Event TODAY: Open University Book History and Bibliography Research Seminar

Speakers

Wim van Mierlo (University of London)

Speakers Abstract:

Dr Wim Van Mierlo is Acting Director of the Institute of English Studies.  His research focuses on literary manuscripts of the period after 1700, particularly their palaeographican and codicological features, as well more generally textual scholarship and book history.  His publications include an edition of W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, Where There is Nothing and the Unicorn from the Stars: Manuscript Materials (issued in the Cornell Yeats Series) and The Reception of James Joyce in Europe (co-edited with Geert Lernout).  He is also the editor-in-chief of Variants: the Journal of the European Society for Textual Scholarship.

02 February 2015, 17:30 – 19:30

Event Type:

Seminar

Venue:

Room 104 (Senate House, first floor)

Venue Details:

Senate House
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HU

Description

Have We Yet Learnt to Make Manuscripts Speak? Manuscript Culture after 1700

It is now generally accepted that the invention of the printing press did not wipe out the production and distribution of manuscripts. What is often not considered is how long this manuscript culture persisted.  This paper therefore considers aspects of a continuing manuscript culture in the past 300 years. One must acknowledge (following the work of Donald Reiman) that during this period manuscripts are largely, though not exclusively, restricted to the private sphere.  This does not stop manuscripts from belonging to a larger cultural practice, however, that determines how writers use pen and paper. To elucidate these ideas I will draw on a number of examples from mainly literary authors and poets from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

For more information see: http://events.sas.ac.uk/ies/events/view/17426/Open%20University%20Book%20History%20and%20Bibliography%20Research%20Seminar