Medieval manuscript-making seminar application deadline March 2

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Jonathan Wilcox

University of Iowa English Professor Jonathan Wilcox has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Seminar grant to host his seminar, “The Materiality of Medieval Manuscripts: Interpretation Through Production.”

The seminar, to be held June 15-July 10 on the UI campus, will give medievalist scholars the hands-on experience of creating a manuscript. Wilcox, chair of the Department of English in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, is the project director. Seminar faculty members Timothy Barrett, Cheryl Jacobsen, Julie Leonard, Jesse Meyer, Sara Sauers, and Wilcox will lead sessions within the seminar according to their area of expertise.

According to the schedule detailed on the seminar’s website, participants will be able to develop their manuscript-making skills through practicing parchment and papermaking, page design, calligraphy, and bookbinding. With these new skills, participants can create models relevant to their own research interests. The seminar will also present shared readings for discussion and hold a session at the UI Libraries Special Collections to view surviving medieval manuscripts.

The seminar is modeled on a pilot project, the two-week 2008 Obermann Summer Research Seminar, which drew 10 scholars and led to the publication of an essay collection edited by Wilcox, titled Scraped, Stroked, and Bound: Materially Engaged Readings of Medieval Manuscripts.

Applications for the seminar are due March 2, 2015. Scholars engaged in medieval studies in any discipline are eligible and encouraged to apply. However, University of Iowa scholars are not eligible to attend under NEH Summer Seminars guidelines.

The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers about 70 majors across the humanities; fine, performing and literary arts; natural and mathematical sciences; social and behavioral sciences; and communication disciplines. About 15,000 undergraduate and nearly 2,000 graduate students study each year in the college’s 37 departments, led by faculty at the forefront of teaching and research in their disciplines. The college teaches all Iowa undergraduates through the college's general education program, CLAS CORE. About 80 percent of all Iowa undergraduates begin their academic journey in CLAS. The college confers about 60 percent of the university's bachelor's degrees each academic year.