Manuscript Identities and the Transmission of Texts in the English Renaissance

Friday 25 and Saturday 26 May 2012, Humanities Research Institute, Sheffield University

As part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project ‘Early Modern Manuscript Poetry: Recovering our Scribal Heritage’, this conference will explore the role of manuscripts in the production of individual and corporate identities in early modern culture, including the commissioning, copying, circulation, and collection of manuscripts. The conference welcomes multidisciplinary approaches and is keen to consider the relationships between manuscript and print identities in the period.

Topics might include: ownership and commissioning; selection criteria (authorial, thematic, generic, miscellaneous); scribal identities; collection and donation; manuscripts and place; the construction of poetic, religious, political, and regional identities in manuscript; coteries; circulation and dissemination; manuscript afterlives; editing

Speakers include: Julia Boffey (Queen Mary, London), Arthur Marotti (Wayne State University), Steve May (Sheffield University), Mary Morrissey (Reading University), Fred Schurink (Northumbria University), Jeremy Smith (Glasgow University), and Henry Woudhuysen (University College, London)

Please submit 200-word proposals for 20 minute papers by Friday 30 September to Alan Bryson (a.bryson@sheffield.ac.uk) and Cathy Shrank (c.shrank@shef.ac.uk). Enquiries should be directed to a.bryson@sheffield.ac.uk.