by Mary Kate Hurley
Now I'm sure that everyone in the medievalist world has heard of the The Digital Scriptorium, a fantastic resource created through a cooperation of my home institution (Columbia), Berkeley, and other universities throughout the country. Essentially, it has high quality pictures and their catalog records (5,300 manuscripts and for 24,300 images) online and available. Digital Scriptorium is a fascinating project, not merely because of its use for scholars, but because of its use for students. As Chris Baswell said in the opening class of "The Medieval Culture of the Book" last week, it is possible to work on manuscripts in an entirely different way now, even at the student level. Actually teaching graduate students how to read and work with manuscripts is far easier (and, from what it sounds, more pleasant) with the digital technology available on the web, replacing the far more difficult work of transcribing from fax or from a photocopy of the original MS.
Now I'm clearly referencing Deleuze and Guattari in my title, but it's interesting to think through Digital Scriptorium with regards to my own progress in graduate school. I'm beginning my fifth year. I passed my exams, the dissertation is currently underway. I'm teaching University Writing for the fifth semester in a row. However, were I to be honest, the two classes I'm taking (Medieval Culture of the Book, which is also known as Codex and Criticism, and Paleography) are the first time I've really felt like a medievalist. I've always known that my academic heart was, first and foremost, in medieval literature, but all too often I've felt like the only difference between being a medievalist and being a twentieth century-ist is that my texts aren't in Modern English.
But this is different, somehow. This foray into the world of manuscripts feels older, somehow. And yet, to access this knowledge, to learn how to decode these old texts, I'm not really confronting the things themselves (though Consuelo Dutschke -- the Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at Columbia's Rare Books and Manuscript Library, and the professor for my Paleography course -- is of course having us look at the physical manuscripts and codices as well). I'm still getting my input, so to speak, through a technological medium. My first thought is -- what is lost by transcribing from a virtual manuscript, a picture on an internet site? But even as I write that question I realize that the question that's more interesting is the one that reminds me that medieval manuscripts themselves, and the writing which inhabits their (once-living animal skin) pages are both forms of technology, if in many cases less "shiny" than my computer screen.
So yes -- this is a semester of Paleography for me, one I hope to put to good use. Reminding myself that there's more to "technology" than meets the eye, it's kind of cool to think that by re-engaging medieval texts in a medium for which they were not meant, the reading of those manuscripts becomes itself a different experience, one that can help me think through media in today's Internet and television driven world.
In short: once, I dreamed of being a Paleontologist, until I realized that I had no talent for science and no patience for digging up things in remote deserts. All I wanted to think about was the dinosaurs, their world -- what it was like to live back then. Although there is a paucity of dinosaurs in medieval literature (Saint Augustine excepted), I find that my interest in paleography is another way of returning to the things I find most moving about medieval literature: the way in which words touch us (and are touched by us) over immense swathes of time. The way in which the physical object of the book survives from the past, and faces questions from scholars its pages might only ever partially answer. But we still get to try. And even without dinosaurs -- that's pretty amazing stuff.
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Monday, September 15, 2008
Digital Scriptorium, or, Becoming (a) Medievalist
Monday, May 05, 2008
This from Ph.D. Comics, by the inimitable Jorge Cham.
Eerily accurate. I used to say this: "I will change the world with Old English!"
Then it was "Changing the world one dead language at a time!"
Then it was "Changing the academy, one Kalamazoo at a time!"
Occasionally, it has been "Not saying something dumb in class, one day at a time!"
Although lately it has more often felt like "Writing a page that makes sense! One page at a time!"
I fear the eventual stop on this road may in fact be -- "Changing my socks! Every day!"
Friday, December 28, 2007
OE in NY Forecast: Spring 2008
Once each semester, I like to take stock of what it is I will need to have accomplished by its close. This coming term will see the completion (I hope) of the first chapter of my dissertation, but that's by no means all I will be working on as the weather warms and summer comes again. I sat down this evening to make my forecast for Spring 2008, as it were -- updating my electronic calendar (so useful), figuring out my commitments, and settling in to make the most of the second half of my fourth year of graduate school. Top of my list of things I'm thankful for: NO MORE CLASSES. I do plan to sit in on a class one of my advisers is teaching on Epic, but that's more for my own edification -- I should really know Homer better than I do, and there are far less enjoyable ways to spend a few hours a week than reading epic poetry.
[Re-reading post after the fact:] It occurs to me that there's no way I'll manage all of that by the end of the semester. But so long as I put a rather easy February to exceedingly good use, I should be able to avoid the worst of the academic March Madness, though it's a safe bet I won't be watching any basketball this season.
(picture is a very random building I found this past October on the Blue Ridge Parkway between Virginia and North Carolina. Because it's a safe bet through any semester that I'd rather be in the mountains)
Teaching
Dissertation Work:
Pesky PhD Requirements:
Conferences:
Other Academic Commitments
Monday, October 22, 2007
Where to Study......
I'm not allowed to blog until I've finished grading my students' papers (computer's been giving me fits) -- HOWEVER. I saw a recent hit on my blog that was for "best universities to study Old English".
I won't say anything on the blog about my opinions on this (they are many and diverse, o readers, and you won't come out even really knowing what I think!!)but I did want to say that if you really want to know my opinion of my own institution I would be glad to give you my opinions. You may reach me at [first initial][middle initial]DOT[last name]ATgmailDOTcom.
What I can say: what we all know. If you're looking at universities that have a practicing Anglo-Saxonist (it's not a job, it's a way of life) -- you will be in for a treat. Regardless of where. Anglo-Saxonists (and medievalists more generally) are almost always what I would call "good people". And fantastic scholars.
I like my field, have I mentioned that?
Edit, after a query: So what on earth was I posting about here? Well, mostly just that some poor soul lost on the internet thought they'd find an opinion about old english programs written on this blog. Of course, I don't do useful things like that. So I thought I'd offer my poor overworked brain to those young, unjaded grad-school hopefuls who want to know something about Old English studies. Of course, given my inability to clone myself and study Old English in other universities (how SWEET would that be?), I can only give my thoughts my current place of study. If I do manage to clone myself, I'll send out contact info for my other selves, don't worry.
