Call for Papers
Fragments and the Big Picture: Using Manuscript Fragments as Historical Sources
International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, 9-11 May 2024
Due By 15 September 2023
Helsinki National Library, F.m.I.83, fol. 5r
Over the last decades, manuscript fragments have received increased scholarly attention and international collaboration. Much of this work has concentrated on reconstructing now fragmented codices, highlighting rare survivals, or cataloguing.
While such efforts are crucially important, there is great research potential in the capacity of collections of fragments to expand our vision of medieval history more broadly. This session welcomes papers exploring how large or small fragment corpora (manuscript or incunabula) - and the meta-data about their provenance and early-modern recycling history - can be used as historical sources informing medieval book culture and other historical phenomena more broadly.
The organisers welcome papers using digital, big data/quantitative, as well as more traditional methodologies. We also encourage the exploration of methodological questions, such as:
How to approach fragments as corpora?
What can such corpora be thought to be representative of?
How have they been shaped by the recycling processes that ensured their survival?
What is the role of studying these processes in the wider context of fragment studies?
The session will be in-person only.
Paper proposals (c. 300-word abstract, affiliation, contact details, paper title, and 3-5 keywords), to be submitted on the ICMS Confex portal (see wmich.edu/medievalconaress/call) or to Emilia Henderson-Roche on emilia.henderson@helsinkif.fi, from 15 July, and by the latest 15 September 2023.
For an image of the call for papers, click here.