My country Penne would alwaies shun the City

Regional manuscript transmission, 1500-1700
Society for Renaissance Studies 2012, 9-11th July, University of Manchester.

While the transmission of manuscript texts in early modern England has
been understood as a phenomenon based in metropolitan centres, a number of
recent studies have now shown that hand-copied texts were an important
means of communicating literary culture all over the British Isles. As
suggested by the title’s quotation from Nicholas Oldisworth,
regional manuscripts can show a lively culture of composition and
circulation that operated quite independently of the cities, though
important exchanges were maintained between urban and non-urban
environments.

This panel will present papers that explore any aspect of the role and
significance of manuscript dissemination outside of urban centres in the
early modern British Isles. Topics for proposals may include (but are
certainly not limited to): the accumulation, collection, and anthologising
of hand-copied texts; the importance of social groupings based around
families, friends, and other institutions; the geographical spread of
copied texts; the literary forms of texts available to provincial readers
and copyists; the relationship between writing, place, and dissemination.

Please send short abstracts or informal enquiries to Joel Swann at j.swann
[at] ihum.keele.ac.uk by the 2nd of September 2011 (ahead of the general
SRS deadline). For more information on the 2012 SRS conference, go to
http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/srsnc