Marco Manuscript Workshop Performing Texts

Marco Manuscript Workshop

Performing Texts

February 5-6, 2016

The Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

The Eleventh Marco Manuscript Workshop will be held Friday, February 5, and Saturday, February 6, 2016, at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville; the workshop is organized by Professors Roy M. Liuzza (English) and Maura Lafferty (Classics).

For this year’s workshop we invite presentations that explore the idea of “performing texts.” In a sense all pre-modern texts are performative; reading was generally an auditory and often a social experience, unlike modern practices of silent and usually solitary reading. Textual elements such as rubrics, initials, and punctuation all work to ease the passage from visual artifact to living performance. Other manuscripts are sites of performance in their intertextual composition, blending word and image, juxtaposing one text to another, adding meaning at the moment of interaction between a text and reader. Still other manuscripts are explicitly scripts for vocal performance: examples include texts with musical notation, poems and songs, dramas to be enacted or transcripts of acts already performed, liturgical texts and prayers, medical recipes and charms. The manuscript is only the silent record of the voices and actions it inspired. How do we interpret and represent this record to recover the performance imbedded in the text? 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 like 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 15, 2015. Applicants are asked to submit a current CV and a two-page letter describing their project to Roy M. Liuzza, preferably via email torliuzza@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 later in the year; please contact Roy Liuzza for more information.