9 am to 5 pm, followed by dinner at a nearby restaurant.
Held at the Newberry Library. The overall theme of this year’s workshops was “Reading Publics in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Renaissance Europe.”
Specialists on Italian, Latin, and Hebrew texts discussed paratextual frameworks that developed for books published in Italy, France, Germany, and the Low Countries during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The workshop leaders adduced comparisons among the three language traditions and invited discussion from specialists in other fields. Special considerations included title page, dedication, and preface advertisements, author portraits; diagrams and charts for teaching; critical framing; and addresses to the reader. Workshop participants also examined originals of many of the texts considered in the Newberry collection.
Session 1
Paratexts in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Editions of Dante’s Commedia
Simon Gilson, University of Warwick
Session 2
Paratexts, Medieval “Works,” and Imagined Audiences: Case Studies from Hebrew Books
Adam Shear, University of Pittsburgh
First session with Newberry books and materials
Session 3
The Use of Paratexts in Writings Published in Connection with Instruction in Philosophy and the Arts in Early Modern Europe
Joseph F. Freedman, Alabama State University
Session 4
Finding New Readers in Schools: Advertising Grammar Books in the Sixteenth Century
Paul F. Gehl, The Newberry Library
Second session with Newberry books and materials
Discussants
Kenneth J. Knoespel, Georgia Institute of Technology
Michael Wyatt, Independent Scholar
This is one of a series of collaborative programs of the University of Warwick Centre for the Study of the Renaissance and the Newberry Center for Renaissance Studies, funded by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Future activities include a two-week residential workshop to be held at Warwick University in Coventry, England, July 9-20, 2011.
Learn more about the Warwick-Newberry Collaborative Programs, and see the University of Warwick’s web page on Reading Publics.