Marco Manuscript Workshop 2021: “Immaterial Culture”

February 5-6, 2021
Remotely from the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Details at http://marco.utk.edu/ms-workshop/

The sixteenth annual Marco Manuscript Workshop will take place Friday,
February 5, and Saturday, February 6, 2021. Sessions will meet
virtually via an online platform. The workshop is led by Professors
Maura K. Lafferty (Classics) and Roy M. Liuzza (English), and is
hosted by the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies,
the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

This year’s workshop will consider some of the recent challenges that
researchers have faced with the suspension of travel, the closing of
libraries and universities, and the quarantine restrictions that have
kept so many of us in our homes. How can our field, which has always
emphasized the importance of physical place and tactile artifacts,
work successfully in isolation and at a distance? What does it mean
for us when our work takes place in an incorporeal world of light and
numbers rather than ink and flesh, in matrices of data rather than
dusty rooms? We propose to explore the advantages and disadvantages of
this “immaterial culture,” and to think about how our work is shaped
by access or lack of access to manuscripts, texts, catalogues, and
objects. We would like to hear about experiences working remotely,
discoveries made using virtual archives or catalogues, or advice on
how to study manuscripts without visiting archives or how to teach
codicology without a library. We welcome stories of scholars who have
been productive in constrained circumstances. We would also like to
learn from the experience of those for whom archives have been
inaccessible for other reasons – scholars who are homebound, visually
impaired, or otherwise physically challenged, or those whose access to
libraries and collections has been restricted or denied. How have
these constraints shaped your work? What can these experiences tell us
about our discipline? We welcome presentations on any aspect of this
topic, broadly imagined.

The workshop is open to scholars and graduate students in any field
who are engaged in textual editing, manuscript studies, or epigraphy.
This year’s workshop will be virtual, but we hope to retain as much of
the format and the flavor of our in-person meetings as possible.
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. We will prepare an
online repository where presenters can place abstracts, presentations,
or supporting material for access by all attendees. 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 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 problems, practical difficulties, and new or
experimental models for studying or representing manuscript texts.
Presenters will receive a $500 honorarium for their participation.

The deadline for applications is October 9, 2020. Applicants are asked
to submit a current CV and a two-page abstract of their project to Roy
M. Liuzza, preferably via email to
rliuzza@utk.edu<mailto:rliuzza@utk.edu>.

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. In
order to keep the virtual sessions manageable, preregistration will be
required and spaces will be limited. Further details will be available
later in the year; please contact the Marco Institute at
marco@utk.edu<mailto:marco@utk.edu> for more information.