CALL FOR PAPERS
Layers of Parchment, Layers of Time: Reconstructing Manuscripts: 800 - 1600
An Interdisciplinary Symposium, 23 June 2017, University of Cambridge
Layers of Parchment, Layers of Time: Reconstructing Manuscripts: 800 - 1600 is an interdisciplinary conference that will explore various issues surrounding the complex subject of manuscripts whose parts have become dislodged and subsequently had diverging histories. Our goal is to foster dialogues—between different disciplines—on how to approach dismembered manuscripts from intellectual and practical perspectives.
We will compose panels thematically, grouping papers by geographical and temporal subject rather than by academic discipline. We encourage submissions from scholars, post-graduate students, and professionals in art history, palaeography/codicology, manuscript studies and conservation, digital humanities, history, museum studies, and beyond. Suggested topics include, but are by no means limited to:
- The manuscript as an object made in layers over time
- Digital reconstruction of manuscripts
- New approaches to understanding reception
- Methodologies for tracing lost/stolen fragments and leaves
- Methodologies for reconstructing manuscripts
- Economic, political, and legal consequences of reconstructing manuscripts
- Reconstructed manuscripts in their original contexts
- Modern methods of preservation for loose fragments/leaves
- The art market as a means for fragment/leaf distribution
- The role of collectors (public institutions and private individuals)
We intend to publish the proceedings from the conference in either a journal, or as a stand-alone anthology.
The Keynote will be given by Dr. David Rundle (University of Essex)
http://www.lostmss.org.uk/fragments-lost- manuscripts-search
Papers will be scheduled for 20 minutes. Please email your abstracts, of no more that 300 words to Dr. Kathryn Rudy and Stephanie Azzarello at reconstructing.mss.cambridge@gmail.com by 1 February 2017. Along with your abstract please include your name, institution, paper title and brief biography. We strongly encourage you to consider your paper as a performance, rehearse it well, and to avoid reading directly from the page, if possible. Successful applicants with be notified by 10 February 2017. Layers of Parchment, Layers of Time: Reconstructing Manuscripts will take place at the University of Cambridge, Pembroke College, with a dinner to follow.
http://reconstructingmanuscripts2017.wordpress.com