Workshops on Medieval Manuscripts
Dr. N. Kıvılcım Yavuz, Ann Hyde Postdoctoral Researcher at Kenneth Spencer Research Library, conducts workshops focusing on medieval manuscripts. The workshops explore the material nature of the medieval manuscript book while looking at current trends in manuscript studies. The aim of the workshops is to provide participants the basic skills to examine a manuscript as well as an understanding of medieval book history and medieval book-making practices.
Each workshop features a one-hour lecture followed by an hour of hands-on work. All workshops take place at Kenneth Spencer Research Library, unless otherwise specified. Workshops are open to everyone, including undergraduate and graduate students, staff, and faculty. No previous experience in working with manuscripts is required.
The workshops are organized by Kenneth Spencer Library and supported by the Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities.
Past Workshops
Layout, Script and Decoration of Medieval Manuscripts
November 12, 2021
This workshop offers an introduction to key terms and concepts of paleography of manuscripts in the Middle Ages, including a hands-on session with the western medieval manuscripts held at Kenneth Spencer Research Library. It focuses on the mis-en-page and contents of the medieval book and discusses the interplay between text and image, including a summary of the development of different types of scripts. The workshop also provides an overview of select digital tools and resources for the study of script and decoration of manuscripts as well as transcription.
Medieval Manuscripts and the Digital Age
March 26, 2021
10a.m.-noon and 2-4 p.m.
This workshop considers the ways in which the digital age has impacted the field of manuscript studies in the last two decades, including a hands-on session with digital tools and reproductions of western medieval manuscripts held at Kenneth Spencer Research Library. It showcases contemporary digital humanities projects and digital resources related to manuscripts as well as discussing the opportunities and challenges presented by digital tools when it comes to the study of the manuscript book. The workshop also discusses how the pandemic affected and continues to affect the field of manuscript studies and those working with manuscripts in different capacities. Participants are asked to have access to a computer (and not a phone or tablet) for this workshop.
Format, Design, and Function of Medieval Manuscripts
February 28, 2020
10a.m.-noon and 2-4 p.m.
This workshop offers an introduction to key terms and concepts of codicology of manuscripts in the Middle Ages, including a hands-on session with the western medieval manuscripts held at Kenneth Spencer Research Library. It focuses on the manuscript book as a physical object and discusses the materials used for the production of the medieval book as well as the decision-making processes involved in putting together a codex.
Meet the Instructor
N. Kıvılcım Yavuz is the first Ann Hyde Postdoctoral Researcher of Kenneth Spencer Research Library. She works on enhancing access to the library’s substantial holdings of medieval and early modern European manuscripts by conducting new research and creating digital catalogue records for an open access digital repository for the pre-1600 manuscripts. Previously, she was Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Arnamagnæan Institute at the University of Copenhagen. Her work on the Latin manuscripts in the Arnamagnæan Collection resulted, among her other findings, in the rediscovery of a long-thought-to-be-lost library catalogue of Ferdinand Columbus. She serves on the Advisory Board of an ongoing project on this manuscript, “The Book of Books: Hernando Colón’s Libro de los Epítomes,” which is funded by the Carlsberg Foundation and which aims to create a digital database and edition of the fifteenth-century catalogue. Between August 2016 and August 2018, she was Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Arnamagnæan Institute at the University of Copenhagen, working on her EU-funded project entitled “Transtextual Networks in the European Middle Ages: A Digital Corpus of the Trojan Narrative in Latin Manuscripts,” during when she created a digital catalogue of around 300 manuscripts. She has a BA in Comparative Literature (Istanbul Bilgi University) and an MA and a PhD in Medieval Studies (University of Leeds). She has taught courses on the history of the late antique, medieval and Renaissance Europe, medieval European literature, manuscript studies and digital humanities in Leeds, Copenhagen, Reykjavík, Leipzig and Lawrence, KS. In August 2021, she was elected to the Executive Board of Digital Medievalist, serving as a conference representative and an associate editor of the journal with the same name.