn's music has been a mainstay of concert life in London since the 1790s, when the composer directed performances during two extended visits there. The conference features an international panel of speakers presenting the latest scholarship on Haydn's life, works, and the publication and reception of his music.

Speakers include Péter Barna, Otto Biba, Rachel Cowgill, Alan Davison, Ingrid Fuchs, Caroline Grigson, Miguel Ángel Marín, Balázs Mikusi, David Rowland, Wiebke Thormählen, Tom Tolley, Chris Wiley, and David Wyn Jones.

Full programme details are available here: www.bl.uk/haydn

Fee: £25 (both days); £15 (one day)
BL Box Office: +44 (0)1937 546546 or boxoffice@bl.uk

Enquiries to Dr Rupert Ridgewell
Music Collections
The British Library
96 Euston Road
London NW1 2DB
020 7412 7526
email: rupert.ridgewell@bl.uk

This event coincides with Haydn's Brave New World, a series of concerts at nearby Kings Place given by the Classical Opera Company and featuring Haydn's most innovative symphonies and highlights from his operas.

For information about the series and online booking, see: http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/music/weekly-themes?theme=34

Gough Day

20 March 2009 - 10am-6pm
Seminar Room, Bodleian Library

A celebration of the life and collections of Richard Gough (1735-1809)

More details to follow on http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/csb/calendar1.htm

Women's Reading in the Nineteenth Century: A Symposium

26 March 2009 - 10am-4pm
Institute of English Studies, University of London

Organised by the Reading Experience Database 1450-1945, the Open University Book History and Bibliography Research Group, and the Institute of English Studies

Confirmed respondents: David Finkelstein (Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh), Gill Sutherland (Newnham College, Cambridge)

Confirmed speakers: Christina de Bellaigue (Exeter College, Oxford), Rosalind Crone (The Open University), Ella Dzelzainis (King’s College, London), Katie Halsey (IES, University of London), Naomi Hetherington (London Metropolitan University), Mark Towsey (University of Liverpool)

'Much may be learned with regard to lovely woman by a look at the book she reads in.' (Thackeray).

What did women in the nineteenth-century read? How did they read it? What assumptions were made about women’s reading at the time? The purpose of this symposium is to consider the different ways in which nineteenth-century female readers reacted to the texts that they encountered, in particular within different institutional and social groups, such as prisons, schools and literary networks. We will discuss the textual matter that women read, and the spectrum of responses to reading that they recorded; these range from compliant devotion to furious resistance. Such responses tell us not only about 'lovely woman' herself, but also about the cultural conditions in which nineteenth-century women became readers.

The day will end with a visit to the Women's Library in Whitechapel, including a guided tour of the collections and the exhibition Between the Covers: the Politics and Pleasure of Women's Magazines.

Places are limited – please RSVP to Katie.Halsey@sas.ac.uk and R.H.Crone@open.ac.uk by 1 March 2009 to confirm your attendance.

Library and Information History Group: One Day Annual Conference

27 March 2009
Chartered Institute of Information Professionals, 7 Ridgmount Street, London WC1E 7AE

Annual One Day Conference of the Library and Information History Group - booking now! All welcome.

The day's event will include a plenary session chaired by Dr Toni Weller and Professor Alistair Black on the future directions of Library and Information History.

Featured speakers include:

Karen Attar: The library of Augustus de Morgan
John Bowman: Schools' of librarianship in 1900
Neil Barton: The birth of telegraphic news in the UK
and Martine Poulain: Bombing and destruction of French libraries during World War Two

Programme

8.30am-9am Registration, coffee and welcome

9am-10.50am Panel 1
Martine Poulaine, Library of the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art: Bombing and destruction of French libraries during World War II
John Bowman, University College London, UK: 'Schools' of librarianship in 190
Bob Duckett, Leeds Metropolitan University; UK Editor, Bronte Studies; Reference Librarian (retired), Bradford City Libraries: Mr Wood and Mr Wise: navigating the bibliographical jungle, 1917-style
Liangyu Fu, University of Pittsburgh, USA: The making of 'Mecca' by selling science: John Fryer’s 'Chinese Scientific Book Depot'

10.50am-11am Coffee Break

11am-12.50pm Panel 2
Benito Rial Costas: An analysis and interpretation of a fifteenth and sixteenth-century library inventory
Karen Attar, Senate House Library, London, UK: The library of Augustus de Morgan
Lucy Gywnn: The English library: 1600-1700: its development, its arrangement and its architecture
Katie Birkwood, St. John’s College Library, Cambridge, UK: 'Our pious and learned Primate' and a 'rare treasurie': James ussher's use of Sir Robert Cotton’s manuscript library, c. 1603-1655

12.50pm-2pm Lunch

2pm-3.30pm Plenary Roundtable & Discussion
Professor Alistair Black, University of Illinois, USA
Professor James Raven, Essex University, UK
Dr Toni Weller, De Montfort University, Leicester & City University, London, UK
Future Directions for Library and Information History
The roundtable will be followed by presentation of this year’s Library and Information History Essay Prize 2008

3.30pm-3.40pm Coffee Break

3.40pm-5.30pm Panel 3
Neil Barton, University College, London, UK: The birth of telegraphic news in the UK
George Roe, House of Commons Library, London, UK: Challenging the control of knowledge in colonial India: political ideas in the work of S. R. Ranganathan
Leonard Houx: The modes of information
Kathleen Miller, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland: The intersection of early modern print culture and the 1665 London plague

5.30pm Conference close

6pm-8pm Drinks reception sponsored by Maney Publishing

Registration Fee: LIHG Members £40; Nonmembers £50. This fee includes one year's subscription to the Library and Information History Group.

Registration fee includes morning and afternoon refreshments, lunch, and an evening drinks reception sponsored by Maney Publishing.

Booking forms are available by contacting Shauna Barrett, LIHG Social Secretary, at shauna.barrett@ouls.ox.ac.uk or by post at 13 Howard Street, Oxford, OX4 3A.They will also be available on the LIHG website.

Formed in 1962, the Library and Information History Group (LIHG) is one of CILIP's oldest special interest groups and is the only group in the UK specifically devoted to the history of libraries and to the history of information. The LIHG emphasises the importance of library and information history as something that holds a real significance to the way in which we understand today's 'information society'.

The LIHG emphasises that library and information history is not just about historic collections but about how information and knowledge were used and thought of in the past, how information is preserved and collected in contemporary society, about how new technologies may be changing the way we interact with the past and how we safeguard the modern record.

For further information about the LIHG, forthcoming events, and the project s with which it is involved, please visit the Group website:http://www.cilip.org.uk/specialinterestgroups/bysubject/history

The cycles of novelty – recycling in eighteenth-century England (study day)

3 April 2009
Institut Charles V, 10 rue Charles V, 75004 Paris, France

A worn-out concept, a broken object, a hackneyed expression, a threadbare fabric, or text; waste materials of the mind and the world – such are the unlikely sources of our reflection on eighteenth-century England. We wish to study how eighteenth-century writers, philosophers, musicians, scientists, painters and craftsmen transmuted a faded past into fresh novelty by a circular and paradoxical process – what is known today as 'recycling.'

Just as a palimpsest combines destruction and creation, practices and representations of recycling necessarily bring together old and new, iconoclasm and reinvention. Recycling in its broadest sense includes the salvaging, subversion and recreation of ideas, texts, objects and materials and as such may be researched by looking at equivalent ideas in literature, history, or cultural history: quotation, plagiarism, copying, piracy, counterfeit, parody, pastiche, subversion, revision, amendment, palimpsest for literature; reaction, revival, circulation, mutation, appropriation, conversion for history; the processes of consumption, wear and tear, scavenging, refurbishment, repair, salvage, recovery, restoration, alteration, renovation and (re)invention as far as material culture is concerned.

If the process of creating novelty is circular, is it as stable and predictable as a chemical reaction? Is nothing really lost and nothing created? Or does the process of recycling necessarily imply that something is lost and consumed either materially or culturally?

Recycling offers a wide trans-disciplinary perspective on the eighteenth century, allowing forays into sociology, cultural history, literature, philosophy, the history of ideas, objects and techniques. The market economy of second-hand objects is as relevant as the impact of recycling on social groups (highlighting the peculiar plight of the culturally central and yet socially marginal figures of pawnbrokers, scavengers and scrap-dealers). The question of renewing, re-inventing or lengthening the life cycles of objects can further be applied to ideas and cultural artefacts, allowing us to consider in a new light literary or philosophical debates, such as the controversy opposing Ancients and Moderns, or the Lockean notion of the soul and its possible reincarnations.

You are invited to submit your proposals to the workshop which will take place on Friday, 3rd April 2009. A second meeting is expected to take place as a two-day conference in 2010, to extend the boundaries of our research, possibly including other countries and centuries. Please send your proposals (max 300 words) to the organisers by 30th January 2009, at the following addresses: ariane.fennetaux@univ-paris-diderot.fr, junka@free.fr

Organisers: Dr Ariane Fennetaux, Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7; Dr Amélie Junqua, Université de Picardie Jules Verne

Visit the website at http://www.ufr-anglais.univ-paris7.fr/COLLOC_CHV/menu.html

Book historical research seminar

17 April 2009
Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp

The Book Studies Research Unit of the University of Antwerp and the Plantin-Moretus Museum are organising a book-historical research seminar conducted by

Prof. Serge Gruzinski
Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris
on 'World Culture' et la mondialisation du livre au xvie siècle
on Friday, 17 April 2009, at the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp

Using the rich collections of the Antwerp Museum Plantin-Moretus, the speaker will explain how, during the 16th century, the culture of the printed word spread from Antwerp to Asia and America. How did Plantin's Polyglot Bible end up on the reading table of the Chinese emperor? Did the world become portable thanks to Ortelius' Theatrum orbis terrarum? Can we, from that moment on, speak of a globalisation of print culture?

Prof. Serge Gruzinski is directeur de recherche at the cnrs and directeur d'études at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris. He lectures on culture and society of Colonial America and researches manifestations of the Iberian globalisation in the 16th century. He is the author of dozens of books and articles on the cultural history of Latin America

The research seminar is a first initiative in an international-focussed series of seminars titled The Antwerp Chapters.

Programme

10.00am reception and coffee
10.30am lecture by S. Gruzinski
12.30pm sandwich lunch
1.30pm round table, discussion
3.00pm closing reception

Participants are invited to the opening of the exhibition In the wake of Columbus. Antwerp books and prints around the world (7.00pm).

The research seminar is directed at everyone with an active interest in the history of the printed book: historians, book historians, art historians, historians of literature, doctoral students, ... Participants read, before hand, two articles assigned by S. Gruzinski and participate actively in the discussion. The articles will be sent to you after confirmation of registration.

The lecture is given in French. The discussion will be held in French and English.

Registration: The number of participants is limited to 25. Timely registration is therefore necessary. Registration is possible through 28 February 2009, and costs 20 Euro (this includes materials, drinks, and sandwich lunch). Send an email to pierre.delsaerdt@ua.ac.be, with your full name, affiliation, and street address. You will receive a confirmation of registration and a payment request. A certificate of participation can be offered to doctoral students by request.

An initiative of the Book Studies Research Unit of the University of Antwerp and the Museum Plantin-Moretus/Print Collection unesco World Heritage in cooperation with the Centre of Mexican Studies (University of Antwerp) with support of Cultura s.o.n. (Brussels).

Scribal Culture in Italy, 1450-1650 - Material Culture and the Production of Manuscripts

8 May 2009 - 2pm
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

What were the material objects related to writing and how did they shape the ways in which writing was possible? Where and how easily could one write? How did private houses allow individuals to concentrate on writing? What main styles of handwriting and decoration were used? Building on recent interest in manuscript as a means of communication in early modern France, Great Britain and Spain, this workshop is one of a series of AHRC funded events that are planned to shed light on the still under-researched topic of scribal culture in Italy.

We welcome participation by all those interested in the histories of the book and material culture, by historians, art historians, curators and palaeographers.

Programme

14.00 Seminar Room A - Introduction
Chair: Professor Evelyn Welch (Queen Mary, University of London)

14.05 Dr Flora Dennis (Sussex): Studying and writing in the domestic environment

14.35 Dr Rowan Watson (V&A): Earning salvation: the demand for books of hours in Italy around 1500

15.05 Discussion

15.30 Dr Kirstin Kennedy, Nick Humphrey, and Peta Motture (V&A): presentation of objects associated with writing (inkstands; pounceboxes; portable writing desks; pen/knife cases; document cases; book/missal cases; spectacle cases; ink well cases; other small objects in metalwork and ceramic). Further discussion.

16.30 Dr Robyn Adams (Queen Mary, University of London): presentation of the AHRC funded Centre for Editing Lives and Letters‚ work on the diplomatic correspondence of Thomas Bodley (1585-88): Matching manuscripts and electronic knowledge transfer. Further discussion

Papers‚ abstracts are available at: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/hca/about/conferences/scribalculture

The workshop is open to all and there is a limited number of post-graduate bursaries to cover all or part of the cost of attending. There is no charge for attendance but space is limited. To reserve a place or for more information, please contact Filippo de Vivo (f.de-vivo@bbk.ac.uk) or Brian Richardson (b.f.richardson@ leeds.ac.uk). To find out about the project and the other workshops in the series, see http://www.bbk.ac.uk/hca/about/conferences/scribalculture

NOTE: The following workshop will be held in the Wellcome Library, London, on Friday 5 June 2009.

SUPPORTED BY THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL

Writing as Material Practice: surface, substance and medium (the UCL Institute of Archaeology Annual Conference)

15 - 17 May 2009
UCL Institute of Archaeology, 31-34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY

Organisers: Dr. Kathryn E. Piquette and Prof. Ruth Whitehouse

Scope
Whereas content meaning has been the main focus of research on written evidence, this international conference seeks to explore past 'writing' and related symbolic modes in relation to material practice, performance and sensory experience. Papers are sought that, through case studies, will emphasise the artefactual nature of writing--the ways in which materials, techniques, colour, scale, orientation or visibility inform the creation of inscribed objects and landscapes, and structure subsequent engagement, perception and meaning making.

Abstract submission
Please submit paper proposals of 500 words to materialityofwriting@googlemail.com by 31 December 2008. Abstracts should be submitted as word files and include your name, tit le, institutional affiliation (if appropriate) and full contact details. If you do not plan to give a paper but would like to register your interest, please get in touch!

Suggested Themes
The many possible engagements with our theme include but are not limited to:

Defining 'Writing': How do we know when writing is ‘writing’? Is this category appropriate for characterising past forms of graphical symbolic expression?
Scribal Technology: How do materials, tools and technological choices relate to the expression and meaning of writing?
Inscribed Object Worlds: How does the substance, surface, shape or size of an object inform the expression and meaning of writing thereon?
Inscribed Landscapes: In what ways do ‘natural’ and built landscapes construct and influence written meanings?
Writing as Embodied Practice and Performance: How does the physical expression of writing inform physical and sensory engagements?
Hidden and Absent Writing: What is the social significance of writing if it is invisible or absent?
Methodology: What practice- and materials-based methods can be developed for the study of past writing, from documentation during excavation, analysis, interpretation and publication, to teaching and learning?

Conference format

Papers will be pre-circulated 2 weeks in advance and all participants will be expected to read pre-papers before hand.

On the day, each paper will be allotted a 40 minute time slot: 20 minutes for outlining main points of the pre-paper and 20 minutes dedicated to discussion.

Conference proceedings
We are intending to offer an edited volume of conference papers to Left Coast Press for publication, for inclusion in their Institute of Archaeology series.

Conference website: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/events/conferences/writing-2009/index.htm

Justin Howes Memorial Lecture

28 May 2009 - 7pm
Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL [note change of venue!]

Matthew Carter: Genuine imitations: a type designer's view of revivals

Due to popular demand the Justin Howes Memorial Lecture has been moved to Conway Hall and there are now more tickets available. (8/4)

A number of Matthew Carter's designs have been based on historical types: ITC Galliard, Big Caslon, Big Figgins, Miller and Vincent among them. Others, like Snell Roundhand and Mantinia, were derived from non-typographic sources from the past. In this lecture he explains his debt to the historical legacy - especially to the resources of St Bride's. His type revivals have varied in faithfulness to their models, which raises questions about the responsibilities of the continuator of traditional forms, about degrees of interpretation, adaptation to current technology, ancestor worship and travesty. Justin Howes would certainly have disapproved of some, at least, of Matthew's revivals. This lecture is offered, therefore, in affectionate memory of a historian and fellow type-reviver who might not have agreed, but certainly enjoyed a good argument.

Matthew Carter is a type designer with fifty years' experience of typographic technologies ranging from hand-cut punches to computer fonts. He is a principal of Carter & Cone Type Inc., in Cambridge, Massachusetts, designers and producers of original typefaces. His type designs include ITC Galliard, Snell Roundhand, Bell Centennial, Big Caslon, Skia and Miller. For Microsoft he designed the screen fonts Verdana, Tahoma and Georgia. Carter is a Royal Designer for Industry and a recipient of the AIGA medal and the Type Directors Club medal. In 2004 he received the Special Commendation of the Prince Philip Designers Prize 'for outstanding achievement in design for business and society'. He has taught for many years at Yale's graduate school of Graphic Design.

Admission is free but by pre-booked ticket only.

Analysing Manuscripts - Textual Scholarship and the Sciences

29 May 2009
University Main Building, Room 215, University of Berne, Hochschulstrasse 4, CH-3012 Berne, Switzerland

Conference Organizers: Prof. Dr. Michael Stolz (University of Berne, Department of German Studies); Prof. Dr. Chris Howe, Dr. Heather Windram(University of Cambridge, Department of Biochemistry)

Sponsors: The Leverhulme Trust; Maria Bindschedler Donation

Conference website (including abstracts): http://www.parzival.unibe.ch/conference09.html

Programme
9.15 Opening
9.30 Michael Stolz (University of Berne, Department of German Studies): Copying Processes. Phylogenetic and Philological Aspects
10.15 Caroline Macé, Ilse De Vos, Erika Gielen (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven): Phylogram versus Stemma. Comparing Methods
11.00 Coffee Break in the 'Cafeteria Maximum'
11.30  Kaspar Riesen (University of Berne, Department of Information Technology and Applied Mathematics): Analysis of Complex Data by Means of Graph Edit Distance. Basic Properties and Applications in Pattern Recognition
12.15  Heather Windram (University of Cambridge, Department of Biochemistry): A Phylogenetic Analysis of Poetry by Robert Herrick, a 17th Century English Poet
13.00 Lunch in the 'Bistro UniS'
14.15 Wendy J. Phillips-Rodriguez (National Autonomous University of Mexico, Institute for Philological Re-search): Scripts vs. Manuscripts. Two independent speciation processes in the Mahabharata textual tradition [subject to confirmation]
15.00 Andreas Fischer (University of Berne, Department of Information Technology and Applied Mathematics): Automatic Transcription of Handwritten Medieval Documents
15.45 Coffee Break in the 'Bistro Bar UniS'
16.15  Tuomas Heikkilä (Helsinki University, Department of History): Comparing and using Methods of computer-assisted Stemmatology. A Manuscript Scholar's View
17.00 Conclusion
19.00 Dinner in the ‘Restaurant Altes Tramdepot’ (near the Bärengraben)

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Michael Stolz
University of Berne
Department of German Studies
Länggass-Str. 49
CH-3000 Berne 9
Switzerland
Tel: +41 31 631 83 04
Fax: +41 31 631 37 88
E-mail: michael.stolz@germ.unibe.ch
URL: http://www.parzival.unibe.ch/stolz/

Scribal Culture in Italy 1450-1650: Science, Medicine, and Philosophy

5 June 2009 - 2pm
Wellcome Institute, London

What were the relations between scribal culture and the culture of certain professions? In which areas would manuscript’s ability to circumvent censorship offer special advantages? Building on recent interest in manuscript as a means of communication in early modern France, Great Britain and Spain, this workshop is one of a series of AHRC funded events that are planned to shed light on the still under-researched topic of scribal culture in Italy. We welcome participation by all those interested in the histories of science, medicine, philosophy, and the book in early modern Europe, by historians, art historians, librarians, curators and palaeographers.

Programme

14.00 Wellcome Institute, Mendel Room 1 – Introduction
Chair: Professor John Henderson (Birkbeck College, London)

14.05 Dr Silvia De Renzi (Open University): All kinds of writing and no need to publish: the manuscripts of papal physician Giulio Mancini (1559-1630)

14.35 Dr Monica Azzolini (Edinburgh): Learning Medicine and Astrology at Fifteenth-Century Italian Universities: the case of BL MS. Arundel 88

15.05 Dr David Lines (Warwick): Manuscripts on ethics: Niccol&graveo; Tignosi in Florence, c. 1470, and Agostino Galesio in Bologna, c.1600

15.35 Discussion

16.15 Wellcome Library, Viewing Room – Dr Maria Pia Donato (Cagliari), presentation of Wellcome manuscripts related to the history of medicine.

Papers' abstracts are available at: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/hca/about/conferences/scribalculture

The workshop is open to all and there is a limited number of post-graduate bursaries to cover all or part of the cost of attending. There is no charge for attendance but space is limited. To reserve a place or for more information, please contact Filippo de Vivo (f.de-vivo@bbk.ac.uk) or Brian Richardson (b.f.richardson@ leeds.ac.uk). To find out about the project and the other workshops in the series, see http://www.bbk.ac.uk/hca/about/conferences/scribalculture

NOTE: The following workshop will be held at the John Rylands University Library in Manchester on Friday 3 July 2009, on the theme of 'Manuscript and print'.

Seminar on Textual Bibliography for Modern Foreign Languages

15 June 2009
Meeting Rooms 3 & 4, Conference Centre, The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB

Programme
10.45 Registration and Coffee
11.15 W. A. Kelly (Edinburgh) Sixteenth-century German books in Edinburgh libraries
12.15 Lunch (Own arrangements)
1.45 François Dupuigrenet (Florida State University) Counterfeited editions of the Port-Royal Bible (17th-18th centuries)
2.30 Dennis E. Rhodes (London) Two Mysterious Men from Faenza - or is it Three or Four? - in the sixteenth-century book trade
3.15 Tea
3.45 Shlomo Berger (Amsterdam) Producing books for the masses: the Yiddish book industry in the 17th and 18th centuries
4.30 Janet Zmroczek (London) "Blotted from the map of Europe": representations of Poland and mid-19th century Polish refugees in contemporary British publications, 1830-1863

The Seminar will end at 5.15 pm.

Please notify us by email if you are able to attend. If you know of colleagues who might like to attend, please pass on the invitation!

Barry Taylor (barry.taylor@bl.uk; tel + 44 (0)20 7412 7576)
Susan Reed (susan.reed@bl.uk; tel + 44 (0)20 7412 7572)

The History of Books for Children and Young Adults

16 June 2009
University of Bedfordshire, Polhill Campus, Bedford

The University of Bedfordshire is hosting a forthcoming one-day conference on the history of books for children and young adults to be held on the 16th June 2009 at the Polhill Campus, Bedford. The Hockliffe archive comprises works of fiction and non-fiction for children from the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These include a wide range of literary genres, from fables and fairy tales, through periodicals and instruction books, to poetry and fiction, as well as books on games and pastimes, natural science, history, mathematics, geography and travel, (amongst others).

We do not, however, wish to restrict papers to work on books actually in the collection, although papers on these are of course very welcome, but instead we wish to use the conference as an occasion to celebrate the long and vibrant history of publications aimed at children and young adults, and the increasingly multi-disciplinary areas of research with which this has been associated. We therefore welcome contributions that centre on the following very broad topics and themes:

• Academic approaches to children's, young adult (YA) and crossover literature
• The history of children's book illustration, including work on picture books, comics and graphic novels
• The representation of children and childhood in fiction and non- fiction
• Multi-disciplinary work in the fields of childhood and youth studies
• The history of instruction books for children, from bible stories and hymns, through books on history, geography and travel, to natural science and mathematics
• Children's oral culture, including folklore, myths and legends
• Pedagogic theory and practice, from ABC books, to postgraduate courses on children's literature and culture and creative writing for young and YA readers
• The history of children's play and leisure, including research on toys, games, and sports
• Multi-media childhoods, including work on the history of children's television, film and computer games

Please note that proposed papers from postgraduate students are welcome.

The day's proceedings will end with readings by one or more contemporary children’s writers (please check the conference website for updates on this). See http://www.beds.ac.uk/research/rimad/hockcliffeconference

Other related topics and themes will be considered for inclusion in the conference programme. Please submit a 250 word abstract, accompanied by contact details and a brief biography, to be received by 17th April 2009, to the following address:

The Hockliffe Conference
c/o Dr Clare Walsh
Division of Performing Arts & English
University of Bedfordshire
Polhill Avenue
Bedford
MK41 9EA

Or by email to: hockliffe@beds.ac.uk

Romantic Disorder: Predisciplinarity and the Divisions of Knowledge 1750-1850

18 - 20 June 2009
Birkbeck, University of London

Romantic Disorder is hosted by the Institute of English Studies (Univ. of London) and the Centre for 19th Century Studies (Birkbeck, Univ. of London), with the support of the Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies (Birkbeck, University of London).

This conference explores the fluid and unfamiliar contours of predisciplinarity/adisciplinarity in an expansive Romantic Century, 1750-1850. We envision this conference as an opportunity to defamiliarize foundational moments, master narratives, and key figures of the Romantic century, by opening them up to predisciplinary and eccentric objects, encounters, and texts.

Modern disciplines like geology, history, and anthropology often trace their origins to Romantic-era developments. 'Literature,' as a distinct category of expressive writing also emerged in conjunction with other disciplines, a synthetic dialogue that would later be characterized as a contentious division between 'two cultures.' So too do sites such as the gallery, the museum, and the academy emerge around this time as new forms of sociability, as attempts to display unruly arrays of pictures and other eccentric specimens. What can Romantic-era aesthetic practices contribute to our understandings of the rise of disciplinarity in the nineteenth century? How can the increasing professionalization and isolation of practices like botany, literary criticism, geology, art and theatre reviews, and collecting illuminate the unruly dynamism of aesthetic forms, both verbal and visual? How do the spaces (whether institutional, geographic, or social) of predisciplinary encounters and formations help shape disciplinary discourses, and how do subjects with varying degrees of agency participate in these discourses? Reading against the grain of the 'rise of disciplinarity', and trying to undo its teleological short circuits, this conference seeks to engage imaginatively with the possibilities of predisciplinarity.

Plenaries
James Chandler, Barbara E. & Richard J. Franke Distinguished Service Professor in English, and Director of the Franke Institute of the Humanities (University of Chicago)
Jonathan Lamb, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities (Vanderbilt University)
Nicholas Thomas, Professor of Historical Anthropology, and Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Cambridge University)

Conference Committee: Luisa Calè, Adriana Craciun, Luciana Martins

Programme and registration details on conference website: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/eh/research/research_conferences/romantic_disorder

LOMERS (London Old and Middle English Research Seminar) Summer Conference: Studies in the Exeter Book

19 - 20 June 2009
Institute of English Studies, University of London Senate House, London

Registration Fees: £65 Standard; £45 Members/Concessions

Enquiries and Registration: Jon Millington, Events Officer, Institute of English Studies, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU; tel +44 (0) 207 664 4859; Email jon.millington@sas.ac.uk

Proceedings will be edited by Ruth Kennedy and Jennifer Neville.

Programme to be posted shortly: http://ies.sas.ac.uk/events/conferences/2009/Lomers/index.htm

London Palaeography Summer School

22 - 26 June 2009
Senate House, University of London, London

The London Palaeography Summer School is a series of intensive courses in Palaeography and Diplomatic. Courses are given by experts in their respective fields from a wide range of institutions.

In 2009, the Summer School will run a series of intensive courses throughout 22-26 June 2009. Courses will range from a half to two days duration and will include:

Introduction to Latin Palaeography;
Mediaeval Musical Notation;
Tools and materials of mediaeval craft manuscript makers;
Pigments: manufacture and use in book decoration;
Reading Middle English;
Quills and calligraphy: practical skills;
Getting to grips with English Local History: reading and interpreting title deeds, 1100-1924;
Papal Diplomatic;
Books of Hours I;
Books of Hours II;
German Palaeography;
Text and Image in Encyclopaedic, Philosophical and Scientific Manuscripts.

Further information and application forms are available from our website: http://ies.sas.ac.uk/cmps/events/courses/SummerSchool/index.htm

SHARP 2009: Tradition & InnovatioN - The state of book history / Le point sur l'histoire du livre

23 - 27 June 2009
St.Michael's College, University of Toronto, Canada

The conference theme, Tradition & InnovatioN, provides an opportunity to explore developments in the field of Book History. Professor Natalie Zemon Davis (Princeton and the University of Toronto) and Professor Dominique Kalifa (Paris 1) will deliver plenary addresses.

In keeping with previous SHARP conferences, we welcome proposals on all aspects of book history and print culture, but especially those that address issues related to the conference theme, such as:

the future of the discipline

methodologies: theory versus case studies?

the legacy of material bibliography

the 'newmedia' and book culture

trans-national approaches

the technologies of reading / assessing readerships

the evolving nature of authorship

book history and publishing studies

Presenters must be members of SHARP (by the time of registration) in order to present at the conference. For information on membership, please visit the SHARP website at http://www.sharpweb.org/

Proposals may be submitted in English or French for: a) individual papers of 20 minutes, which will be combined into 90-minute panel sessions by the Programme Committee; or, b) organized panels of three papers.

Deadline for submission is 30 November 2008.

Conference website: http://www.utoronto.ca/stmikes/sharp2009/

'Divers Manuscripts both Antient and Curious': Treasures from the Harley Collection

29 - 30 June 2009
British Library Conference Centre, London.

A two-day conference (29-30 June 2009) on illuminated manuscripts in the Harley collection, held at the British Library Conference Centre, London.

The Harley collection was formed by Robert Harley (d. 1724) and his son, Edward (d. 1741), 1st and 2nd earls of Oxford. Renowned even in its own day, it encompassed collections of sculpture, pictures, drawings, engravings, coins, printed books, and manuscripts, and provided a mirror of early 18th-century English aristocratic taste, in part shaped by the Grand Tour. Today only the manuscript collection remains intact: in 1753 it became one of the foundation collections of the British Museum, and subsequently the British Library. Out of about 7,660 manuscripts, around 2,000 contain significant decoration. Reflecting the broad and eclectic taste--and very considerable wealth—of its two founders, it is probably the most important intact privately-formed collection of illuminated manuscripts anywhere in the world.

The objective of the Harley conference is to publicise and celebrate the inclusion of these Harley manuscripts in the British Library’s Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts (www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts) project, and to encourage new research.

Programme

Day 1: Monday, 29 June

9:00-9:45 Registration

9:50-10:10 Welcome and Introduction to the Harley collection

Session 1 Chair: Scot McKendrick
10:10-10:40: Frances Harris: The Harleys as Collectors
10:40-11:10 Deirdre Jackson: Humfrey Wanley and the Harley Collection

11:10-11:30 Coffee and tea break

Session 2 Chair: Lucy Sandler
11:30-12:00 Colum Hourihane: Pontius Pilate in Thirteenth-century Manuscripts
12:00-12:30 Maud Perez-Simon: Stretching Models: Shedding Light on the Images and Text of MS Harley 4979

12:30-1:30 Lunch

Sarah Biggs: Demonstration of the digital Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts. Meeting Room 1

Session 3 Chair: Anne Hedeman
1:30-2:00 Marie-Thérèse Gousset: Christine de Pizan, Harley 4431 and the Master of the Cité des Dames
2:00-2:30 James Laidlaw: Tag the Queen's Manuscript? Elementary, my Dear Christine

2:30-3:00 Coffee and tea break

Session 4 Chair: Tony Edwards
3:00-3:30 Julian Luxford: The Aesthetics of Error in Harley 612
3:30-4:00 Sarah Pittaway: Text and Image in Harley 1766, Lydgate's Fall of Princes

4:00-4:15 Break

4:15-5:00 Introduction: Kathleen Doyle
Demonstration by Patricia Lovett: Gold on Parchment: A Consideration and Demonstration of the Tools and Materials used in Medieval Manuscripts

5:00-6:00 Introduction: John Lowden
Keynote speaker: Jeffrey Hamburger: The Hand of God and the Hand of the Scribe: Collaboration in the Scriptorium of the Abbey of Arnstein

6:00 Reception


 


Day 2: 30 June

9:50-10:10 Introduction and welcome

Session 5 Chair: David Ganz
10:10-10:40 Richard Gameson: The Artist of the Ramsey Psalter
10:40-11:10 Kathryn Rudy: Talismans in Harley Manuscripts

11:10-11:40 Coffee and tea break

Session 6 Chair: Jan Van der Stock
11:40-12:10 Hanno Wijsman: Harley 1310: Good Manners for a Burgundian Nobleman
12:10-12:40 Anne Hedeman: Advising France through the Example of England: Visual Narrative in the Livre de la prinse et mort du roy Richart (Harley 1319)
12:40-1:10 Jörg Völlnagel: Harley 3469: The Splendor Solis or The Splendour of the Sun: A German Alchemical Manuscript

1:10-2:55 Lunch


1:30-2:00 Sarah Biggs: Demonstration of the digital Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts. Meeting Room 1

2:10-2:50 AMARC Annual General Meeting: Meeting Room 2

Session 7 Chair: Alixe Bovey
2:55-3:25 Alison Walker: The Westminster Tournament Challenge and Thomas Wriothesley's Workshop
3:25-3:55 Marigold Anne Norbye: History in Diagram and Genealogical Tree: Pierre de Poitiers’ Compendium and a French Universal Roll Chronicle

3:55-4:20 Coffee and tea break

Session 8 Chair: Stella Panayotova
4:20-4:50 Catherine Yvard: The Master of the Dark Eyes, Martin Schongauer, and Other Surprises: Disentangling Harley 1892
4:50-5:20 Francesca Manzari: Harley 2979 and the Books of Hours Produced in Avignon by Jean de Toulouse

5:20-5:30 Closing remarks

To register: Send a cheque in pounds sterling for the relevant registration fee, made payable to The British Library, and your name, title, and institution, and email address to The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, Attention: Gareth Burfoot. Overseas attendees may pay on the day; contact HarleyConference2009@bl.uk for further information.

Registration fees:
Standard £40
AMARC members £35
Students £20

Coffee and tea, two sandwich lunches, and Monday evening reception provided.

Lady Chatterley and Her Consequences

2 July 2009
University of Bristol, Bristol

We are on the verge of the half-centenary of the Penguin Lady Chatterley trial. Where does Lawrence’s novel stand now? In the light of theoretical-inflected and political criticisms, how do we now read Lady Chatterley’s Lover? What impact has the editorial work on the various versions of the novel had? What do we make of rewritings, film versions and parodies? What were the consequences of the Penguin trial, both for Lawrence and for other writers, and for publishers? Can we now talk of good writing and literary quality? What do we presently understand by pornography and obscenity?

The Penguin Archive Project will be holding a half-day conference, entitled 'Lady Chatterley and Her Consequences,' to discuss the questions raised above, and is inviting interested academics to submit proposals for papers of 15 minutes duration to be included in the conference.

The conference will be held at the University of Bristol on Thursday 2 July 2009, and keynote speeches will be made by Dr Fiona Beckett (University of Leeds) and Prof Alistair McCleery (Napier University).

Proposals (150-200 words) should be sent, by Friday 3 April 2009, to: penguin-project@bristol.ac.ukor by post to:

Dr John Lyon
Penguin Archive Project
University of Bristol
3/5 Woodland Road
Bristol BS8 1TB

More details at http://www.bristol.ac.uk/penguinarchiveproject/news/2009/4.html

Scribal Culture in Italy 1450-1650 (workshop 4): Manuscript and Print

3 July 2009 - 1.45pm-5pm
Seminar Room, Level 3, John Rylands University Library, 150 Deansgate, Manchester M3 3EH

How did manuscript texts influence or adapt to the diffusion of printed texts? When they coexisted, were they complementary or competing? This workshop is one of a series of six AHRC-funded events that are planned to shed light on the still under-researched topic of scribal culture in Italy, building on recent interest in manuscript as a means of communication in early modern France, Great Britain and Spain. We welcome participation by all those interested in early modern Italy and in the history of the book in early modern Europe, and by librarians, curators and palaeographers. Please note that some talks will be given in Italian.

For directions to the Library, see www.library.manchester.ac.uk/specialcollections/yourvisit/findingus. All participants should check in at the reception desk on arrival. Bags must be left in the lockers in the basement. Those who would like an initial guided walk around the Library should meet at the reception desk at 13.15.

Programme
13.45 Introduction - Chair: Professor Stephen Milner (Manchester)
13.50 Professor David Gentilcore (Leicester): A charlatan's knowledge: licence petitions, printed handbills and medical authority in early modern Italy
14.20 Professor Ottavia Niccoli (Trento): Manoscritti, oralità, stampe popolari: i viaggi di un testo
14.50 Professor Mario Infelise (Venice): The invention of the political 'avviso': from handwritten newsletters to printed gazettes (15th-17th centuries)
15.20 Discussion
16.00 Presentation of a selection of Rylands manuscripts and early printed editions

The workshop is open to all and there is a limited number of postgraduate bursaries to cover all or part of the cost of attendance. There is no charge for attendance but space is limited. To reserve a place or for more information, please contact Filippo de Vivo (f.de-vivo@bbk.ac.uk) or Brian Richardson (b.f.richardson@leeds.ac.uk).

Abstracts
Professor David Gentilcore: A charlatan's knowledge: licence petitions, printed handbills and medical authority in early modern Italy.
From their origins in fifteenth-century Italy, Italian ciarlatani were the prototype for itinerant medical practitioners throughout Europe. The very words 'charlatan' and 'mountebank' are Italian in origin. Ironically, they belonged to the same Renaissance milieu as the medical schools, colleges of physicians and charitable hospitals of Italy, which were for a time viewed as models in other areas of Europe. The difference with much of Europe is that, in Italy, medical charlatans were regularly licensed (and most of these records survive). The licensers' aim was never to eliminate charlatanry, despite the harsh rhetoric of elite medicine; rather they sought to keep track of the phenomenon, keep it within certain limits and even profit from it. This paper will take a new look at Italian charlatans, by comparing their pitches to the medical authorities (doing the licensing) and their pitches to the public (doing the buying), both on stage and in print. Italian charlatans mixed orality with literacy, like the society around them. They took advantage of increasing literacy and the expansion of print culture to market their medicines through the production of handbills, pamphlets and books. We shall examine the interface between handwriting and print in the activities of Italian charlatans, focusing on their stage pitches, how they represented their medicines and their penned appeals to the civic medical authorities.

Professor Ottavia Niccoli: Manoscritti, oralità, stampe popolari: i viaggi di un testo
Molti testi che leggiamo nelle cosiddette stampe popolari hanno avuto una precedente circolazione manoscritta e talora anche orale. Il cambiamento di medium corrisponde solo parzialmente ad un cambiamento di pubblico, ma certamente significa un cambiamento di funzione. Verranno prese in esame due tipologie di testi: le profezie volgari (soprattutto in versi) presenti in quelli che Armando Petrucci ha definito 'libri da bisaccia' e poi in almeno cinquanta edizioni a stampa, e le 'copie di lettere', materiali di cui conosciamo o sono segnalati esempi manoscritti diffusi in copia, trascritti nelle cronache cittadine (con eccezionale ampiezza nei Diari di Marin Sanuto) e infine a stampa.

Professor Mario Infelise: The invention of the political 'avviso': from handwritten newsletters to printed gazettes (15th-17th centuries)
Tra XV e XVI secolo si costituì il modello dell'avviso a mano, un foglio periodico che metteva assieme notizie di qualche interesse generale, assemblate sulla base di notizie recuperate dalle corrispondenze politiche o mercantili. Sul finire del '400 nelle principali città italiane si segnalano anche i primi professionisti specializzati nella redazione di tali materiali, in genere poi riprodotti da copisti in botteghe specializzate. Nel corso del '500 si definiscono anche reti europee e mediterranee lungo le quali questi scritti viaggiano. Dagli inizi del '600, in area centroeuropea, gli avvisi iniziarono a comparire anche a stampa. L'intervento traccerà lo sviluppo dell'avviso a mano e si soffermerà sulle differenze nel corso del '600 tra l'informazione manoscritta e quella a stampa.

Workshop website: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/hca/about/conferences/scribalculture/workshopseries

Sustaining Digital Resources in the Humanities

6 July 2009
Faculty of English, Cambridge

Sustainability informs the conception and the construction of online manuscript research; it is widely agreed (by funding bodies and those involved in online work) that online resources should be made sustainable. This requirement demands co-operation between faculties and universities, between libraries and archives, between academic and technical staff, but often exposes different understandings of what sustainability means, and how it can best be achieved in the short and long terms.

This one-day symposium will bring together experts from manuscript study and digital research, from libraries, digital repositories and humanities IT, for collaborative discussion of sustainability in its various contexts. We aim to raise and discuss the issues involved not only in the technical sustainability of online resources, but also in their academic sustainability - how they can be adapted in the light of later scholarship and research.

How can and should we incorporate sustainability issues into the design and construction of academic or research-related resources? How do we plan and create resources not only technically durable, but intellectually durable? What are the factors, academic and technological, affecting the sustainability of new electronic resources? How can resources grow and develop after their periods of design and funding have ended? Are there strategies that allow for their development, as well as their maintenance? What developments in online manuscript research, or in IT, should we anticipate in planning for the sustainability, and the future, of our resources?

Anyone wishing to attend, or with any questions about the symposium, should contact Angus Vine (aev21@cam.ac.uk).

'Accipe et Devora': Packaging, Presentation and Consumption of MSS and Printed Books, 1350-1550 (Early Book Society)

9 - 13 July 2009
University of Exeter

The eleventh biennial EBS conference, hosted by Emma Cayley, Department of French, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Exeter, will be held at the University of Exeter from July 9 to July 12, 2009, with an optional trip to sites of interest in the area scheduled for July 13. Proposals may consider the ‘packaging’ of medieval manuscripts and early printed books, that is, the separate tasks of putting late medieval and early modern texts together (writing, abstracting, editing, correcting, illustrating, printing, and/or binding) or the repackaging of older texts for contemporary audiences. The term “consumption” is frequently used in the context of luxury manuscripts or printed books produced for wealthy owners and may be read metaphorically to apply to a range of texts or to one text (though there may also be papers on literal consumption, bibliophagia, or consumption by time, worms, fire, censors). Lectures or proposed sessions that consider the transition from script to print, bibliographic issues, or the movement between French and English texts (or vice versa) and audiences are particularly encouraged, though papers on any aspect of the history of manuscripts and printed books from 1350-1550, including the copying and circulation of models and exemplars, style, illustration, and/or the influence of readers and patrons, artists, scribes, printers are welcome. Proposals for 10-minute papers describing recent discoveries, bibliographic notes or MS and rare book collections are also needed. Speakers may give a short paper as well as a longer one. The conference is open to all EBS members. Please indicate whether a slide projector, OHP, or computer equipment is needed in your proposal.

American and Canadian abstracts (1-2 pp) should be sent for consideration no later than November 15, 2008, to Martha Driver (EBS, English Department, 41 Park Row, Rm 1525, New York, New York 10038-1598) or FAXed to 212-346-1754 (office). Members in Great Britain and abroad may submit abstracts by the same date to Emma Cayley (, Dept of French, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Exeter, The Queen's Drive, Exeter EX4 4QH UK).

Strasbourg and the History of the Book: Five centuries of German printed books and manuscripts (exhibition)

11 July 2009 - 4 November 2009
Taylor Institution Library, St Giles, Oxford

Curator: Professor N.F. Palmer. Organised by the Taylor Institution Library, in collaboration with the sub-Faculty of German, University of Oxford.

11 July–30 September 2009 Mon - Fri 9-5, Sat 10-4
1 October–4 November 2009 Mon - Fri 9-7, Sat 10-4
closed Saturday 29 August to Tuesday 8 September

23rd International Conference on the History of Cartography: Maps, Myths and Narratives: Cartography of the Far North

12 - 17 July 2009
The Black Diamond, Danish Royal Library, Copenhagen, Denmark

The International Conference on the History of Cartography (ICHC) is the only scholarly conference solely dedicated to advancing knowledge of the history of maps and mapmaking, regardless of geographical region, language, period or topic. The conference promotes free and unfettered global cooperation and collaboration among cartographic scholars from any academic discipline, curators, collectors, dealers and institutions through illustrated lectures, presentations, exhibitions, and a social programme. Conferences are held biennially and are administered by local organizers in conjunction with Imago Mundi Ltd.

We call for papers and posters that propose or demonstrate new concepts, patterns, conditions, techniques, relations and interpretations. We also welcome contributions on newly discovered, important maps or map types as well as examinations of regional themes of wide interest. Contributions on a topic from specialists in disciplines such as geodesy, tourism studies, linguistics, history of science, art history, etc., are very welcome.

The ICHC2009 focuses on the four main themes that are briefly outlined below. However, contributions on any other aspect of the history of cartography are very welcome.

• Cartography of the Arctic, North Atlantic and Scandinavian regions
• Cross-cultural cartographies
• Mapping mythical and imaginary places
• Maps and the written word

and any other aspect of the history of cartography.

More information and the full Call for Papers is available at www.ichc2009.dk

ICHC2009 co/ BDP Congress Service
Bredgade 28
1260 Copenhagen
PHONE: (45) 3345 4510
Email: ichc2009@bdp.dk
Visit the website at http://www.ichc2009.dk/

Middlebrow Cultures

14 - 15 July 2009
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow

Plenary speakers: Professor Ann Ardis, University of Delaware Professor Phyllis Lassner, Northwestern University

Call for Papers:
The Middlebrow Network is a transatlantic interdisciplinary project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. It was launched at the 'Historicising the Middlebrow' conference at Sheffield University in July 2008, and we now invite papers for the second conference.

The study of middlebrow culture matters because it illuminates a set of tastes, institutions and social practices associated primarily with the aspirational middle class in the early to mid-twentieth century, and because it helps us understand the relationship between elite, popular and 'intermediate' cultural production. It matters especially now because the emergence of middlebrow cultural products in the decades following the First World War was, primarily, a result of technical innovations in printing, distribution, recording, and broadcasting. This relates directly to trends in our own time, since the internet has not only resulted in a vast renaissance of textual production, but has also generated new internationalised audiences and interpretive communities which echo the middlebrow cultural formations of the early twentieth century. Examples include electronic book clubs, new bohemian web magazines, and diaries and blogs which recall the Mass Observation project.

We invite proposals which focus on any aspect of middlebrow culture, and on any period from the later nineteenth century to the present. In particular, we welcome papers or panels on our two priority themes:

• material cultures
• postcolonial cultures

The 'material cultures' theme encompasses technologies of the middlebrow, broadcasting, book history, reception studies, and related topics. The 'postcolonial' theme invites consideration of geographies of the middlebrow, travel, and the cultural production of formerly colonised countries.

We also plan to include in the conference:

• a special session on resources for researching the middlebrow
• a Middlebrow Network meeting to plan future activities
• dinner at the famous Glasgow art deco restaurant 'Rogano'.
• a visit to the Britannia Panoptican Music Hall, which is not normally open to the public.

Proposals of 400 words for 20-minute papers, or up to 1200 words for panels (three papers, or two papers and a respondent), should be sent to Erica and Faye at middlebrow@hotmail.co.uk by 31 January 2009.

The Middlebrow Network is led by Faye Hammill, University of Strathclyde; Erica Brown, Sheffield Hallam University; and Mary Grover, Sheffield Hallam University.

For more information, and to join our database of researchers, see www.middlebrow-network.com

Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand conference: The Limits of the Book

20 - 22 July 2009
The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

The book has for centuries been a reassuringly definite artifact, although many aspects of its existence and circulation are quite intangible and its ultimate effects seem universal if not limitless. Paradoxically, the physical variations in different copies of a book seem to demand that we understand the book not as precisely defined object but as elusive, conceptual "work" or "text." Sometimes too, the value and meaning of the book are seen to reside not in its core content but rather in the aesthetics of its design or book-making.

Although the sequentially-read codex has been the normative form of the book for many centuries, alternative physical forms ranging from the scroll to a box of randomly ordered sheets, to a dossier of facsimile documents, to an electronic tablet challenge and extend the category of object we call "book."

Books exist also through their effects on readers, and are limited or liberated by the networks of commercial and personal circulation that develop and change over time. Extreme forms of this tension between object and effect are books that circulate by repute without ever having actually existed, books that seek to escape limitation or appropriate additional cultural capital by misinforming the readership about their contents, genesis or provenance, or books that are known to have circulated, but have since disappeared.

No technological innovation has more sharply raised the issue of the potential and the limits of the book than the development of digital textuality. While the eschatological promises of the late 1980s and early 1990s may seem risible in retrospect, writing and reading digital texts have become thoroughly normalized practices for much of the western world, so that few books today are untouched by digital processes. It remains to be seen whether this digitization will be the destroyer of the book or the infinite extender of its limits.

• Paratext and Para-books
• Books Post-production - Libraries, Reading, Bookselling
• Phantom Books, Lost Books and Piracies
• Limits and Limitlessness in the Digital Book

The Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand invites offers of 20-30 minute papers considering interesting examples of the limits of the book and the issues that stem from them.

Please email 300-word proposals and a 50-word bio to Dr Chris Tiffin, School of EMSAH, The University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia c.tiffin@uq.edu.au by Monday 16 February 2009.

London Rare Books School

20 - 24 July 2009 and 27 - 31 July 2009
Institute of English Studies, London

The London Rare Books School (LRBS) is a series of five-day, intensive courses on a variety of book-related subjects to be taught in and around Senate House, which is the centre of the University of London’s federal system.

The courses will be taught by internationally renowned scholars associated with the Institute's Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies, using the unrivalled library and museum resources of London, including the British Library, the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the University of London Research Library Services, and many more. All courses will stress the materiality of the book so you can expect to have close encounters with remarkable books and other artefacts from some of the world's greatest collections. Each class will be restricted to a maximum of twelve students in order to ensure that everyone has plenty of opportunity to talk to the teachers and to get very close to the books.

In 2009, the LRBS will run for two weeks: 20 July to 24 July and 27 July to 31 July. The courses planned are:

Week One: 20 - 24 July
1. The Book in the Ancient World -- Course Lecturers: Dr Irving Finkel, Dr Matthew Nicholls, Dr Marigold Norbye and Alan Cole, Curator of the Museum of Writing
2. The Medieval Book -- Course Tutor: Professor Michelle Brown
3. The Printed Book in Europe 1450-2000 -- Course Tutor: Professor John Feather
4. A History of Maps and Mapping -- Course Tutors: Dr Catherine Delano-Smith and Sarah Tyacke
5. An Introduction to Bibliography -- Course Tutor: Professor Tony Edwards
6. Children’s Books -- Course Tutor: Jill Shefrin
 
Week Two: 27 - 31 July
1. Type and its Uses 1455-1830 -- Course tutor: Professor James Mosley
2. A History of Bookbinding -- Course tutor: Professor Nicholas Pickwoad
3. Modern First Editions -- Course tutor: Laurence Worms
4. Maps and Mapping in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Society, Nation, Empire, War. -- Course tutors: Dr Catherine Delano-Smith and Sarah Tyacke
5. The Anglo-Saxon and Carolingian Book, c.600-1050 -- Course tutor: Professor Michelle Brown
6. Publishing Today -- Course Tutor: Professor Iain Stevenson
 

Each course will consist of thirteen seminars amounting in all to twenty hours of teaching time spread between Monday afternoon and Friday afternoon. There will be timetabled 'library time' that will allow students to explore the rich resources of the University's Senate House Library, one of the UK's major research libraries. There will also be a full evening programme with an opening reception and talk, a book history lecture, and receptions hosted by major London antiquarian booksellers.

Postgraduate credit is available for these courses at the Institute, which is one of the ten member-Institutes of the University of London's School of Advanced Study. In order to achieve the award of credit a student will have to complete and pass a 5,000 word essay within two months of the course (an extra fee to cover marking and other costs will be charged).

The fee will be £550 which will include the provision of lunch, and coffee and tea throughout the week. A small number of bursaries are available.

A range of different sorts of accommodation will be available including cheap student housing (on a bed and breakfast basis) close by Senate House; Senate House is next to the British Museum in the heart of Bloomsbury.

Further details and application forms can be found at: http://ies.sas.ac.uk/

Collectors, Librarians and the Book Trade: Print Networks Conference 2009

28 - 30 July 2009
Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge

The Twenty-Seventh Annual conference on the History of the British Book Trade will take place at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University on 28-30 July 2009

The Programme and Booking Form for this year's Print Networks conference, 'Collectors, Librarians and the Book Trade' are now available at www.bbti.bham.ac.uk/PrintNetworks.htm

Guest speaker: Ann Thwaite: Edmund Gosse, Librarian of the House of Lords

Other papers to be presented:

S.C. Arndt: The Linen Hall Library and London Books: Provincial-Metropolitan Trade Connections in the Late Eighteenth Century
Susan Bain: William Hayley's Catalogue of His Library, 1772
Iain Beavan: Who Was James Fraser (d.1731) of Chelsea Hospital?
Stephen Brown: Robert Burns, a Pornographer Identified: an Impolite History of The Merry Muses of Caledonia
Daniel Cook: Printer-Bookseller, Scholar-Collector: a Re-Evaluation of John Nichols's Role in Eighteenth-Century Swift Studies
Diana Dixon: Cinderellas of the Stacks: Collecting English Local Newspapers
Brian Hillyard: Thomas Ruddiman: Librarian, Publisher, Printer, and Collector
Freyja Cox Jensen: Publishing Roman History in Early Modern England
Lindsay Levy: Was Sir Walter Scott a Bibliomaniac?
William Noblett: The Library of James West
Renae Satterley: The Library of Robert Ashley
Helen Smith: 'My Own Small Private Library': Armed Services Editions and the Culture of Collecting
Daniel Smith: 'Parrots, Print and Patronage': John Donne, Jr, and the Second Viscount Conway

IFLA-conference Milan 2009: IFLA Rare Books and Manuscripts Section, Preservation and Conservation Section, Library History Section

23 - 27 August 2009
Milan, Italy

The IFLA Rare Books and Manuscripts Section, the Preservation and Conservation Section, and the Library History Section jointly invite proposals for presentations at the Sections' programme in Milan, 23-27 August 2009.

Following the main theme of the conference 'Libraries create futures: Building on cultural heritage', papers should focus on dispersed cultural collections and their preservation and conservation, reconstruction, and access to them, preferably in electronic form.

• Dispersed cultural collections comprises libraries and other collections formerly held by institutions or private collectors which were dispersed through political events (wars, dissolution of monasteries) or through auctions and duplicate sales, and are today held in various public institutions (libraries, archives, museums) or in different sections of such institutions. The dispersed materials may be in different formats (manuscripts, printed books, archival documents, photographs) and may date from any period. Papers about individual collectors and dealers will also be considered
• Preservation and conservation deals with aspects of the physical assessment of an object for the better understanding of its contexts, with special regard to provenances. The role of the conservator should be given particular consideration, including procedures for preserving and documenting features relevant for the history of an item during conservation, such as provenance marks and former shelfmarks.
• Reconstruction should cover questions of identifying individual items which once belonged to such a collection; of investigating the survival of historical collections; or of maintaining inventories or archives of collections that have been dispersed. Papers should discuss methods of reconstruction, i.e. through identification of provenances, through matching of historical inventories with surviving items, or through digitization as well as methods for the creation of virtual libraries or databases of dispersed materials.
• Access refers to the questions concerning the needs of target-group s of such projects (from researchers to the general public), the standards applied for cataloguing and presentation and problems of overcoming heterogeneous standards for diverse materials; technical solutions for their presentation; and also raising awareness and funds for such projects.

Papers should place particular emphasis on issues of project management and methodology, e.g. policies regarding preservation and digitization; standards for cataloguing and recording provenances; cross-institutional cooperation (national and international).

Materials presented should be placed in a broader cultural-historical context in order to demonstrate their relevance to a wide range of (academic) subjects and users, taking up the theme of IFLA president Claudia Lux for 2007-9: 'Libraries on the Agenda'.

Papers can be given in any of the official IFLA languages (English, French, German, Russian, Spanish), but abstracts should be submitted in English. Papers should not be longer than 15 pages. The oral presentation of each paper should not exceed 20 minutes. The proposals must be submitted in an electronic format and must contain:

Title of paper
Summary of paper (250 - 350 words max)
Speaker's name, institutional affiliation, address, telephone

Important dates: deadline for submission of abstract 31 December 2008; notification of acceptance: March 2009; deadline for submission of paper: 1 May 2009

All submissions should be sent via email to: Bettina Wagner, Rare books and Manuscript Section chair, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (bettina.wagner@bsb-muenchen.de); Per Cullhed, Preservation and Conservation Section chair, Uppsala University Library (per.cullhed@ub.uu.se); Hermina G.B. Anghelescu , Library History Section chair, Wayne State University (ag7662@wayne.edu). Please send your proposal to all three addresses.

Please note that the IFLA sections have no funds for financial assistance to prospective authors: abstracts should only be submitted on the understanding that the expenses of attending the conference (including travel expenses and conference fee) and registration and hotel bookings will be the responsibility of the presenter(s) of accepted papers. Some national professional associations may be able to help fund certain expenses, and a small number of grants for conference attendance may be available at: www.ifla.org/III/members/grants.htm

Editing the (Long) Eighteenth Century

27 - 29 August 2009
School of English & Scottish Language & Literature, Glasgow University, 6 University Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ

Plenary speakers: John Barnard, Claude Rawson, David Womersley.

Panel themes have been established by the organizers. Those interested in offering a 20-minute paper within one of these Panels should submit an abstract (300 words) or completed papers by email to the panel convener (indicated in parentheses) by 16 March 2009. Papers contributing directly or indirectly to thinking on the future of editorial work on 18th-century texts and authors are particularly welcome. For conference purposes the eighteenth century's length is Restoration to early Romantic; 1660-1820.

Editing Swift (James McLaverty, Keele University)
Editing Pope (Julian Ferraro, University of Liverpool)
Editing Drama (Tiffany Stern, University of Oxford)
Editing and New Technologies (Paddy Bullard, University of Oxford)
Editing Correspondence and other biographical materials (David Shuttleton, University of Glasgow)
Editing Miscellanies (Stuart Gillespie, University of Glasgow)
Editing Non-Literary Texts (David Shuttleton, University of Glasgow)
Editing Scottish Authors (Andrew Hook, University of Glasgow)
Editing Romantic Verse (Nigel Leask, University of Glasgow)

Suggestions for papers which appear not to fall within any of these panels may be sent to any or all of the organizers: Paddy Bullard, Stuart Gillespie, David Shuttleton.

Conference website: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/sesll/seminarsandconferences/editingtheeighteenthcentury/callforpapers/

Book History Workshop

1- 4 September 2009
Lyon, France

For the seventh edition of its Book History Workshop, organised in collaboration with the Rare Book School (University of Virginia), the Lyon-based Institut d'histoire du livre is offering four advanced courses in the fields of book and printing history.

Courses on offer this year are:

Dominique Varry: Physical (Analytical) Bibliography (new course, in French)
Neil Harris: Papiers and Watermarks as Bibliographical Evidence (new course, in English)
Michael Twyman: Printed Ephemera under the Magnifying Glass (course in English)
Kristian Jensen: Introduction to the Study of Incunabula (course in English)

The Book History Workshop is aimed at book and printing historians and at the many other specialists who encounter questions related to the history of the book, printing and graphic communication in the course of their work: researchers, teachers, archivists, librarians, museum curators, antiquarian booksellers, collectors, graphic designers, etc.

The four-day courses offered by the Institut d'histoire du livre cover various aspects of the history of the book and graphic communication. Subjects are dealt with from both theoretical and practical points of view through illustrated lectures, discussions and close study of original documents. The courses make abundant use of the collections of Lyon City Library and Museum of Printing.

The courses will take place in Lyon from the 1st to the 4th September 2009. Classes will be held at the Ecole normale supérieure - lettres et sciences humaines (Lyon) with sessions at the Lyon City Library, Lyon Printing Museum and the Enssib librarian school.

Tuition fee: 490 euros (mid-day meals included).

In order to facilitate access to collections of original documents the number of participants is limited to twelve per class.

For further information see: http://ihl.enssib.fr/siteihl.php?page=21&aflng=en or contact:

Anne-Laure Collomb
Bibliothèque de la Part-Dieu
30 boulevard Vivier-Merle
69003 Lyon
France
alcollomb@bm-lyon.fr
http://ihl.enssib.fr

Library and Information History Group Seminar

4 September 2009 - 5pm
Bromley House, Angel Row, Nottingham

'Extending information history into unexpected areas: African liberation struggles'
Professor Paul Sturges, University of Loughborough

The talk will be preceded by a private tour of Bromley House, 4pm.

All welcome. Booking is essential as places are limited. Please contact Shauna Barret, LIHG Social Secretary, at s.barrett@ucl.ac.uk or by post at 13 Hatley Road, Finsbury Park, London N4 3NN before Friday 28th August for further information and to book a place.

For more information about Bromley House please visit their website http://home.btconnect.com/BromleyHouseLib/

For further information about the LIHG, forthcoming events, and the projects with which it is involved, please visit the Group website: http://www.cilip.org.uk/specialinterestgroups/bysubject/history

Getting to Bromley House Library. Bromley House is situated in the centre of Nottingham, in Angel Row, the westward extension of the Old Market Square. It is a few yards above the Bell Inn and a hundred yards below the central City Library. The street entrance with its fanlight is opposite Habitat, between Barnardo's charity shop and MSR newsagents - easily overlooked!

a. From Nottingham railway station on foot (about 10 minutes' walk). Turn right out of the station entrance and walk down Carrington Street, crossing the main road at lights, then straight ahead (past the Broadmarsh bus station on your right - National Express coaches arrive here). Cross Collin Street at lights and walk straight through the Broadmarsh Shopping Centre to pedestrianised Lister Gate. Straight on, then left at St Peter's Church into Wheeler Gate to reach the Old Market Square. Keep straight on along edge of the square (Beastmarket Hill – almost flat and no animals!) past the Bell Inn – Bromley House is on the left, opposite Habitat.

b. From railway station by tram. Use the centre bridge from the platforms to take you directly to the tram terminus. Take any tram to Old Market Square (second stop; £1.50 single or £2.70 day ticket). Turn right as you leave the tram and follow past the Bell Inn as above.

c. From car parks. The city centre is busy and confusing to drive in with many one-way streets. The best routes are probably Park-and-Ride, all well-signed.

d. From the south (M1 junction 24 / A453), use the Queens Drive car-park (keep left over Clifton Bridge) and take the bus to Collin Street, then as for train above. Use this also if coming from the east, e.g. from A1 via A52 from Grantham or A46 from Newark (follow A52 ring-road avoiding city centre). Please note that the Queens Drive car-park closes at 19.30.

e. From the north (M1 junction 26), use the Phoenix car-park, or from the A60 or A606 (Mansfield and Doncaster), use the ring road to Wilkinson Street car-park, or Mansfield Road to the Forest car-park. From all three, the tram goes to Old Market Square - turn left as you get off the tram, then as above, past the Bell Inn.

Morris 175 Anniversary Celebration

4 - 6 September 2009
Kelmscott House, 26 Upper Mall, Hammersmith, London

Sponsored by the William Morris Society

Come and celebrate the 175th anniversary of William Morris’s birth in the magical setting of Kelmscott House, Morris’s home for the last 18 years of his life. It was here that Morris developed his skills in carpet weaving and printed the Kelmscott Chaucer and Jane and May, his wife and daughter, produced beautiful embroideries. Our celebration will take place in the coach house, where Morris once held meetings of the Socialist League and speakers included George Bernard Shaw and W B Yeats.

The weekend will include music, song, theatre, talks, a local Arts & Crafts walk, as well as fun and party food. On Friday night there is a special performance of the play Kollontai in London; speakers include Lord Tom Sawyer and Tony Benn, Ruth Levitas, and Peter Cormack.

Weekend tickets (Friday evening, all day Saturday & Sunday): £50 members of the William Morris Society and concessions; £63 non-members. Tickets for each day and for particular events are also available.

To book tickets: please send a self-addressed envelope to the William Morris Society at Kelmscott House, 26 Upper Mall, Hammersmith, London W6 9TA UK, stating whether you have any special dietary requirements.

For further information please e-mail william.morris@care4free.net, or telephone 020 8741 3735 on Tuesday, Thursday, or a Saturday afternoon.

For full program and additional details visit www.morrissociety.org.

4 - 6 September 2009
Kelmscott House, 26 Upper Mall, Hammersmith, London

Sponsored by the William Morris Society

Come and celebrate the 175th anniversary of William Morris’s birth in the magical setting of Kelmscott House, Morris’s home for the last 18 years of his life. It was here that Morris developed his skills in carpet weaving and printed the Kelmscott Chaucer and Jane and May, his wife and daughter, produced beautiful embroideries. Our celebration will take place in the coach house, where Morris once held meetings of the Socialist League and speakers included George Bernard Shaw and W B Yeats.

The weekend will include music, song, theatre, talks, a local Arts & Crafts walk, as well as fun and party food. On Friday night there is a special performance of the play Kollontai in London; speakers include Lord Tom Sawyer and Tony Benn, Ruth Levitas, and Peter Cormack.

Weekend tickets (Friday evening, all day Saturday & Sunday): £50 members of the William Morris Society and concessions; £63 non-members. Tickets for each day and for particular events are also available.

To book tickets: please send a self-addressed envelope to the William Morris Society at Kelmscott House, 26 Upper Mall, Hammersmith, London W6 9TA UK, stating whether you have any special dietary requirements.

For further information please e-mail william.morris@care4free.net, or telephone 020 8741 3735 on Tuesday, Thursday, or a Saturday afternoon.

For full program and additional details visit www.morrissociety.org.

The Book Triumphant: the book in the second century of print, 1540-1640

9 - 11 September 2009
University of St Andrews, St Andrews

If the post-incunabula era represents the awkward age of the printed book, when print was approaching but had not reached full maturity, then the second century of print represents its golden age. This was a period when sustainable print industries were developed throughout Europe, as publishers developed both new genres and new types of printed book for an increasingly diverse readership. For historians of the book this marks a time when the printed book decisively outgrew the traditional markets of the manuscript era, not least through its instrumental role in the political controversies of this turbulent century.

This conference is the second of its kind to be hosted by the Universal Short Title Project and builds upon the success of 2008's conference: 'The Book in transition: the printed book in the post-incunabula age, 1500-1540.' The conference will give a Europe-wide perspective on changes in book culture and the publishing industry.

Speakers include:

Alexander Marr, University of St Andrews
Amy Burnett Nelson, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Johannes Hund, University of Mainz
Jürgen Beyer, Saxo Institute, Copenhagen University
Zsuzsa Barbarics-Hermanik, University of Graz
Urs Leu, Zentralbibliothek Zürich
and Neil Harris, University of Udine

Places and student bursaries are still available. Conference price with student bursary: £70. Price includes accommodation and conference dinner.

Conference website: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/bookproject/

Conference organiser, Philip John poj@st-andrews.ac.uk.

The Conference is hosted by the School of History and the AHRC Universal Short Title Catalogue project with support from the Bibliographical Society.

Stuart Poetry - Sources, Readers and Editions: A Symposium on Editing Seventeenth-century Verse

15 September 2009
Jesus College, Cambridge

The textual study and editing of Stuart poetry stands at a crossroads. In the last five or so years, and in the five or so years to come, we have seen (or will see) new editions of the poetry of Herrick, Herbert, Jonson, Donne, Shirley, Waller, Pulter, Greville, and others. The time is also manifestly ripe for editions of other poets (Corbett, Randolph, Carew, Crashaw, etc.) that will build upon the labours of earlier scholars. In many cases work for such editions is already underway. Meanwhile, developments in the study of early seventeenth-century poetry have encouraged us to see this verse as the product of networks and communities, as convivial, sociable, and/or institutional. This critical work has also reinforced our understanding (not always shared by earlier twentieth-century editors of these poets) that the manuscripts and miscellanies in which these poems appeared in the early seventeenth century are just as important as their printed editions to any study of their authorship and social context, their reception and transmission.

How, then, should editing respond to these new ways of understanding this verse? How should the practical business of scholarly editing reflect, or influence, new editorial and textual theory, and how does it shape our continued reading of the texts of Stuart poetry?

This seminar will bring together new and experienced scholars, representatives of existing editorial projects and those embarking upon editions and studies of their own. The symposium will be structured around round-table discussions, and we look forward to the contributions of those attending, as well as those providing papers. Discussion will cover the following areas, and more:

1. Editing and the sociology of Stuart poetry. How can we edit the works of Stuart poets to provide our readers with a proper understanding of their place in communities and networks? What is the role of single-author editions in a contemporary scholarly tradition that emphasizes communality, transmission, and sociability?
2. Editing the material texts of Stuart poetry. How should editions record the material transmission of Stuart poetry? Is there a place for an editorial practice focussed upon the material book (often the material miscellany), rather than (or as well as) individual poems? How should we edit the Stuart anthology?
3. New approaches to editing Stuart poetry. How do innovations in editorial theory and practice allow us to re-assess, or re-appraise, older traditions of textual scholarship and editing? How are digital resources and online facsimiles restructuring contemporary editing practices? And how do we, or how should we, read these new editions? Are we in danger of producing editions that outstrip our capacity to make best use of them?
4. Publishing Stuart poetry. How do the needs and interests of publishers shape our editing practices? What changes do publishers see in the forthcoming ten, or twenty years? How can we work with publishers to ensure the lasting use, and interest, of the editions that we are preparing?

Registration for the symposium is £5, which will cover the cost of lunch; this may be paid on the day of the event. Anyone wishing to attend, or with any questions about the symposium, should contact Christopher Burlinson (cmb29@cam.ac.uk) or Ruth Connolly (ruth.connolly@ncl.ac.uk).

The Reading Experience Database: the present and the future

29 September 2009
British Library Conference Centre, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB

Programme
10:00 Registration in the British Library Conference Centre foyer

10:30 Introduction to the event by Prof Bob Owens (The Open University)
Demonstration of The Reading Experience Database, with the formal launch of version 3.0 by Dr Rosalind Crone (The Open University), Dr Katie Halsey (University of Stirling) and Dr Shafquat Towheed (The Open University)

11:30
Discussion Panel 1- ‘Using The Reading Experience Database’ Dr Mary Hammond (University of Southampton), ‘Using The Reading Experience Database for teaching’
Dr Stephen Colclough (University of Bangor), ‘using The Reading Experience Database for research’
Prof Alexis Weedon (University of Bedfordshire), ‘using The Reading Experience Database and cross-media research’

13:00 Lunch in the British Library conference centre foyer (provided)

14:00 Keynote and discussion: ‘The Reading Experience Database and the future’ Prof Simon Eliot (IES, University of London)

15.00 Discussion Panel 2 – ‘The Reading Experience Database: future directions and collaborations’
Dr Patrick Buckridge (Griffith University, Australia), ‘Making the Australian Reading Experience Database’
Dr Sydney Shep (Victoria University Wellington, New Zealand), ‘The methodology of transnational collaborative projects’
Closing remarks, by Prof Bob Owens and Prof Simon Eliot

16.00-17.00 Drinks reception in the British Library conference centre foyer (provided)

The event is free to attend, but if you wish to come, please send a confirmation RSVP to Shafquat Towheed (s.s.towheed@open.ac.uk) by 18 September 2009 to allow us to organise adequate catering.

Seventh International Conference on the Book

16 - 18 October 2009
University of Edinburgh

Plenary speakers will include some of the world's leading thinkers and innovators in the areas of publishing, editing, librarianship, printing, authoring and information technologies, as well as numerous paper, colloquium and workshop presentations by researchers and practitioners.

This is a conference for any participant in the world of books - authors, publishers, printers, librarians, IT specialists, book retailers, editors, literacy educators and academic researchers. All are encouraged to register and attend this significant and timely conference. Accommodation options are also available.

Conference website: http://booksandpublishing.com/conference-2009/

Reading, Rebellion and Revolution – Book History in the Scottish 60s

21 October 2009 - 14.00-17.30
Craighouse Campus, Edinburgh Napier University, EH10 5LG

The Scottish Centre for the Book – Edinburgh Napier University

Speakers include: Eleanor Bell, Linda Gunn, Alistair McCleery plus a screening of 'John Calder: A Life in Publishing'

Please RSVP to f.hartree@napier.ac.uk as places are limited. There is no charge for this event.

This is the first in a series of seminars on the Scottish 60s. Others planned include: Literary Texts of the Scottish 60s (Strathclyde, February 2010), Social and Cultural Change in the Scottish 60s (Dundee, Spring 2010), and Art and Artists of the Scottish 60s (St Andrews, Spring 2010)

Please contact l.gunn@napier.ac.uk for further details.

Das Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachraum erschienenen Drucke des 17. Jahrhunderts

27 - 28 October 2009
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek/Bavarian State Library, München, Germany

Full details at http://www.bsb-muenchen.de/Einzeldarstellung.408+M556df96ce9f.0.html

Scribal Culture in Italy, 1450-1650 (workshop 5): The impact and diffusion of manuscripts

30 October 2009 - 2pm-5pm
Seminar Room, New Bodleian Library, Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3BG

How inclusive was the distribution of different kinds of manuscripts? Could manuscripts act as channels for the distribution of popular literature? How did attitudes to manuscript texts vary across the social scale? This workshop is one of a series of six AHRC-funded events that are planned to shed light on the still under-researched topic of scribal culture in Italy, building on recent interest in manuscript as a means of communication in early modern France, Great Britain and Spain. We welcome participation by all those interested in early modern Italy and in the history of the book in early modern Europe, and by librarians, curators and palaeographers.

Programme
14.00 Introduction--Chair: Professor Martin McLaughlin (Oxford)
14.05 Professor Federico Barbierato (Verona): Writing, reading, writing: scribal culture and magical texts in early modern Venice
14.35 Professor Nick Wilding (American Academy, Rome and Georgia State University): Manuscripts in motion: the diffusion of Galilean Copernicanism
15.05 Dr Warren Boutcher (Queen Mary, London): Collecting manuscripts and printed books in the late Renaissance: the case of the last Duke of Urbino
15.35 Discussion
16.15 Presentation of manuscripts from the Bodleian Library (subject to confirmation)

The workshop is open to all and there is a limited number of postgraduate bursaries to cover all or part of the cost of attendance. There is no charge for attendance but space is limited. To reserve a place or for more information, please contact Filippo de Vivo (f.de-vivo@bbk.ac.uk) or Brian Richardson (b.f.richardson@ leeds.ac.uk).

Abstracts
Federico Barbierato: Writing, reading, writing: scribal culture and magical texts in early modern Venice
Magical texts enjoyed a very wide circulation during the early modern period. Their nature allowed them to satisfy a variety of publics and interests: they represented a popular genre, across the barriers between different social and cultural hierarchies. The peculiar responses which magical books and papers obtained in reading and reproduction makes them a very interesting case study for the analysis of modes of proposal and reception of texts. The circular relationship between reading and writing -- incidentally, an inevitable by-product of censorship -- allows us not only to establish the impact of this literature on readers and users, but also to witness the process of constant re-elaboration of contents and forms. Elastic par excellence, addressing both men and women, the literate as well as the illiterate, in early modern Venice magical books and papers formed an obvious example of a widely popular artefact. The paper aims to portray some of the key features of this output, by glancing at the modes and procedures by which texts were created and reading was enacted.

Nick Wilding: Manuscripts in motion: the diffusion of Galilean Copernicanism
Manuscript diffusion was not a passive act of replication and reception, but an active process of recontextualization, reinterpretation and even intentional rewriting. Authorial attempts to control the diffusion of manuscripts through intended social channels often encountered resistance and subversion as networks regrouped, texts were altered or manuscripts forwarded to unintended recipients. Traditionally, such variants have been viewed as corruptions rather than evidence of use. Authors, well aware of these risks and opportunities, incorporated such instabilities into their own writing strategies, and used the unintended transformations of diffusion as a hypothetical safeguard for unorthodox arguments. In this paper I shall analyse the diffusion of Galileo's Copernican letters and tracts (1613-1616) within contemporary contexts of popular pasquinades and high-level espionage. The texts in question, whose subject matter is the relationship between hermeneutics and power, offer an uncanny case-study of the self-transforming nature of early modern manuscripts.

Warren Boutcher: Collecting manuscripts and printed books in the late Renaissance: the case of the last Duke of Urbino
This paper addresses the collection of manuscripts at the high end of the social scale, in a period (c. 1550-1630) when private libraries were accumulating large numbers of printed books and becoming more open to a public of scholars. This was a unique moment in the history of collecting, as scribal culture and print culture, old libraries and new libraries, old and new concepts of 'rarity' overlapped in interesting ways. The case of the last Duke of Urbino (Francesco Maria II della Rovere, 1549-1631) is especially interesting because he maintained the library of Federico da Montefeltro, and updated it with new manuscripts and some printed books, while founding and expanding a new library at Casteldurante (modern Urbania). This latter library hosted a large collection of printed books, but also some manuscripts. Most of the contents of both libraries were eventually appropriated by the Papacy, which means they survive to this day in the Vatican and Alessandrina libraries in Rome.

Workshop website: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/hca/about/conferences/scribalculture/workshopseries

The Legacy of Joseph Scaliger (1540-1609)

5 - 6 November 2009
The Scaliger Institute of Leiden University, Leiden University, The Netherlands

A two-day conference organized by The Scaliger Institute of Leiden University, the Warburg Institute of the University of London & The Huygens Instituut Den Haag

In 2009 the Scaliger Institute of Leiden University Library commemorates the quatercentenary of the death of the great humanist Josephus Justus Scaliger. On the 21st of January, the actual day of his death, a laudatio was delivered by Professor Anthony Grafton of Princeton University. In spring an exhibition was organized in Leiden University Library. The subject of the exhibition was Scaliger and the Oriental languages and involved the co-operation of a large number of scholars from The Netherlands and abroad.

On 5 and 6 November the Scaliger Institute and the Warburg Institute will organize a two-day conference on The Legacy of Joseph Scaliger. The keynote speaker of the conference is Prof. dr. Anthony Grafton of Princeton University. Several other specialists from The Netherlands and abroad will speak about the relation between Scaliger and Heinsius, Bentley as a reader of Scaliger, Vossius and Scaliger, Scaliger and linguistics and Scaliger and the oriental languages. The conference will also include a lecture open to all public by Dirk van Miert (Warburg Institute and editor of the Correspondence of Scaliger) on The 'French face' of Scaliger; his lieux de mémoire in France.

You are most welcome to attend the symposium and/or the public lecture, but please register in advance by sending an e-mail to scaliger@library.leidenuniv.nl and please indicate whether you will be joining us for the symposium & public lecture or public lecture only.

Scaliger Institute of Leiden University: http://www.library.leiden.edu/faculty/scaliger-institute/

PROGRAMME

Thursday 5 November
10.00: Welcome by Kurt De Belder, University Librarian & Director Leiden University Libraries
10.10: Introduction by Harm Beukers, Scaliger Professor
10.20: Keynote speaker Prof. dr. Anthony Grafton (Princeton University): Aftermaths: Scaliger's Chronology from 1600 to 1627
11.30: Coffee and tea
11.45: Prof. Dr. Karel Davids (VU Amsterdam): Scaliger and Water Management
12.30: Astrid Balsem (Amsterdam University Library): Retrieving Scaliger's printed books
13.15 Lunch break
14.30 Dr. Harm-Jan van Dam (VU Amsterdam): In praise of Scaliger? Daniel Heinsius' poetry on the master
15.15: Dr. Dirk van Miert (Warburg Institute): The Making of Scaliger: Heinsius and his edition of Scaliger's letters
16.00: visit to the Bibliotheca Thysiana (for speakers and guests only)
17.00: drinks
Dinner (for speakers and guests only)

Friday 6 November
10.00: Dr. Kristine Haugen (California Institute of Technology):Hommages and Dommages: Richard Bentley Reads Scaliger
11.00: Dr. Paul Botley (Warburg Institute): Scaliger's Support for Failed Projects: Scriverius' Martial and Woverius' Column
11.45: Coffee and tea
12.00: Dr. Toon van Hal (K.U. Leuven & Alexander von Humboldt-Stipendiat (Universitüt Potsdam): "Quam enim periculosa sit ea via"... Scaliger's contribution to the humanist discussions on linguistic genealogy
12.45: Theodor Dunkelgrün (University of Chicago): The master at work: some observations on how Scaliger used his oriental library
13.30 : Lunch break
15.00: Public lecture - Dr. Dirk van Miert (Warburg Institute): The 'French face' of Scaliger; his lieux de mémoire in France

Sleuthing Shakespeare's Papers: talk by R Carter Hailey

9 November 2009 - 6pm
The British Library, Conference Centre, Meeting Room 2, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB

The early quartos and folios of Shakespeare's works - as well as every other book and manuscript from the period - were printed on handmade laid paper, each sheet of which bears in its surface visible traces of the manufacturing process. Using Hailey's 'mugshot-and-fingerprint method' to identify the products of particular pairs of papermoulds, the book detective can ferret out otherwise intractable details about the production of early modern books and manuscripts.

One of the most valuable uses of the comparative study of watermarks is in supplying dates for some of the many 16th and 17th century books issued without titlepage dates. Dr Hailey will explain his methodology, using as examples his definitive datings of the 4th quartos of Romeo & Juliet and Hamlet, and the first edition of Marlowe's Massacre at Paris. He will also discuss what a forensic study of the paper stocks of the First Folio might tell us about its production.

The talk will be followed by a drinks reception.

Attendance is free, but please register your name with Teresa Harrington at the British Library, email: teresa.harrington@bl.uk

Go-Betweens, Translations, and the Circulation of Knowledge in the Early Modern Low Countries (workshop)

13 - 14 November 2009
Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE

Speakers include Sven Dupre, Toon Van Hal, Candice Delisle, Florike Egmond, Philippe Selosse, Benjamin Schmidt, Roger Hart, Matthias Schemmel, Peter Burke, Felicity Henderson, and Harold Cook.

Organisers: Harold Cook (UCL) and Sven Dupré (Ghent University)

For further information, including a complete programme, please see: http://tinyurl.com/yz5ouk6 (PDF)

Registration and inquiries to Miss Sally Bragg (s.bragg@ucl.ac.uk), Programmes Administrator, Welcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL

Translating Travel Writing in Europe, 1750-1850

13 - 14 November 2009
Université Paris 13

Convenors: Dr. Susan Pickford (Centre de Recherche Interculturelles sur les Domaines Anglophones et Francophones, Université Paris 13), Dr. Alison E. Martin (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg)

Travel and translation are two sides of the same coin. Travel writing translates its readers to new climes; translation makes a text travel in time and space. We invite contributions which focus on the relationship between translation and non-fictional travel writing - both towards the 'scientific' and 'literary' ends of the spectrum - for the period 1750-1850, which saw great changes both in the practice of travel and travel writing and in the quantity and type of books translated. We welcome papers taking theoretical and historical approaches, as well as case studies. We particularly welcome contributions with a focus on book history.

Suitable topics might include, but are not restricted to:

• Fidelity vs. creativity and self-expression in the translation of travel accounts
• Gender and the 'visibility' of women as translators of travel writing
• Professional vs. amateur translators
• 'Scientific' vs. 'literary' models of translation in travel accounts
• Translation and anthologisation of travel accounts
• Translators as travellers
• Translating the Grand Tour
• Domestication/foreignisation of travel accounts through translation

It is anticipated that the main focus will be on English, French, Dutch and German but contributions on other European language areas will also be considered.

Guest speakers include Norbert Bachleitner (Universität Wien) and Daniel Roche (Collège de France).

Please send a 300-word abstract in English or French for a 20-minute paper as an email attachment in WORD or RTF by Monday 2nd March, 2009, to: Dr. Alison E. Martin (alison.martin@anglistik.uni-halle.de) and Dr. Susan Pickford (susan.pickford@gmail.com).

Taking sides: the printed broadside from 1450 to 1830

14 November 2009
Mure Room, Merton College, University of Oxford

Supported by Merton College, All Souls College, Bodleian Library Centre for the Study of the Book and The Bibliographical Society

Conference organizers: Giles Bergel (Merton College); Alexandra Franklin (Centre for the Study of the Book, Bodleian Library)

In association with Merton College, The Centre for the Study of the Book at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford is holding a symposium on the early-modern broadside in the age of its digital reproduction. Printed for display purposes (typically on one side of a single sheet), the broadside arguably addressed a wider audience than any other publication of the handpress period. Broadsides were advertisements, religious indulgences, political addresses, civic discourses, teaching aids, ballads and other forms of entertainment. This symposium will explore how the broadside demarcated or connected both public and private worlds and popular and learned cultures. What is recovered of the broadside and its world through digitization, and what remains to be reconstructed? What is its place in the histories of collecting, literacy, popular culture and antiquarianism?

Speakers
Falk Eisermann, (Berlin State Library): Medium of the Masses? Some Observations on Press Runs and Audiences of 15th Century Broadsides
Susanna Berger, (University of Cambridge): Pedagogical Broadsides and the Study of Aristotelian Logic
Richard Sharpe (University of Oxford): The Vending of Books: Sheldonian sales-catalogues 1694 to 1720
Angela McShane (Victoria and Albert Museum/Royal College of Art): Cultural Economics in the Broadside Trade: 'Commissioned' and 'Retail' Broadsides
Eric Nebeker, (University of California, Santa Barbara): Musical Broadsides and Their Audiences in the Seventeenth Century
Sara Mori, (Gabinetto Vieusseux, Florence): Between censorship and permission: Tuscan broadsides at the beginning of 19th century
E Wyn James (Cardiff University): Illustrating Welsh Broadsides
John Bidwell (Morgan Library and Museum): Broadside Editions of the Declaration of Independence

Graduate student travel bursaries available, generously funded by The Bibliographical Society. E-mail for information: giles.bergel@merton.ox.ac.uk / alexandra.franklin@bodley.ox.ac.uk

[NB: an optional sandwich lunch will be provided for a cost of £6 per person; please reserve your lunch before 6 November by email to bookcentre@bodley.ox.ac.uk, and pay on the day]

You're nicked! Security in the Special Library (Historic Libraries Forum Annual Meeting for 2009)

17 November 2009
Royal Asiatic Society, 14 Stephenson Way, London NW1 2H

Sponsored by Ecclesiastical Insurance

Programme

10.15 Coffee and networking
11.00 Welcome
11.15 Judith Barnes, Collection Security Co-ordinator: British Library Collection security
12.00 Ecclesiastical insurance: The insurer's perspective
12.45 Questions to speakers
1.00 Lunch
2.00 HLF AGM
2.15 Peter Hoare: Security marking
2.30 Panel discussion (5-10 mins each to explain what happened at their library, followed by questions addressed to the panel from the floor) - Sheila Hingley, Head of Heritage Collections, Durham University Library (First folio theft & recovery); Kathy Lazenbatt, Librarian, Royal Asiatic Society (Thefts from the library); Christine Penney, Hurd Librarian; Renae Satterley, Rare Books Librarian, Honourable Society of the Middle Temple (Tracing stolen books).
3.45 Final questions

Cost will be £45.00 including lunch, tea and coffee. NOW FULLY BOOKED. To join the waiting list, please visit conference website: http://www.historiclibrariesforum.org.uk/hlf/events.html

Contact Edward Potten: edward.potten@manchester.ac.uk

Reading Anthologies in Sixteenth-Century France: Study day

20 November 2009
Sydney Jones Library, University of Liverpool

Organised by: Dr Sara Barker (Department of History, University of Lancaster); Dr Pollie Bromilow (French Section, SOCLAS, University of Liverpool)

Generously funded by SOCLAS, University of Liverpool, Society for French Studies and Society for the Study of French History

Programme
9.45 Arrival and Coffee
10.15 Introduction and Welcome
10.30  Session 1: Renaissance Anthologies: Diversity and Variation
Sara Barker, University of Warwick: 'Les choses sainctes et serieuses': Printing Poetry in the French Reformation
Pollie Bromilow, University of Liverpool: Reading Scatology in Late Renaissance France: The Case of Etienne Tabourot’s Escraignes dijonnoises (1588)
Hervé-Thomas Campangne, Unversity of Maryland: Order, disorder, and Belleforest's 1572 Cinquiesme tome des histoires tragiques
12.00 Keynote Paper: Professor Paul J. Smith, University of Leiden: Tendances anthologiques: l'exemple des fabliers français des XVIe et XVIIe siècles
13.00 Lunch at Victoria Gallery and Museum, University of Liverpool
14.30 Visit of Victoria Gallery and Museum/ Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral and Sydney Jones Library Special Collections with display of books
15.30 Session 2: Renaissance Anthologies: Tradition and Modernity
James Ambrose, Trinity College, Oxford: Anthology and Authority: Early Modern Morals and Ancient Tragedy
Stefano Marzano and Helene Haug, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium: From 'facing pages' to 'reader's digest': Reading Classics in Renaissance France
Hervé Baudry, Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal: Fleurs de santé: la vulgarisation médicale entre tradition et modernité
17.00 Drinks in SOCLAS Senior Common Room

All participants are invited to dinner at the Everyman Bistro following the study day.

To register, contact Dr Pollie Bromilow pollie.bromilow@liverpool.ac.uk by Nov 13th 2009

Scribal Culture in Italy, 1450-1650 (workshop 6): The Cataloguing of (Political) Manuscripts

20 November 2009 - 2pm-5pm
British Library, London

Details of the sixth and final workshop in the AHRC-funded series, planned to shed light on the still under-researched topic of scribal culture in Italy, are given below. These workshops are open to all and we welcome participation by all those interested in early modern Italy and in the history of the book in early modern Europe, and by librarians, curators and palaeographers. There is a small number of postgraduate bursaries to cover all or part of the cost of attendance. There is no charge for attendance but space is limited. To reserve a place or for more information, please contact Filippo de Vivo (f.de-vivo@bbk.ac.uk) or Brian Richardson (b.f.richardson@leeds.ac.uk). For abstracts of the papers and further information on the project, see http://www.bbk.ac.uk/hca/about/conferences/scribalculture/workshopseries

Workshop details
What does manuscript cataloguing entail and why is it important? What are the challenges facing the themed cataloguing of manuscripts in particular collections? What are the benefits of themed cataloguing to scholarship? How can a catalogue account for subject-matter, author, scribe, and collector? What are the British Library’s holdings and how can they best be catalogued? Building on recent interest in manuscript as a means of communication in early modern France, Great Britain and Spain, this workshop is the last in a series events that have been planned to shed light on the still under-researched topic of scribal culture in Italy. We welcome participation by all those interested in cultural and political history in the history of the book, by historians, art historians, curators, archivists and palaeographers.

[To gain access please go to the Information Desk in the British Library Front Hall, from where you will be escorted to the Panizzi Room]

Programme
14.00 British Library, Panizzi Room - Introduction - Chair: Professor Robert Black (Leeds)
14.05 Giliola Barbero (Università Cattolica, Milan): Shared cataloguing as an aid to the study of early modern manuscripts
14.35 Rachel Stockdale (British Library): Catalogue integration at the British Library
15.05 Dr Filippo de Vivo (Birkbeck College, London): Why catalogue political manuscripts
15.35 Laura Nuvoloni (Cambridge University Library): The Italian political manuscripts at the British Library; presentation of sample manuscripts
16.00 Discussion

Abstracts of papers are available at: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/hca/about/conferences/scribalculture/pastworkshops/cataloguing

Publishing the fine and applied arts, 1500-2000

29 - 30 November 2009
The Foundling Museum, 40 Brunswick Square, London, WC1 1AZ

Organised by Michael Harris, Giles Mandelbrote and Robin Myers, in association with the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association

This year's annual conference on book trade history, the 31st in the series, will explore the relationship between the business of print and the practice of art and design across five centuries. There will also be opportunities to visit the Foundling Museum and to see relevant material in the Department of Prints & Drawings at the British Museum.

Speakers will include:

Malcolm Jones (University of Sheffield): Metal-cut Border Ornaments in Parisian-printed Books of Hours as Design Sources for Sixteenth-Century English Works of Art
Meghan Doherty (University of Wisconsin-Madison): Seventeenth-Century Drawing Manuals and their Print Sources
Charles Hind (British Architectural Library): Publishing Palladio in England, 1650-1750
Nick Savage (Royal Academy of Arts): The Formation and Growth of the Library of the Royal Academy of Arts, 1769-1901
Susan Palmer (Sir John Soane's Museum): Building a Library: Evidence from Sir John Soane's Archive
Charles Sebag-Montefiore: The Private Collection and the Auction Sale Catalogue from the 1620s to early 2000s
Abraham Thomas (Victoria & Albert Museum): Colour Printing and Design Reform: Owen Jones and the Birth of Chromolithography
Rowan Watson (National Art Library): Art Publishing and the Leisure Market in the 1860s and 1870s

The conference fee of £80 will include coffee, tea and a buffet lunch on both days. Full conference details will be published shortly (see http://www.aba.org.uk/bulletin/booktrade.htm). Please contact the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association (by email if possible) to request more information and a booking form: ABA, Sackville House, 40 Piccadilly, London, W1J 0DR. Email: admin@aba.org.uk Tel: 020 7439 3118 Fax: 020 7439 3119

Vom Manuskript zur Messe: Buchherstellung und -distribution und die poetologischen, rhetorischen und theoretischen Rahmungen deutschsprachiger und skandinavischer Texte im 17. und beginnenden 18. Jahrhundert

3 - 5 December 2009
Department of German, University of Zurich

Zusammenfassung
Welche Prozesse durchläuft ein Buch des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts auf seinem Weg vom Manuskript zur Messe? Die Frage nach der Drucklegung ist mitnichten bloss technikgeschichtlich. Sie verweist vielmehr, das ist die Ausgangsthese des Workshops, auf einen zentralen Aspekt für das Verständnis der Literatur in der frühen Neuzeit. Sie steht im Schnittpunkt von zwei bislang kaum verbundenen Forschungslinien, zwischen Druckgeschichte und Paratext-Forschung: Welchen Weg der Leser des Buches auf dem Weg zum Haupttext beschreitet, welche Zusätze am Haupttext seine Lektüre leiten, bestimmt fundamental den Akt des Lesens. Es ist jedoch im Einzelfall weitgehend ungeklärt, inwieweit und auf welche Weise die ökonomischen, gestalterisch-handwerklichen und administrativ-juristischen Bedingungen der Buchproduktion die inhaltliche und formale Anlage der Bücher -- ihre rhetorischen, poetologischen und theoretischen Rahmungen -- beeinflussen. Ziel des Arbeitsgesprächs ist es, mit ausgewiesene Spezialisten über diese Schnittstelle ins Gespräch zu kommen.

Further details of the programme will follow as they become finalized.

Organisers: Simone Ochsner (simone.ochsner@ds.uzh.ch) or Moritz Wedell (moritz.wedell@ds.uzh.ch)

The Conways of Ragley: Courtiers and Collectors, 1564-1655 (London Renaissance Seminar)

5 December 2009
Room 152 Malet Street, Birkbeck College, London

In 1623 the Earl of Kellie noted that a closed cabal had emerged at court over certain confidential matters, consisting of King Charles, the all-powerful George Villiers, and 'Secreterrye Connowaye, whoe is my Lord of Bukkinghames confident, and I think a verrye honnest man'. Edward, first Viscount Conway (1564-1631), principal secretary of state to James I and Charles I, is a relatively understudied figure given both his contemporary power and his notable interest in the major poets of the seventeenth century. Furthermore, his son, Edward, second Viscount Conway (1594-1655), was perhaps the most significant English book collector of his age, whose London and Irish libraries held between them around 13,000 volumes.

The family's collection of personal and official documents, the Conway Papers, is riddled with technical difficulties. Nevertheless, it contains uniquely important manuscript witnesses of literary works by Donne, Jonson, and others, as well as a wealth of political information. This event will trace the Conway family's progress from Warwickshire gentry to the highest levels at court, paying particular attention to their interest in and acquisition of culture, from books and manuscripts to music and dramatic entertainments.

Programme

1.30-3pm The Conways in Context, Chair: Pauline Croft (Royal Holloway)
Ann Hughes (Keele): Edward, first Viscount Conway's Warwickshire: social and cultural contexts
Barra Boydell (NUI Maynooth): Music and the Conways in Ireland

3.30-5pm Literary circulation, Chair: Henry Woudhuysen (UCL)
Daniel Starza Smith (UCL): John Donne in the Conway Papers
Gabriel Heaton (Sotheby's): Entertaining Edward Conway

5-5.30pm Closing comments, Pauline Croft

Organiser: Daniel Starza Smith, University College London. For more details please contact: ucledsm@ucl.ac.uk, or m.f.ocallaghan@reading.ac.uk.

Margins of Print: Ephemera, Print Culture, and Lost Histories of the Newspaper

15 January 2010
School of History, University of Nottingham

This one-day conference/symposium will address the significance of transitory, elusive texts in Britain, Europe and America, including textual artifacts that have eluded traditional categories of print, or have been dismissed as short-lived, disposable, or valueless. To this end, the conference seeks to establish the value of a wide range of ephemera, from pamphlets and pulps, agony columns or matrimonial advertisements to pictorial matter, cards, cartoons, competitions, display advertising and personal ads. Recent decades have witnessed a shift in scholarly interest toward this formerly overlooked print tradition. New digital resources in particular are bringing into view a wide range of printed materials once hidden from the sight of researchers. Some questions raised by this material include: What are the appropriate methods of interpretation for working with ephemeral texts? What do these unique texts tell us about our cultural, social, or technological histories? How do transitory materials document the history of the nation in different ways from other sources? By asking such questions, this event aims to tell the untold stories of ephemera.

Selected papers from the event will be included in a special issue of Media Studies.

We welcome papers on any aspect of ephemera and print culture. Please send proposals of c.500-1000 words to Dr Harry Cocks (harry.cocks@nottingham.ac.uk) and Dr Matt Rubery (m.rubery@leeds.ac.uk) by 31 October 2009.

The History of the Book: Culture, Community, Criticism

21 January 2010
University of Manchester

Chetham's Library and the University of Manchester are pleased to announce their third one-day interdisciplinary history of the book and material culture conference at Chetham's Library, Manchester, taking place Thursday 21st January 2010.

Call for Papers
We invite 20-minute papers from postgraduate students of any discipline who are interested in book history and material culture. Our aim this year is to encourage the combining of methodologies developed in book history in the last thirty years with those of other currents in twentieth-century cultural theory, literary criticism and the study of community. While all abstracts relating to book history and material culture will be considered, we particularly welcome papers that engage any of the following areas:

• The use book history can make of other twentieth-century cultural and literary theory; what might book history perspectives have to say about the writing and dissemination of these intellectual trends?
• The tension between practices of 'form and content' reading and book history's interest in paratextual apparatuses, editorial processes and distribution.
• The relationship between the texts and materials we study and the communities that produce them; study of the evidence of how communities inscribe themselves into texts as in the study of second hand books, or communal responses to texts as in fan fiction.
• The national or cross-cultural transmission of texts, the function of technology in this transmission and the production of international readerships.

Guest Speakers
We are very pleased to announce that Joad Raymond (University of East Anglia) and Isabel Rivers (Queen Mary, University of London) have agreed to present guest papers at our event. Professor Raymond will be discussing Milton and the pan-European circulation of newsbooks in the seventeenth century, and Professor Rivers will present her current research on the culture of religious publishing in the eighteenth century.

It's free! And so is lunch!

Thanks to the support of the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures SAGE Postgraduate Training Programme, there will be no charge for the conference or for the conference lunch.

Abstracts
Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be sent to book-history@manchester.ac.uk by Friday 20th November 2009.

To register to attend please contact the same with details of your position/institution.

Music, Literature, Illustration: Collaboration and networks in English manuscript culture, c1500-c1700 (a postgraduate and post-doctoral conference)

16 - 17 February 2010
Chawton House Library, Chawton, Alton, Hampshire GU34 1SJ

Keynote speaker: Dr Peter Beal FBA, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of English Studies, University of London and former Director and English Manuscript Expert at Sotheby's.

This two-day conference will bring together postgraduate and early career researchers working on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English manuscript sources. Many of the sources from this period are multi-authored and contain strikingly disparate materials, posing a serious challenge to scholars working within traditionally defined disciplinary boundaries.

The primary aim of the conference is to address this challenge: to provide an opportunity for genuine interdisciplinary discussion, and to create new networks between researchers which will enable them to share both theoretical perspectives and practical approaches to working with early modern manuscript materials.

We invite proposals for 20 minute papers that address any aspect of the conference theme but, in particular, those focused in the following areas:

• Studies of individual manuscripts that contain a range of diverse materials
• Manuscripts as emblems of social bonds (e.g. family, friendship, or patronage-based networks)
• Manuscripts as spaces for private reflection
• Manuscripts as objects for public display
• Manuscripts as commodities in a gift economy
• The relationships between manuscript and print culture
• The role of new technologies in manuscript studies
• Project reports and/or practical demonstrations of existing electronic resources
• Conceptual and theoretical models – how can emerging technologies shape the future of manuscript studies?
• Representing non-textual material in electronic editions

300 word abstracts for proposed papers should be sent by email to both conference organisers by October 16th 2009: Michael Gale: mdg@soton.ac.uk and Louise Rayment: L.Rayment@soton.ac.uk

Please include contact details and indicate your institutional affiliation and professional status (i.e. doctoral candidate, post-doctoral researcher etc.) in your submission.

The Retailing and Distribution of Books and Printed Material: Historical Perspectives (CHORD workshop)

17 March 2010
University of Wolverhampton

Call for Papers
The Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution invites participants to a workshop devoted to a discussion of the retailing and distribution of books and all other printed material, from the inception of the printing press to the present.

Proposals are invited covering any form of retail and distribution, from bookshops, to market stalls and itinerants, and any geographical location or historical period.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Bookselling, consumption and consumers

Regulation and competition

The second-hand trade and auctions

Wholesaling

Booksellers and institutions (schools, public libraries, educational institutions, etc.)

Gifting and 'informal' networks of distribution

The sale and distribution of printed 'news'

Please send proposals (including title and c. 200 words abstract) to the address below by 22 January 2010.

For further information and to submit proposals, please contact: Dr Laura Ugolini (L.Ugolini@wlv.ac.uk)

Workshop web-page: http://home.wlv.ac.uk/~in6086/books.html
CHORD web-page: http://home.wlv.ac.uk/~in6086/chord.html

New Directions in Textual Scholarship

26 - 27 March 2010
Saitama University (26th) and the Printing Museum, Tokyo (27th), Japan

Call for Papers
As a result of increasingly widespread use of the internet, the basis of research in the humanities has witnessed a dramatic shift from a dependence on primarily print-based research materials to a heavy reliance on digital resources. This poses a whole new set of problems that in turn necessitate a reassessment of the very foundations of textual scholarship. In discussions of these problems, numerous voices from the Anglo-American and German scholarly traditions have offered significant contributions and advanced the discourse in innovative new ways. Unfortunately, this crucial topic remains virtually absent from scholarly debates in Japan.

It is therefore with great pleasure that we announce an upcoming international symposium dedicated to these issues, to be held over March 26 and 27 at Saitama University and the Printing Museum in Tokyo, Japan. As the first conference in Japan to address these key issues, we hope to stimulate a discussion that will not only convey the timeliness and energy of these debates to Japan, but moreover contribute to the advancement of textual scholarship in a global context. We are particularly honored to have keynote addresses by two of the most distinguished scholars of the field, Peter Shillingsburg and Bodo Plachta, each of whom has fundamentally informed the ongoing development of the Anglo-American and German traditions of textual scholarship. This conference is multi-lingual; the primary languages will be English, German, and Japanese.

The Programme Committee invites submission of abstracts of between 500 and 750 words on the following aspects of humanities research, especially in relation to topics and/or issues pertaining to textual scholarship:

• Globalization
• Digitalization
• Interdisciplinarity

Presentations should be no more than 20 minutes in length. In addition to the abstract itself, participants should provide their name, e-mail address, and institutional affiliation.

The deadline for submission of abstracts to the Programme Committee is September 25, 2009. All submissions will be refereed. Presenters will be notified of acceptance during early November.

Publication of a conference volume is also planned.

Inquiries and proposals should be submitted electronically to the Programme Committee at: textjapan@gmail.com

For conference updates and information, please consult our website: http://www.kyy.saitama-u.ac.jp/users/myojo/textjapan/

Centre for Material Texts: inaugural conference

5 - 6 April 2010
Faculty of English, University of Cambridge

Call for Graduate Papers
The Centre will be holding its inaugural conference on 5-6 April 2010. The purpose of the conference is to explore a variety of current approaches to material textuality across a range of periods and disciplines. Plenary speakers include Leah Price and Peter Stallybrass. Conference panels will include contributions from members of the Faculty, members of the University in other disciplines, and leading international scholars.

We invite any postgraduate students who are interested in participating to submit a short (250-300 word) abstract of their paper, or to propose a panel by submitting three linked abstracts, by Monday 14 December 2009.

More information about the Centre is available on the pilot website (http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/cmt/). Proposals should be sent to the Centre's Director, Jason Scott-Warren (jes1003@cam.ac.uk)

Correspondence: Travel, Writing, and Literatures of Exploration, c. 1750-c. 1850

7 - 10 April 2010
University of Edinburgh and National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh

An international conference hosted by the University of Edinburgh and National Library of Scotland

Call for papers
The University of Edinburgh (Institute of Geography and Centre for the History of the Book), in collaboration with the National Library of Scotland, is pleased to announce 'Correspondence: travel, writing, and literatures of exploration, c. 1750-c.1850'--a four-day, interdisciplinary conference concerned with travel, travel writing, and the associated literatures of exploration.

In bringing together scholarly perspectives from geography, book history, literary studies, and the history of science, the conference seeks to interrogate the relationship between travel, exploration, and publishing in order better to understand how knowledge acquired 'in the field' became, through a series of material and epistemic translations, knowledge on the page. Plenary speakers include Joyce Chaplin (Harvard University), Nigel Leask (University of Glasgow), and Tim Fulford (Nottingham Trent University). Proposals for papers on all aspects of travel in the period in question are welcome. Preference may be given to papers which engage with one or more of the following themes:

• Travellers' inscriptive practices
  How, where, when, and why did travellers and explorers choose to record the details of their journeys? In what respects did the mode and style of travellers’ written accounts--whether rough notes, regularised diaries and logs, thematic reports, or letters--discipline their content and reflect their intended purpose?
• Travellers’ credibility and the veracity of written accounts
  Given that travellers and explorers were only ever partial and imperfect witnesses, how did they assure themselves--and, through the published versions of their work, their audiences--of the truth? How did their accounts correspond to the things they sought to describe and understand? What were the epistemological bases to travellers' claims to truth?
• The correspondence between manuscript and print
  What were the material and epistemic transformations which turned travellers' initial notes into completed, published narratives? Which changes and adaptations were considered necessary in making the transition from manuscript to print? How, in a pre-photographic age, were credible illustrations produced in the field, and how did they supplement and lend authority to printed texts?

Proposals of no more than 250 words should be sent to Dr Innes M. Keighren, Institute of Geography, University of Edinburgh, Drummond Street, EDINBURGH, EH8 9XP or by email to innes.keighren@ed.ac.uk no later than 1 October 2009. The organizers hope to have a programme of over twenty papers over the four days of the meeting (including plenary papers).

Organizers: Dr Bill Bell, Dr Innes M. Keighren, Professor Charles W. J. Withers.

Women Readers/Educational Texts 1500-1800

14 - 16 April 2010
University of Liverpool

The recent upsurge in interest in the history of reading has opened numerous new interpretative avenues for scholars. Women's reading has attracted particular attention, in specific regions and time periods. Much of this critical interest has focussed on the idea of leisure reading, however, with the reading of literary texts an especially common theme. This interdisciplinary conference seeks to explore the range of representations and reading practices contained within and encouraged by works which had a solely or largely pedagogical purpose. What vision of female nature did they propose? How were their textual and editorial strategies specifically adapted to fulfil the perceived needs of the female reading public? How did individual female readers respond to these representations and proposed practices? And how did reading advice and practices change over time?

Points of departure include but are not limited to:

• textual and editorial strategies for advising women
• moral aphorisms for women
• the interplay between educational and leisure reading
• the role of reading in developing women's civic and domestic duties
• reading as a means to women's moral and social advancement
• specific reading practices proposed by educational texts or adopted by individual readers
• the 'feminisation' of traditionally 'masculine' reading practices, including commonplace books, books of extracts etc.

Contributions which treat any language area are welcome. Papers which compare and contrast more than one language area are particularly encouraged.

Proposals for 20-minute papers should be sent to Dr Pollie Bromilow (pollie.bromilow@liverpool.ac.uk) and Dr Mark Towsey (m.r.m.towsey@liverpool.ac.uk) by Friday August 28th 2009.

It is envisaged that this conference will form the basis of a co-edited volume.

This conference is jointly organised by the University of Liverpool History of the Book Research Group and The Eighteenth-Century Worlds Research Centre

This call for papers can also be viewed on-line at: http://www.liv.ac.uk/soclas/conferences/WomenReaders/index.htm

Medieval Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age (MMSDA)

17 - 22 May 2010
Cambridge and London

The Institute of English Studies (London) is pleased to announce the second year of this AHRC-funded course in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, the Warburg Institute, and King's College London.

The course is open only to arts and humanities doctoral students registered at UK institutions. It involves six days of intensive training on the analysis, description and editing of medieval manuscripts in the digital age to be held jointly in Cambridge and London. Participants will receive a solid theoretical foundation and hands-on experience in cataloguing and editing manuscripts for both print and digital formats.

The first half of the course involves morning classes and then visits to libraries in Cambridge and London in the afternoons. Participants will view original manuscripts and gain practical experience in applying the morning's themes to concrete examples. In the second half we will address the cataloguing and description of manuscripts in a digital format with particular emphasis on the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI). These sessions will also combine theoretical principles and practical experience and include supervised work on computers.

The course is free of charge but is open to UK doctoral students only. It is principally aimed at those writing dissertations which relate to medieval manuscripts, especially those on literature, art and history. Priority will be given to PhD students funded by the AHRC. Class sizes are limited to twenty and places are 'first-come-first-served' so early registration is strongly recommended.

For further details see http://ies.sas.ac.uk/study/mmsda/ or contact Dr Peter Stokes at mmsda@sas.ac.uk.

Censorship and Discourse in English-Speaking Countries (16th-21st centuries)

27 - 28 May 2010
University of Rennes 2 (Rennes, France)

Convenor: ACE research group (Anglophonie: Communautés, Ecritures), Rennes 2

Scientific committee: Olivier Caïra (Evry), Claire Charlot (Rennes 2), Claude Le Fustec (Rennes 2), Françoise Lejeune (Nantes), Sophie Marret (Paris 8), Claudine Raynaud (Montpellier 3), Delphine Texier (Rennes 2).

Deadline for submissions: 15 December 2009.

Call for Papers
With the development of the modern state, there has been an ongoing tension between the will to control and at the same time allow free speech to develop. In English-speaking countries, the theme of 'Censorship and Discourse' has been a recurrent concern from the 16th century to the present day, as the numerous censored publications and writings against censorship testify.

This conference will focus on three different aspects of censorship and discourse:

1) The nature of censorship and the way in which it reflects the norms and values of the day;
2) The discourse of censors as institutions of censorship;
3) The perception of censorship and the reactions it entails.

The aim is to bring together specialists from different disciplines: from the literary and linguistic disciplines to the human and social sciences. The conference will be organised on a panel basis and will be in English.

Submissions
We welcome submissions from a broad range of disciplines: Literature, Philosophy, Linguistics, History, Law, Political science, Sociology, Anthropology, the Visual Arts, and Economics. Postgraduates are welcome.

Please send an abstract of up to 250 words, together with your particulars (name, institutional address, occupational status, postal and e-mail addresses) to the following e-mail addresses: clairecharlot@wanadoo.fr and delphine.texier@uhb.fr.

Submissions will be examined by the scientific committee and answers given by the end of December.

There will be a registration fee of 50 euros as a contribution towards meals and conference expenses.

Sir Hans Sloane, The Greatest Physician-Naturalist of his Era

7 - 8 June 2010
British Library, London

An International Conference Commemorating the 350th Anniversary of his Birth

Call for Papers
The year 2010 marks the 350th anniversary of the birth of the physician Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753). Well-known as one of the greatest collectors of his age, he was also President of the Royal Society and the Royal College of Physicians, the major patron of the Chelsea Physic Garden, a physician to Queen Anne, George I and George II, and had many other connections throughout British society, leaving his name to the prestigious Sloane Square in London. His enormous network of acquaintances and correspondents throughout the world established him as probably the single most influential British ‘scientist’ between Isaac Newton and Joseph Banks. After his death, Parliament purchased his collections, which laid the foundation for what are now three institutions: the British Library, British Museum, and Natural History Museum.

A project has been generously funded by the Wellcome Trust to electronically re-create the bulk of Sloane’s voluminous but now dispersed library, led by Alison Walker with the assistance of Shauna Barrett and the direction of Prof Hal Cook. It is now online and being continuously updated at www.bl.uk/catalogues/sloane. The project’s two host institutions, The British Library and The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, are sponsoring a two-day conference on Sloane and his collections.

We invite proposals on any aspect of the history and significance of Sloane and his activities; papers on the development of the Sloane collections after his lifetime will also be considered. Preference will be given to studies that make use of the new online catalogue. Those attending the conference will be responsible for organising their own travel and accommodation. We expect each presentation to take 20 minutes, which will be followed by 10 minutes for discussion, with an opportunity for more general discussion at the end of the conference. Depending on the quality of the papers, a publication may follow.

Please send your proposal by no later than 15 December 2009, which should be no more than one page in length, to Lauren Cracknell at The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 183 Euston Rd., London NW1 2BE, UK, or emailed to l.cracknell@ucl.ac.uk. Inquiries may be directed to Hal Cook, via Lauren Cracknell, or to Alison Walker alison.walker@bl.uk

Money, Power, and Print: Interdisciplinary Studies of the Financial Revolution in the British Isles, 1688-1776

17 - 19 June 2010
University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland

Call for papers
This colloquium will gather scholars from a wide range of disciplines to study the intersections between public finance, politics and literature during Britain's so-called Financial Revolution. (The term 'British' is used loosely to refer to all constituent parts of the United Kingdom and also to Ireland and the colonies. The term 'literature' is broadly defined to include newspapers, pamphlets, treatises, novels, plays, and prints.)

The colloquium organizers invite papers of two broad types: original research on any aspect of the revolution or overviews of the principal issues and arguments in some broad area of secondary scholarship relating to the revolution (with the intent of introducing scholars from other disciplines to the work going on within your own discipline). Graduate students and junior scholars are particularly encouraged to contribute.

Papers must address broad questions that would be of interest to, and be written in a style that is accessible to, a non-specialist, interdisciplinary audience. Preference will be given to papers that consider the influence and role of texts written by contemporaries about the financial revolution. Also very welcome would be papers considering British attitudes toward developments in French public financing, especially to John Law's 'System' and the so-called 'Mississippi Bubble'.

The organizers hope to select two papers each from the following three broad subject areas:

• the financial innovations themselves
• the impact of these innovations on politics (including the political functions of contemporary writing on public finance)
• the ways in which the innovations were portrayed in contemporary literature

Proposals may be submitted to any of the colloquium organizers listed below. Proposals of 250 words are due 15 June 2009. The program will be announced in December 2009. Accepted papers will be due on 1 May 2010 and will be circulated among colloquium participants in advance. The colloquium is an initiative of 'Money, Power and Print', an association of scholars interested in an interdisciplinary approach to the Financial Revolution. The association hosted similar colloquia at Regina, Saskatchewan (2004), Armagh, Northern Ireland (2006), and St John's, Newfoundland and Labrador (2008). Further details are available at www.moneypowerandprint.org.

Chris Fauske
School of Arts and Sciences
Salem State College
352 Lafayette St.
Salem, MA
USA 01970-5353
christopher.fauske@salemstate.edu

Rick Kleer
Department of Economics
University of Regina
3737 Wascana Parkway
Regina, Saskatchewan
Canada S4S 0A2
richard.kleer@uregina.ca

Ivar McGrath
School of History and Archives
University College Dublin
Dublin
Ireland
ivar.mcgrath@ucd.ie

75 Years of Penguin Books: An International Multidisciplinary Conference

29 June - 1 July 2010
University of Bristol, UK

In 2010, Penguin Books will be 75 years old and Puffin Books will be 70 years old. Organised by the AHRC Penguin Archive Project, the International Penguin Conference is occasioned by these two anniversaries of what is arguably the most distinctive and the most significant publishing house in the twentieth century and beyond.

Keynote speakers include:

Professor Sir David Cannadine, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Professor of Contemporary British History (until 2008), Director of the Institute of Historical Research, University of London (1998-2003), Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Historical Research and Chair of its Appeal, Honorary Professor of the University of London, Distinguished Fellow of the School of Advanced Study, and Fellow of the British Academy.
Professor Simon Eliot, Professor of the History of the Book in the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, Deputy Director of the Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies, Visiting Professor of Book History at the Open University, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Member of the Council of the Bibliographical Society of London, and Director of the London Rare Books School.
Professor Kim Reynolds, Professor of Children's Literature, University of Newcastle, and President of the International Research Society for Children's Literature.
Professor Sir Christopher Ricks, William M. and Sara B. Warren Professor of the Humanities and Co-Director of the Editorial Institute, University of Boston, Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford (2004-2009), Immediate Past President of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics, recipient of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's Distinguished Achievement Award for significant contributions to the humanities, and Fellow of the British Academy.

The conference is organised by the AHRC-funded Penguin Archive Project and will seek to cover the diversity of Penguin's publication history. The Penguin Archive itself is held in the Special Collections of the University of Bristol Library and attracts the attention of researchers in many disciplines and fields at national and international level, including historians of the book, biographers, social and political historians, cultural analysts and literary researchers.

Papers are invited on any topic connected to Penguin Books, past and present, and the following suggested topics are intended to be neither prescriptive nor comprehensive:

• The ways in which Penguin shaped social, cultural, and/or intellectual history;
• The relationship between Penguin and public policy (Pelicans, Penguin Specials and Peregrines);
• The changing role of women in publishing; (Eunice Frost who became the first woman director of Penguin in 1960 is foremost among several women who have worked and work for Penguin in key roles.)
• Typography and book design;
• Translation of European and World literatures;
• Translation and the reception of the Classics in English (seen for example in the papers of E.V. Rieu and of Betty Radice who succeeded him as editor of the Penguin Classics);
• Publishing, censorship and the law (famously Lady Chatterley's Lover, but also Ulysses and other cases of possible libel or obscenity);
• Art History and architecture (including Pevsner's Guides to the Buildings of England);
• Children's literature (Puffin and Peacock Books);
• Modern poetry (British and international);
• Fiction (the establishment of a canonical list and the encouragement of contemporary writers);
• Correspondence with individual authors.

Please send proposals (150-200 words) for papers of 20 minutes duration to penguin-project@bristol.ac.uk by 1st February 2010.

An exhibition of related materials from the University Library Special Collections Penguin Archive will form part of the conference proceedings.

The Penguin Archive Project website can be found at http://www.bristol.ac.uk/penguinarchiveproject/

Circulating Ideas in Seventeenth-Century Europe: Networks, Knowledge and Forms

8 - 10 July 2010
Royal Society, 6-9, Carlton House Terrace, London

Keynote speakers: Mark Greengrass, Margaret Ezell, and Richard Serjeantson

The seventeenth century in Europe was an age of turmoil. As wars, revolutions, and exploration redrew the boundaries of the physical world, a tumult of new ideas shifted the boundaries of the intellectual world. In poetry and in polemics, men and women involved in philosophy, theology, politics, and science created a dynamic knowledge economy.

Ideas were the currency of this economy - but how did writers, thinkers, and agents choose the forms in which that currency should circulate? This conference takes up that question, investigating the relationship between the circulation of ideas and the forms in which they circulated.

Forms. Ideas might circulate in manuscript or in print; in Latin, or in the vernacular. How were individual writers thinking about the effects or consequences of these choices? How might the language, form, and medium of these texts influence the reception of the content?

Networks. The circulation of ideas involved networks of intelligencers, scribes, printers, publishers, and booksellers. How did particular coteries and networks circulate their arguments? How does this collaborative aspect affect how modern scholarship construes their significance?

Knowledge. Concerns about censorship and secrecy - or conversely a perceived need for publicity - influenced how ideas in these fields are communicated. How were particular categories of content (scientific, satirical, literary, theological, or political) linked to particular material forms?

Possible panel topics might include:

• Science and medicine in circulation
• Literary communities/coteries
• the Republic of Letters
• Authorship and identity
• History of the book
• History of reading and reception
• Scribal publication
• Censorship
• Ciphers and codes
• Gender and knowledge

We welcome proposals for either full panels or individual papers.

Individual paper proposals should be 300 words long. For full panel proposals, please send all paper abstracts with an additional 300-word description of panel itself.

Proposals should be e-mailed to all three conference organizers (Ruth Connolly, Felicity Henderson, and Carol Pal) by 7 January, 2010.

Dr. Ruth Connolly: ruth.connolly@newcastle.ac.uk
Dr. Felicity Henderson: felicity.henderson@royalsociety.org
Dr. Carol Pal: cpal@bennington.edu

See the conference website at: http://tiny.cc/cisce. More details will be posted as available.

This conference is presented to mark the 350th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Society.

Material Cultures 2010: Technology, Textuality, and Transmission

16 - 18 July 2010
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh

Roger Chartier, Jerome McGann, Peter Stallybrass

Following the Material Cultures conferences which took place at The University of Edinburgh in 2000 and 2005, the third in the series is scheduled to take place in July 2010. The key theme of the conference is 'Technology, Textuality, and Transmission', though proposals relating to all aspects of Bibliography and the History of the Book are welcome.

Materiality and Textuality
Electronic Text
The Cultures of Print
Censorship and Regulation
Collections and their Preservation
Readers and Reading Practices
Technology and Transmission
The Information Revolution
Geographies of the Book

Proposals of 200-300 words are invited on these or any other topic related to the history of the book, to be sent no later than NOVEMBER 30, 2009, to Material Cultures, Centre for the History of the Book, University of Edinburgh, 22a Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh, EH8 9LW or by email to materialcultures@ed.ac.uk

Organised by The CENTRE for the HISTORY of the BOOK http://www.hss.ed.ac.uk/chb

Reading Conflict (Postgraduate Conference)

19 July 2010
Institute of English Studies, Senate House, London

Organised by the Open University

Sarah Brouillette (Carleton University) will be the keynote speaker. The conference organisers welcome papers from postgraduate students, especially those working in postcolonial studies and the history of the book.

Key themes include:

• Conflict and the Creative Voice
• Reading during Conflict
• Conflict and Publishing
• Conflict and the History of the Book
• Conflict and Travel Writing
• Conflict and the Canon
• Conflict between Literary Disciplines
• Conflict between Literary Genres
• Conflict within Postcolonial Studies
• Conflict, Empire and Postcolonialism

Proposals for individual papers (20 mins) or panels (60 mins) should be sent directly to the conference organiser, Ole Birk Laursen (O.B.Laursen@open.ac.uk) by Monday 19 April 2010. The Day Conference is intended specifically as a forum for Postgraduate students and early career scholars; do encourage your PhD students and postdoctoral research assistants to offer papers or to attend.

SHARP 2010: Book Culture from Below

17-21 August 2010
Helsinki, Finland

Call for papers
The conference theme Book Culture from Below emphasizes the book culture of peasants, the laboring classes and other under-represented and oppressed groups, especially their independence and initiative in creating, using and deciphering printed works and print culture. In keeping with the SHARP spirit, we welcome proposals on all aspects of book history, but especially those that address issues and questions related to the conference theme, for example:

• How can the 'from below' perspective be applied to book history? How does this perspective intersect with class, race, gender and ideology?
• Who are the readers, writers, publishers and distributors 'from below'? Which forms of authorship and educational practices have been available to them?
• How can differences and interactions among educated, autodidactic and uneducated readers, writers and publishers be conceptualized?
• How can the various forms of literacy and illiteracy be recognized and analyzed?
• Which kinds of writings and publications are relevant for studying book culture from below? Which bibliographical and book history methods and approaches can we use to study them?
• How can the complex interaction between folklore and book culture, orality and literacy be re-evaluated? What are the functions of the manuscript medium in relation to the oral and the printed media?
• What are the intersections of subaltern and post-colonial studies with book history?
• In which ways does the 'from below'-perspective challenge hegemonic national histories? What are the possibilities of transnational studies in this field?

We invite not only researchers of print culture but also those studying manuscripts (whether medieval or modern era) to the conference.

Proposals
The conference is open to both individual presentations and complete panel proposals (including three speakers and a chairperson). Each speaker will be given 20 minutes for the presentation and 10 minutes for discussion. All sessions will last 90 minutes. The proposals should be sent in English, which is the main language of the conference.

Proposals can be sent only by using the proposal form available on the conference website. The official on-line submission process will be opened on 15 September 2009. The deadline for submissions is 30 November 2009. No proposals will be considered after the deadline.

Participants must be members of SHARP in order to present at the conference. It is the responsibility of presenters to ensure that they are members by the time of the registration. For information on membership, please visit the SHARP website at www.sharpweb.org.

Travel grants
SHARP is able to provide a limited number of travel grants to graduate students and independent scholars. If you wish to be considered for such a grant, please state this when submitting your proposal.

For more information, please visit the conference’s website at www.helsinki.fi/sharp2010. Inquiries concerning the conference should be sent to sharp-2010@helsinki.fi

Universal Reformation: Intellectual Networks in Central and Western Europe, 1560-1670

7 - 9 September 2010
St Anne's College, Oxford

Call for Papers

For decades before the Thirty Years War, Protestant communities in Poland-Lithuania, the Czech lands, and Hungary-Transylvania, lacking fully functional local universities responsive to their needs, sent their sons westward to study in Germany’s numerous universities and academies. The resulting contact and reciprocal influence knit the intellectual histories of these regions together in inextricable ways. The three decades of war which followed disrupted many of these institutions and replaced these patterns of academic travel with fresh waves of intellectual refugees fleeing in all directions: not only to Transylvania, western Poland, and Polish Prussia, but also to Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and the British Isles. At the same time, the trauma of displacement transformed long-nurtured aspirations toward ecclesiastical reunification, political pacification, pedagogical improvement, and philosophical reform into an all-embracing programme of universal reformation. As formulated above all by the exiled Moravian pedagogue and pansophist Jan Amos Comenius (1592-1670), this vision was disseminated in England by the circle around the displaced 'intelligencer' from Polish Prussia, Samuel Hartlib (c. 1600-62).

For much of the twentieth century, the intrinsic difficulty of surveying this vast network was exacerbated by profound national rivalries and ideological divisions. Following the revolutions of 1989 and the expansion of the European Union in 2004, however, transformed political conditions allow an unprecedented assault on this problem. With this in mind, this conference invites both emerging and established scholars to contribute their perspectives on this huge system and the unfamiliar intellectual traditions exchanged within it. Discussions are intended to range outward chronologically from the wartime period to earlier and immediately following developments connected with it, and geographically from central Europe in all directions. Intellectual traditions to be explored include the following:

• Universal education: institutional networks and intellectual exchange
• Universal wisdom: encyclopaedia and pansophia
• Universal communication: the early modern European media revolution
• Universal communion: ecclesiastical reconciliation in central Europe
• Universal history: millenarianism, prophecy, and propaganda

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be sent to the Cultures of Knowledge Project Director, Professor Howard Hotson (cofk@humanities.ox.ac.uk), by 31 December 2009.

Website: http://www.culturesofknowledge.org

The Perils of Print Culture

10 - 12 September 2010
Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

Over the past twenty years the study of print culture has become prominent in the disciplines of history, literary studies and languages. The study of print culture has many advantages, but there is a growing sense among advanced practitioners that scholars need to fine-tune or calibrate their understanding of this burgeoning field of enquiry.

Papers presented at this conference will encourage scholars to think more systematically about the conceptual, methodological and technological problems associated with the study of print culture. They will encompass a wide range of chronological periods, geographical locations and genres of print.

For more details of the themes of the conference go to: http://www.tcd.ie/longroomhub/news/initiative-funding/print-culture.php

Due to the way that the Provincial Book Fairs Association now presents its calendar on its website, it has become too time-consuming to import the data over to HoBo. Consequently, I'm afraid that I won't be including PBFA fair information in future...