2023 ICMA FORSYTH LECTURES

DIRTY DIGITAL BOOKS

DR. KATHRYN RUDY
PROFESSOR, SCHOOL OF ART HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS

University of Missouri-Kansas City, Monday 13 February, 3:30 PM

Miller Nichols Library Room 451

Join us for a dynamic lecture exploring the intersections of technology and medieval book history. Esteemed manuscript scholar Dr. Rudy will discuss new research related to her project, “Dirty Books,” which uses technology to understand how Books of Hours were read and handled in the late Late Middle Ages. The most used sections became darkened with fingerprints, which she has analyzed with a machine called a densitometer. Her new project makes use of digital resources in addition to hands-on study, benefiting from recent initiatives to digitize manuscripts and make them available online.

Contact: Virginia Blanton, blantonv@umkc.edu

An internationally-recognized scholar of the reception and function of medieval manuscripts, Kathryn Rudy (Kate) is Bishop Wardlaw Professor of Art History at the University of St Andrews, a member of the St Andrews Institute of Medieval Studies, and the Director of the Centre for the Study of Medieval Manuscripts and Technology. She is also an Excellence Professor at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands.

THESE EVENTS HAVE BEEN SUPPORTED BY THE INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF MEDIEVAL ART’S FORSYTH LECTURE FUND AS WELL AS OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY, UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS, AND UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-KANSAS CITY.

For a flyer of this event, click here.