Event: 51st International Congress on Medieval Studies Place: Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI Date: 12th-15th May 2016 Needed: You ;-)
Dear all,
Just to let you know that there are still a few days left to submit an abstract for one of the two sessions proudly sponsored by the DigiPal/Models of Authority team:
Session 1: "Digital Methods 1: Computer-Assisted Approaches to Palaeography"
Session 2: "Digital Methods 2: Computer-Assisted Approaches to Manuscript Studies"
Interested? Then send us an abstract! It's all pretty simple really. All you need to do is read the blurbs below, decide which session suits you best, and then send an abstract of a couple of hundred words or so (we won't count them, but try not to overdo it) to us at digipal@kcl.ac.uk by ish 15th September 2015.
And if you fill in a Participant Information Form, and send that too, we'd be very grateful. You can find the PIF here: http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html#PIF
And if for some curious reason we don't accept your abstract, never fear: any surplus proposals will be sent to the Congress committee for consideration for general sessions.
Looking forward to reading your abstracts, Stewart Brookes
"Digital Methods 1: Computer-Assisted Approaches to Palaeography"
Taking palaeography and codicology as its focus, this session will consider how computer-assisted techniques might advance our understanding of the handwriting of the scribes who were producing charters, homilies, farming memoranda and other aspects of the written culture of medieval Britain. Utilising computer-based resources for the study of medieval handwriting, the papers will investigate the influence of scriptoria and the politics of writing style; the significance of scribal choices such as cursive or set; and whether text type can be said to determine the style of writing.
"Digital Methods 2: Computer-Assisted Approaches to Manuscript Studies"
The large number of initiatives to digitise medieval manuscripts mean that we now have unprecedented access to medieval texts. In many ways, this explosion of knowledge can be compared to the early years of the printing press. But how might we best utilise this growing body of material? This session will explore the potential for the computer-assisted study of medieval manuscripts; discuss the intersection of manuscript studies and Digital Humanities; and share methodologies. The topics under discussion will include the encoding and transcription of medieval texts, the practical and theoretical consequences of the use of digital surrogates and the visualisation of manuscript evidence and data. — Dr Stewart J Brookes Department of Digital Humanities King's College London