James Freemantle is the Bodleian’s Printer in Residence for 2025–26. Freemantle is the proprietor of St James Park Press, a private press established in 2014 that focuses on the fine letterpress printing of illustrated books. His work has been represented in major public institutions, including the National Art Library at the V&A, the Tate Library, and the Bodleian.
This residency will produce two titles. One is Vagrant Birds, a bird-watching notebook about migratory birds appearing outside their normal range. The book is made in connection with the major Bodleian exhibition, ‘The Wonder of Birds’ (May 2026 to January 2027). The second work, Invocation of the Muse, uses the Greek type at the Bodleian Bibliographical Press to print the opening of Homer’s Odyssey.
During his residency, James Freemantle has brought his expertise to the Bodleian’s working letterpress studio demonstrating the historical methods behind items in the Library’s special collections through practical public engagement, with type-setting workshops. James also contributed to the Special Collections Coffee Morning series at the Weston Library on 6 March 2026, when he showed some of his earlier hand-printed works including 1984 and The Beauty of Byrne.
The residency includes a public event at the Weston Library, Oxford, James Freemantle in conversation with Adam Smyth on 12 May at 5pm. Admission is free. Please register to attend at the following link: James Freemantle in conversation with Adam Smyth.
A detail from ‘Second Hand reading’, by William Kentridge, painting on a copy of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary
On 26 May, renowned South African artist William Kentridge will speak about his engagement with the book in all its forms throughout his career. The 2026 McKenzie Lecture takes place on Tuesday 26 May at 5 pm, at the Sohmen Concert Hall, Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities.
This public conversation between Kentridge and Peter McDonald will examine the enduring role of the book in Kentridge’s work, from his iconic flip-book animations to his use of the page as a site of historical palimpsest and erasure.
Kentridge’s early work in the 1980s and 90s frequently incorporated found paper and fragments, and his 1999 project Curs Pràctic de Gramàtica Catalana, based on a facsimile of a 1933 Catalan grammar, established the ‘book-as-object’ as a sustained concern.
Discovered and re-discovered: using newly digitised items to find hidden stories—in Greek papyri
from Peter Toth, Curator of Greek Collections, Bodleian Libraries
The Bodleian’s two-year project, We Are Our History, has provided an excellent opportunity to explore diverse and rich collections through a new lens: highlighting the voices of underrepresented communities, groups, and individuals.
The Library’s extensive collection of Greek papyri offers particularly fertile ground for this work, enabling users of Digital Bodleian to rediscover people from the distant past whose voices are uniquely preserved, yet have often remained hidden within ancient documents or confined to specialist scholarly publications.
Panel from the side of a painted coffin. Thebes, Roman period (c. 50– 150 CE). Nicholson Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum, NMR.344
As part of the We Are Our History project, the curatorial team identified and digitised fifteen unique papyrus fragments that represent women, children, slaves, and other marginalised communities in the ancient world whose lives are often overshadowed by more prominent historical figures. This series of blogposts about Greek papyri presents some of these groups and individuals through the documents that preserve their stories.
The first group we turn to is an unusual one: the gravediggers of the Great Oasis in Egypt. Their documents, dating back some 1,800 years, have survived on papyrus fragments, many of which are now held in the Bodleian’s collections.
Position of the Kharga Oasis from Google Maps
The Great Oasis, also known as the Kharga Oasis, was the furthest habitable region of Egypt’s Western Desert and an important centre of caravan routes in antiquity. It contained several small but thriving settlements, including Hibis, the capital, and the nearby village of Kysis. Around 1890, a group of papyrus fragments was excavated in this region, possibly as a single find, and quickly dispersed among collectors in Western Europe. Among the earliest buyers were the Oxford-based papyrologists Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt. Their collections were later acquired by the British Library, the Bodleian Library, and the Egypt Exploration Society in Oxford.
The “gravediggers”
The papyri — around 48 in total — appear to derive from a single family, a dynasty of gravediggers whose documents record aspects of their everyday lives over roughly 80 years (c. 237–314 AD). This was a family profession, in which men and women seem to have participated almost equally. Their work extended far beyond simply digging graves, as the Greek term nekrotaphos suggests. They were involved in a range of funerary activities, including mummification, embalming, and aspects of burial rituals. For this reason, they are often described in modern literature as the “undertakers” of the Great Oasis.
The job title “gravedigger” (νεκροτάφος) from a sales contract dated 28 June 244, from the collection of the Egypt Exploration Society, 89B/6(a)
Other terms used to describe them reflect their marginalised social status. They are sometimes called exopylites (“those outside the gates”) or allophyloi (“foreigners” or “outsiders”), perhaps referring to their association with cemeteries outside inhabited areas, as well as their resulting separation from ordinary civic life after prolonged work in such spaces.
The gravediggers depicted as “foreigners,”from a petition dated 30 June 310AD, in the collection of the Egypt Exploration Society, 89A/106
Although they appear to have been illiterate — their documents are consistently written and signed by others on their behalf — they were nevertheless active participants in a wide range of legal and economic affairs, including purchases, inheritance, and other forms of employment.
A gravedigger nurse
One of the nekrotaphoi documents in the Bodleian collection (MS. Gr. Class. C. 282 (P)) preserves part of a contract from around 308 AD. It records an agreement between a female “undertaker” named Thermuthis and a family who hired her as a wet nurse for a newly adopted foundling — a child described as having been “picked up from the dung heap.”
Fragment of a wet nurse contract with Thermuthis, dated 4 November 304AD, Bodleian Library, Ms. Gr. Class. c. 282 (P) b.
Wet-nursing was a well-established and relatively well-paid occupation for young mothers, subject to detailed legal regulation. This contract, now digitised, specifies a nine-month term of employment, with a fixed payment of two talents and full provisions provided to the nurse. It offers a vivid glimpse into the fate of abandoned children — who might be taken in and raised within new households, often as slaves — as well as the economic opportunities available to young mothers within this gravedigger family.
A mandate
Another fragment preserves a mandate from around 300 AD, issued by a woman named Aurelia, also a member of the gravedigger family. In it, she appoints a relative, Aurelios — himself a gravedigger — to represent her in a legal matter in the city. Unfortunately, the document is badly damaged, and the nature of the case remains unknown but we see a woman grave-digger actively engaged in public affairs outside her profession.
Fragment of a mandate by Aurelia to an unknown person from about 300AD, Bodleian Library, Ms. Gr. Class. c. 282 (P) (c).
A receipt for the dead
A third fragment illustrates the family’s core occupation. It records the formal receipt of the body of a man named Heron, delivered to the gravediggers sealed and received in the same condition. Although the text is fragmentary, it suggests that issuing such receipts formed part of the administrative routines of their work.
Fragment of a document recording receipt of the dead body of Heron, issued in July 311, Bodleian Library, Ms. Gr. Class. c. 272 (P).
Together, these documents offer a rare and intimate view of a marginalised professional group whose lives, preserved on papyrus for nearly two millennia, can now be rediscovered through the Bodleian’s collections.
This week at the Centre for the Study of the Book started on 27 October with a visit from the Bodleian Printer in Residence for 2025-26, James Freemantle, proprietor of the St James Park Press. During his residency James will lead workshops on making a birdwatching notebook, taking as inspiration John J. Audubon’s Birds of America. The Bodleian’s copy of Audubon’s book is audio-described in this recording focussing on proprioception, from the exhibition ‘Sensational Books,’ at the Weston Library in 2022.
Examining specimens in preparation for the talks on decorated paper, Crafting the Bloomsbury Book
On Wednesday we had a layout of decorated papers from several Bodleian collections, in preparation for the talk and workshop event, ‘Crafting the Bloomsbury Book,’ at the Weston Library on 7 November. At the talks session, doctoral student Reanna Brooks will present her research on the decorated papers used at Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s Hogarth Press, and Curator of the John Johnson Collection Jo Maddocks will show earlier decorated, marbled and patterned papers from the Bodleian collections. That will be followed by a marbling workshop led by Alice Hackney, in the Bodleian Bibliographical Press. (The sessions are already fully booked.)
At the end of the week we were looking at two new typefaces that recently arrived in the Bodleian Bibliographical Press. The first is some Arabic type, originally from the OUP and returning to Oxford courtesy of The Jericho Press, Virginia, the private press of J.F. Coakley.
On Friday we received in the post the Tonic solfa type made by Nick Gill at the Effra Press. That will be used in the workshop led by Philip Burnett, ‘Printing Sounds’, on Thursday 13 November, registration is open.
Clive Sneddon (St Andrews), Translating the Bible into medieval French
Emily Guerry (Oxford), The Cholet Master and manuscript illumination in Paris at the end of the 13th century
2.00-3.15pm: From France to England
Laure Rioust (Bibliothèque nationale de France), Biblical manuscripts in the libraries of Kings John II the Good and Charles V the Wise: heritage and dispersal
Laure Miolo (Oxford) and Jean-Patrice Boudet (Université d’Orléans), The circulation and spoliation of scientific manuscripts between France and England in the Hundred Years’ War
3.45-5.00pm: The manuscript in England
David Rundle (Kent), The Lancastrian moment: the manuscript’s English owners
Daniel Wakelin (Oxford), Conclusion and avenues for further research
Reception and launch of the digital facsimile of MS. Duke Humfrey c. 1
On 22 February, the Centre for the Study of the Book hosted the Bodleian Library’s third annual Zine Fair on the theme of ‘Alternative Futures’ to celebrate zine-making and self-publishing by Oxford students and communities. From poetry collections to wearable zines, over 450 visitors came to view the exciting range of talent and creativity on display in the Weston Library.
Zine Fair poster designed by the first-year BA Graphic Design students at Brookes (left); view of the Zine Fair at the Weston Library (centre); collage activity with Brookes Publishing
Students of Oxford University’s Ruskin School of Art and Oxford Brookes University’s Fine Art, Graphic Design and Publishing showcased a range of projects completed during their studies in a range of media, including risograph prints, collage work, and decorated badges. Visitors also got to try their hand at letterpress printing with the Broad Street Press in the library led by Printer-in-Residence Richard Lawrence. Professor Henrike Lähnemann (Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford) additionally hosted a manuscript-making session where visitors made their own facsimiles of a medieval nun’s prayer book.
The Broad Street Press with Richard Lawrence and Alex Franklin (left); view of Zine Fair (centre); manuscript-making with Professor Henrike Lähnemann
Independent artists displayed and sold copies of their original works, including illustrated comics by Sar Cousins and Liz Lancashire, original projects by members of the Warehouse School of Art, and zines from the Bodleian Bibliographical Press curated by Adam Maynard and Caiban Butcher. Local publishing groups and zine collectives, such as Imperfect Bound, Inquisitive Type and OCCULTZ highlighted a wonderful array of materials from queer community care to science fiction. A fantastic day was had by all and we look forward to the 2026 Zine Fair!
We’re pleased to announce the programme for the Seminar this year. The meetings will be in the Weston Library, Oxford.
Convenors: Matthew Holford and Peter Toth
Seminars take place in the Weston Library, Horton Room, 2.15-3.45pm. Manuscripts will be shown.
All are welcome. A University of Oxford card or Bodleian reader card is normally required to gain access to the seminar room. If you do not have a card, please email bookcentre[at]bodleian.ox.ac.uk at least 24 hours in advance to arrange access.
Monday 27 January 2025 Julia King, ‘Manuscripts In and Out of Syon Abbey’
Monday 10 February 2025 Ugo Mondini, ‘Poetry and education in medieval Southern Italy’
Monday 17 February 2025 Jo Edge, ‘Working with divinatory texts and manuscripts’
Monday 10 March 2025 Lucio del Corso,‘Greek papyri in the Bodleian Library. A tale of lost texts and forgotten books’
In an era when digitisation and racial equity have become focal points in preserving and presenting historical collections, collaborative research between major libraries has never been more significant. The “Connecting Colonial Collections” project is a research exchange between the Bodleian Libraries and Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin that brought together scholars and library staff to delve deeper into the rich, shared colonial histories of South Asian manuscripts and the colonial connections between British-German collecting practices. The Oxford in Berlin flexible funding collaboration supported the initiative, encouraging cross-border intellectual collaboration on critical global themes.
This collaboration not only advances the scholarly understanding of colonial histories in the context of libraries but also encourages sharing best practices for cataloguing and digitisation, laying the groundwork for future partnerships between the UK and Germany.
In July 2024, Dr John Woitkowitz and Dr Lars Müller from the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Stabi) visited Oxford to participate in a research exchange at the Bodleian Libraries. This was in collaboration with and after Jasdeep Singh and Devika from the Bodleian Libraries’ May 2024 visit to Berlin (read about it here on their website).
The STABI-Bodleian exchange group at the Weston Library in Oxford
The Oxford visit involved a series of discussions, tours, and presentations, and a core highlight was the workshop delivered by Dr Woitkowitz and Dr Müller for the Bodleian Libraries staff which truly emphasises the nature of this collaboration. The afternoon began with an introduction to the Oxford-Berlin collaboration by Antony Brewerton, Associate Director to Academic Services, Bodleian Libraries. Dr Woitkowitz and Dr Müller then addressed challenges related to digitisation, cataloguing, and the colonial legacies of collections. They focused on the work they had undertaken as part of their project IN_CONTEXT.
Their discussion centred around curating colonial collections and developing equitable frameworks for digitising and cataloguing these materials. However, it also extended beyond this, delving into topics like provenance cataloguing, the use of IIIF standards, and the ethical challenges of presenting colonial materials in digital formats.
A major theme was the importance of provenance research, which allows scholars to trace the ownership history of items and understand the context in which they were collected. The SBB team shared their experiences developing data sheets for digital cultural heritage, offering insights into how metadata could be enhanced to reflect more accurately the colonial origins of collections.
The second part of the workshop was a presentation by Bodleian staff Judith Siefring and Alexander Hitchman, focussing on the digitisation of South Asian collections at the Bodleian Libraries. Judith and Alex spoke of the work they had undertaken as part of the digitisation workstream, of the We Are Our History project. They discussed the future priority areas for digitisation, the many factors associated with the presentation of digital collections online, and finally, how digitisation was an impetus for examining knowledge categorisation.
The day concluded with discussions on future collaboration, particularly focusing on digitisation projects involving South Asian and East African materials, areas where both libraries have significant holdings. There was also a discussion about how both libraries could explore ways to include more diverse voices and perspectives in their cataloguing process.
Expanding the Scope: Synergies between UK and German Research
We thank Dr John Woitkowitz and Dr Lars Müller for a wonderful visit and the stimulating discussions. We also thank colleagues in the Bodleian Libraries for their participation and support throughout the visit.
One of the exciting outcomes of the Oxford and Berlin visit was the recognition of shared research interests between the UK and Germany. Both countries have extensive colonial collections, and both are grappling with the challenges of presenting these materials in a way that reflects a more nuanced understanding of their histories.
The collaboration between the Bodleian Libraries and Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin has laid the groundwork for future projects exploring these shared colonial histories in greater depth. Both institutions are working to create a more complete and inclusive understanding of their collections by pooling resources, sharing expertise, and collaborating on joint digitisation initiatives.
Peter Brathwaite FRSA is a British baritone, broadcaster, theatre artist, music columnist and a developer of music programming. Read more here. His photographic book project Rediscovering Black Portraiture highlights Black individuals in the history of visual arts, and in a similar but more personal vein Brathwaite has undertaken research to uncover Black histories in archives.
At a workshop with the Bodleian Libraries project ‘We Are Our History’ 24 October 2023, held at the Weston Library for Special Collections, Brathwaite led participants on a journey through archives connected with Codrington College, Barbados, and other historical documents of Britain’s Caribbean colonies during enslavement. For Brathwaite there were familial connections: he found his ancestors Edward/Addo and Margaret Brathwaite, as well as his enslaver ancestor John Brathwaite, referenced in the records.
A key part of the workshop was the ‘counter-archive’ of material that Brathwaite brought into the Library, curated by himself, in the form of photographs, maps, a Bible, and song. The group sang ‘The Breadfruit Song’ together, with Brathwaite prompting participants to think about the vitality of singing compared to the loss of magic, aura, materiality and perhaps of reality when dealing with words on paper. While singing in the Bodleian sounds impossible and almost sacrilegious, music, as Brathwaite explained, is a critical experience and archive. An archive created by the disempowered. When denied their identity beyond being owned as property on paper, the traditional archive, music communicates that experience instead. Traditional archives thus necessitate the use of counter-archives especially in contexts where historically people have been denied inclusion in official records.
Bringing expertise to archival research, including familial and community memories preserved outside of archival sources, was an important theme of the workshop. Brathwaite gave the example of spotting specific words in documents whose significance might be missed by individuals unfamiliar with the relevant context. He pointed out that historical records referred to rebellions by enslaved individuals as ‘mischief’. Mischief was a shorthand for living, he declared, especially for the enslaved. Words like ‘mischief’ could be used to connote the infantilization of the body of colour, to justify regimes of control.
The workshop led to a very well-attended lecture by Peter Brathwaite … which led to a short film … which led to the temporary display mentioned below.
Collaboration with artists, storytellers, academics and more, as part of the ‘We Are Our History’ project, goes beyond one off events. We are keen on helping researchers discover and work with the archives. This facilitates relationships with the archives, especially beyond traditional treatments, as in this case, that help both the Bodleian and researchers learn from these narratives, stories, unconventional treatments and counter archives. For the library, the learning is about being more inclusive of stories traditionally not told, and more aware of practices that sedimented a lack of inclusion–and how we can change those practices to be more inclusive in the future. Working with artists like Peter Brathwaite is an incredible learning experience for those involved in the initiatives but also for the library as a whole, and that is the purpose of these collaborations as opposed to performative checks.
Collage Comparison poster, detail. Collage Comparison Symposium and Julia Utreras
by Devika
Methods of reading and understanding archives are constantly evolving. The question of ‘whose voices?’ are heard in archival materials has encouraged attention to gaps and silences. With the project ‘We Are Our History,’ the Bodleian Libraries have found guidance from researchers inside and outside academia on new approaches to archives. The symposium ‘Collage Comparison,’ (September 29-30, 2023, St Anne’s College Oxford and Bodleian Libraries) was devised by the Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation (OCCT) Research Centre, using collage as a method of bringing archival materials into dialogue with each other. The two-day symposium brought together artists, practitioners, and scholars from a range of disciplines within Oxford and beyond—from English, Modern Languages, and History of Art to Ethnomusicology, Visual Anthropology, and Curatorial Studies.
Organisers Dr Joseph Hankinson, Dr Tinashe Mushakavanhu and Dr Georgia Nasseh explored how collage, conceptually and practically, can provide a new and decolonised rhetoric for understanding translation and archival work.
Understanding Archives Differently with Collage
On the first day, the group was guided in creative collage-making by artist Sofia Yalla. The session led by Yalla explored how professional archives relate to personal archives, with participants being given either a ‘construction’ or a ‘deconstruction’ kit, having to connect and collaborate in these two processes of selecting and building an archive.
The choice of collage as the focal point for exploration was deeply rooted in its historical ties to the African continent and its diaspora. With its delicate balance of appropriation and expropriation, fragmentation, and juxtaposition, collage played a pivotal role in the artistic expressions of writers like Kojo Laing and M. NourbeSe Philip. From the start, the symposium used the potential of collage as a model, with participants’ self-introductions woven into a conversation ‘performed’ by all the participants, rather than standing as separate, individual statements.
On the second day, the symposium worked with an archive held in the Bodleian, the archive of the Anti-Apartheid Movement. In this workshop hosted by Dr Mushakavanahu, it was fascinating to observe the different creations by individuals interacting with the same document. Participants sitting side-by-side and creating collage (from photographs of the archival materials) became a true example of diversity: difference, similarity, and juxtaposition of perspectives in the archives. The need to understand how one set of texts could mean something entirely different for different communities–multiple understandings of the same texts–is an advantage, not a limitation.
Digital Collage and Future Accessibility
Discussion during the symposium explored how academic work informed the aesthetics of collage and considered future accessibility to the created material. The Zine created by attendees as part of their final morning in the Symposium will be available on the Collage Comparison website. The Zine exemplifies many of the ideas discussed above; most importantly, the potential collage holds as a technique towards interacting with archives – digitally or in person.
See Collage Comparison for description of the symposium aims and images of the workshop in progress.
Dr Tinashe Mushakavanhu will lecture on ‘Cut/Copy/Paste: Collage as a form of reading and writing the archive’, on Tuesday 24 January at 1 pm, in the Weston Library, Broad Street, Oxford. Registration required: https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/waoh-conversations
