Author: robertordt

Call for Papers: Marco Manuscript Workshop, University of Tennessee, February 4-5, 2011

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Marco Manuscript Workshop: “Editions and E-ditions: New Media and Old Texts”
February 4–5, 2011
The Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
University of Tennessee, Knoxville

The Fifth Marco Manuscript Workshop will be held Friday and Saturday, February 4 and 5, 2011, at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville; the workshop is organized by Professors Maura K. Lafferty (Classics) and Roy M. Liuzza (English).

In this year’s workshop we hope to consider how the tools we use to study texts have shaped, and continue to shape, our practice of editing. Do the editorial principles we adopt arise from the reality of medieval texts, or do they construct that reality? Does our choice of one convention of presentation over another predispose us and our readers to certain kinds of interpretations? Are concepts like ‘variant’, ‘apparatus’, even ‘text’, a reflection of the material we study, or the social history of printed editions?

Meanwhile, changing technology for presenting and organizing texts and images make it seem that the most venerable principles might suddenly be negotiable and the most basic conventions unnecessary; whatever can be imagined can be achieved. But do new tools for studying manuscripts require new rules for reading and making editions? What are the new principles and conventions used to create electronic editions? And if these new tools free us from the constraints of traditional printed text, do they impose other constraints not yet apparent to us? We welcome presentations on any aspect of this topic, broadly imagined.

The workshop is open to scholars and students at any rank and in any field who are engaged in textual editing, manuscript studies, or epigraphy. Individual 75-minute sessions will be devoted to each project; participants will be asked to introduce their text and its context, discuss their approach to working with their material, and exchange ideas and information with other participants. As in previous years, the workshop is intended to be more a class than a conference; participants are encouraged to share new discoveries and unfinished work, to discuss both their successes and frustrations, to offer both practical advice and theoretical insights, and to work together towards developing better professional skills for textual and codicological work. We particularly invite the presentation of works in progress, unusual manuscript problems, practical difficulties, and new or experimental models for studying or representing manuscript texts. Presenters will receive a stipend of $500 for their participation.

The deadline for applications is October 1, 2010. Applicants are asked to submit a current CV and a two-page letter describing their project to Roy M. Liuzza, preferably via email to rliuzza@utk.edu, or by mail to the Department of English, University of Tennessee, 301 McClung Tower, Knoxville, TN 37996-0430.

The workshop is also open at no cost to scholars and students who do not wish to present their own work but are interested in sharing a lively weekend of discussion and ideas about manuscript studies. Further details will be available online later in the year; meanwhile please contact Roy Liuzza for more information.

[The Marco Manuscript Workshop is sponsored by the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Tennessee, with support from the Hodges Better English Fund and the Office of Research in the College of Arts and Sciences.]

Posted by: Roberto Rosselli Del Turco (rosselli at ling dot unipi dot it)

Music Encoding Initiative Council announces the release of MEI

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The Music Encoding Initiative Council announces the release of MEI 2010-05 – a groundbreaking digital musical notation model.

The MEI Council is pleased to announce the first collaboratively-designed method for encoding the intellectual and physical characteristics of music notation documents and their scholarly editorial apparatus. MEI has the ability to manage complex source situations and will dramatically improve the search, retrieval and display of notated music online, benefiting music scholars and performers. Because of MEI’s software independence, the data format defined by the schema also serves an archival function.

The MEI model is free and available for download at http://music-encoding.org/. The site also offers tutorials, examples, and experimental software for MEI conversion – more will be available in the near future. Information about the future of the project and how to get involved are also on the site.

The MEI Council is an international group of scholars, technologists, and educators representing a broad range of musicological, theoretical, and pedagogical interests. The Council was created through funding to the University of Virginia Library and the University of Paderborn from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

About the University of Virginia
With 14 physical locations as well as the original Rotunda, the U.Va. Library contains more than 5 million books, 17 million manuscripts, rare books and archives, and rapidly growing digital collections. The Library is a leader in developing collections, tools, and collaborations that foster scholarship at the University and worldwide. It is known, in particular, for its strength in American history and literature and its innovation in digital technologies. The MEI project is a continuation of work begun in 2000 at U.Va.

About the University of Paderborn
The University of Paderborn has a special focus on Computer Science, exemplified by its Heinz-Nixdorf Institute. Together with the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, the University conducts the Seminar for Musicology where, in 2004 and in cooperation with the Carl Maria von Weber Complete-Edition project, preliminary work was performed regarding digital critical editions of music. Its “Edirom” project (also DFG-funded) has been developing platform- independent solutions for musical editions since 2006.

About the granting agencies
The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft is the central, self-governing research funding organization, serving all branches of science and the humanities by funding research at universities and other publicly financed research institutions in Germany and facilitating cooperation among investigators.

The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent grant-making agency of the United States government dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities.

Any views, finding, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

Posted by: Roberto Rosselli Del Turco (rosselli at ling dot unipi dot it)

Version 1.0 of the Eadui font released under the Open Font License

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Many thanks to those who tested my Eadui font, which tries to faithfully reproduce the English Caroline Minuscule hand of the eleventh-century Canterbury scribe Eadui Basan. I’ve released version 1.0 under the Open Font License on the Open Font Library website:

http://openfontlibrary.org/files/psb6m/177

Happy summer to all,
Peter Baker

[From the accompanying document (Eadui.pdf):]

EADUI THE FONT IS NAMED FOR A SCRIBE WHO worked at Christ Church, Canterbury, in the first half of the eleventh century and signed himself “Eaduuius cognomento Basan.” This Eadui Basan was a leading practitioner of the scribal hand known to paleographers as style IV English caroline minuscule. Like caroline minuscules generally, this one is notable for its legibility; and Eadui’s work, at its best, possesses a formal beauty that is matched by few scribes of his time.

This font, based on Eadui’s hand, uses OpenType features to emulate the characteristics of written script: numerous ligatures and contextual variants give the script the slightly irregular look of a handmade thing. Eadui works best with applications that make available the OpenType features of fonts. These include Adobe InDesign and XeTeX; many features of Eadui are also accessible in Mellel and iWorks, fewer in word processors like Microsoft Word and OpenOffice.org.

St. Gall virtual library – manuscripts specialist

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Manuscripts Specialist (Staff Research Associate III)

Under the direction of the project’s Principal Investigator Professor Patrick Geary and the Project Manager Dr. Julian Hendrix, the Research Associate will be responsible for directing and performing archival and library research, and for identifying and analyzing the linguistic, orthographic, paleographic and textual features of some 168 medieval manuscripts for the research project “Creation of Virtual Libraries of the Carolingian Monasteries of St. Gall and Reichenau.” Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this project will make accessible online digital images, descriptions, and contextual data of ninth-century manuscripts from libraries at St. Gall and Reichenau. The Research Associate will assist the Project Manager with the development of XML
templates and user interfaces for the project’s manuscript website. The Research Associate will also assist the Project Manager in creating descriptions and indices of the manuscripts’ contents as well as be responsible for writing thematic essays highlighting significant elements of the manuscript collection for publication on the project website.

Candidates must have a PhD in some area of medieval studies and strong Latin and German, as well as extensive knowledge of Carolingian paleography and codicology, and experience working with early medieval manuscripts. Experience working with XML markup and web design is strongly preferred.

This is a two-year (07/01/10 – 06/30/12), grant-funded position. The availability of the position is subject to the grant being awarded. In addition to completing the online application at hr.mycareer.ucla.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=56376 (you can not be considered for the position without applying on-line), please send a copy of your letter of application (cover letter) and CV to the project PI, Professor Patrick Geary, by email to geary@ucla.edu.

—
Julian Hendrix
Staff Research Associate
UCLA
Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
302 Royce Hall
Box 94551485
Los Angeles CA
90095-1485

Posted by: Roberto Rosselli Del Turco (rosselli at ling dot unipi dot it)

III National day for multidisciplinary study of illustrated manuscripts

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In the days June 10-11th 2010 at the Fondazione Museo del Tesoro del Duomo e Archivio Capitolare and the Faculty of Arts of the University of Eastern Piedmont in Vercelli (Piedmont) a workshop will be organised with the title Codici miniati: incontro tra arte e scienza. Gli Scriptoria altomedievali (Illuminated manuscripts: meeting among art and science. The early Medieval scriptoria). This initiative is the III edition of the  National day for the multidisciplinary study of illuminated manuscripts; the two previous editions were held in Parma – Biblioteca Palatina and in Modena – Faculty of Arts. The aim of these workshops is to look for a meeting point among activities of scholars from the humanistic side (art historians, palaeographers, linguists) and researchers from the scientific side (chemists, physicians) with reference to the analysis of illuminated manuscripts. These two research fields are at present fairly distant but could find several points of contact, increasing in this way knowledge and  usability of masterpieces such as illuminated manuscripts.

Due to success and interest given by the two previous editions, which were organised as local events, we thought to give an international dimension to the third edition by adding the presence of foreign speakers choosen among experts from both sides. The opportunity to host part of the workshop inside the Biblioteca Capitolare at Vercelli, a site deputed to the conservation and valorisation of a codicological heritage highly relevant at national and international level, and to have the possibility to have a direct look to manuscripts themselves in such an historical framework, imparts an added value to the event.

The argument of the workshop concerns with the Italian early Medieval scriptoria. Italian scholars, highly trained in their respective fields of research, will present scientific and historical-artistic studies concerning illuminated manuscripts from the main Italian scriptoria in the period IV-X century (Nonantola, Bobbio, Vercelli, etc.). It will be an important occasion to discuss about aspects of common interest.

Foreign speakers will bring a highly relevant contribution by presenting studies on early medieval manuscripts from foreign scriptoria, mainly from France and British Isles. The speakers are researchers working at foreign Universities (University of Amsterdam, Kiel, London) or at museums of  great international prestige (British Library at London, Trinity College Library at Dublino, Victoria & Albert Museum at London). Their competence will then be particularly welcome, making it possible to start collaboration on common projects.

The workshop will be organised on two days, June 10th and 11th 2010. The first day, scheduled at the Fondazione Museo del Tesoro del Duomo e Archivio Capitolare inside the Sala del Trono of the Palazzo Arcivescovile at Vercelli, will be devoted to some oral contributions, after whom a guided visit will be proposed to the manuscripts held in the Biblioteca Capitolare. The second day, organised at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Eastern Piedmont – Ala Conventuale of the Sant’Andrea Abbey, will include oral contributions in the morning, a poster session after lunch break and again oral contributions. Publication of a proceedings volume will be realised, as in the previous editions; in this case publication will be either on paper and in online format, spreading information about it on this web site (http://www.arc.unito.it/index.php?lang=en).

Organisation is due to the following committees:
Scientific committee:

* Dott. Maurizio Aceto (Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale)
* Prof. Pietro Baraldi (Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia)
* Dott. Danilo Bersani (Università degli Studi di Parma)
* Prof.ssa Giusi Zanichelli (Università degli Studi di Salerno)

Organising committee:

* Dott. Maurizio Aceto (Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale)
* Dott. Angelo Agostino (Università degli Studi di Torino)
* Dott.ssa Anna Cerutti Garlanda (Coordinatrice dei Comitati Scientifici presso la Fondazione Museo del Tesoro del Duomo e Archivio Capitolare)
* Dott. Timoty Leonardi (Conservatore Manoscritti e Rari presso la Fondazione Museo del Tesoro del Duomo e Archivio Capitolare)
* Prof. Saverio Lomartire (Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale)

For any information please contact:

Dott. Maurizio Aceto
Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Ambiente e della Vita
Università del Piemonte Orientale
Viale Teresa Michel, 11
15100 – Alessandria
phone  +39 0131 360265
print +39 0131 260250
mail maurizio.aceto@mfn.unipmn.it

Posted by: Roberto Rosselli Del Turco (rosselli at ling dot unipi dot it)