Researching Early Modern Manuscripts and Printed Books

FAIN: FS-50312-12

CUNY Research Foundation, Graduate School and University Center (New York, NY 10016-4309)
Clare Lois Carroll (Project Director: March 2012 to November 2014)

A four-week seminar for sixteen higher education faculty to study the history of manuscript production and bookmaking during the early modern period.

"Researching Early Modern Manuscripts and Printed Books" will teach codicology, paleography, analytical bibliography, textual editing, and the study of book catalogues for the early modern period in order to give the participants the skills that they need to do research in early modern studies. We will be studying how such techniques can actually change the research questions, and in turn change not only the interpretation of individual texts but also of long held interpretations of major authors, intellectual traditions, and historical movements of the early modern period. The participants will do research in some of the greatest collections of early modern manuscripts and books in America with guidance from expert curators and literary scholars and historians who will demonstrate how the techniques of book history have shaped their research. This experience should lead to continued research and collaboration between academics and curators and librarians for years to come.