(with apologies for cross-posting)

Marco Manuscript Workshop: "Textual Trauma: Violence Against Texts" February 6-7, 2009 Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

A two-day workshop on manuscript studies will be held at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville; the workshop is organized by Professors Roy M. Liuzza (English) and Maura K. Lafferty (Classics). The workshop is intended to be more a class than a conference; participants will be invited to share both their successes and frustrations, and to work together towards developing better professional skills for textual and paleographical work in Medieval Studies.

Last year's workshop focused on the problems of editing texts characterized by constant change in pre-print culture; this year's workshop will explore the theme of violence, deliberate or otherwise, against texts. Texts are inextricably bound to their material context, and material damage can have significant implications both for the reading of a text and for our understanding of its reception and use. Erasures and other deletions call attention to themselves, often dramatically, insisting on the presence of their absence, constantly reminding the reader to remember to forget what has been altered or removed. Damage and defacement can convey a powerful message; they may tell us just as much about reading practices, ownership (of individual books and of the meaning of the text itself), claims of authority, assertions of power, the circulation of texts, and the interactions of textual communities as more positive marks like glosses, annotations, and colophons. Apart from damage through accident or neglect, which may leave incomplete or illegible fragments whose original status must be reconstructed, many manuscripts have erasures or corrections by contemporary or later scribes; words are deleted, names erased, text excised or cancelled. Violence can be done in damnatio memoriae; equally severe damage can result from a modern curator's efforts to preserve or recover faded readings. Some books fall apart from overuse; others are dismembered as being worthless. Texts can also be violated in ways that are less damaging to their physical material, but equally shattering: rewritings can fundamentally alter the text's meaning, sections can be extracted and placed in new contexts, contradictory texts can be bound together, commentary that attacks or distorts the text can be copied alongside it, and so on. Arguably, even modern printed critical editions imposes this sort of violence on the texts they hope to preserve.

How should we regard these many forms of violent engagement with texts? Is an act of textual violence always a violation, the destruction of a privileged original, a gap that must be repaired? Or can editors and readers learn to regard the violence itself as an element of the text's identity as a cultural and social construct? How can we read such violence to understand the later use, appropriation, or abuse of the text, and its new role(s) in a changing world? We invite papers from scholars in all fields concerned with textual editing, manuscript studies, and epigraphy, especially those who are working on damaged, distorted, or otherwise traumatized texts; we hope to include both scholars working on the recovery of damaged or decayed readings and those who are examining the cultural implications of these acts of textual trauma.

The workshop is open to scholars and students at any rank who are engaged in manuscript research. Individual 90-minute sessions will be devoted to each project; participants will introduce their text and its context, discuss their approach to working with this material, and exchange ideas and information with other participants. We particularly invite works in progress, unusual manuscript problems, practical difficulties, and new or experimental models for studying or representing manuscript texts. Presenters will receive a stipend of $500 for their participation.

The deadline for applications is October 1, 2008. Applicants are asked to submit a current CV and a two-page letter describing their project to Roy M. Liuzza, Department of English, U of Tennessee, 301 McClung Tower, Knoxville, TN 37996-0430, or via email to rliuzza@utk.edu.

The workshop is also open to scholars and students who do not wish to present their work but may be interested in learning more about manuscript studies. Non-presenters will not receive a stipend, but are encouraged to participate fully in discussions and other activities. Those wishing to attend should visit http://web.utk.edu/~marco/workshop/manuscript.shtml or contact Roy Liuzza for more information.

[The Marco Manuscript Workshop is sponsored by the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and supported by the Humanities Initiative Committee and the Office of Research at the University of Tennessee]