Category: Events

Composer Tom Coult (Albi Rosenthal Visiting Fellow, 2021) will see the premiere of his song cycle, ‘Clippings and Fragments,’ at the Oxford Lieder Festival on 18 October 2021.

The work was commissioned by the Festival for its 20th year, and draws upon the Bodleian Library’s John Johnson collection of printed ephemera. This rich and diverse assemblage of often-overlooked items is one of the largest and most important collections of printed ephemera in the world. It offers a fresh view of British history through documents which, produced for short-term use, have survived by chance, including advertisements, handbills, playbills and programmes, menus, greetings cards, posters and postcards.

The Lieder Festival ‘Nature’s Songbook,’ 8-23 October 2021, takes place both in person and online.  This will include a performance of ‘Clippings and Fragments’ by soprano Anna Dennis and speaker John Reid, a conversation with Tom Coult, and a film which looks into Coult’s creative process, and ephemera from the John Johnson collection.

A blogpost by Tom Coult outlines the commission.

In July 2021 the Bodleian Libraries hosted a virtual reunion of scholars who spoke about their research into the Persian collections of the Bodleian Libraries. Over the past five years, through the Bahari Fellowship programme, scholars have visited the library to examine texts, paper, paintings, bindings, and provenance of manuscripts now in the Bodleian collections. Their insights and conversations with distinguished panel chairs were shared with an online audience watching from around the world, on 13 and 14 July.

Papers delivered at the conference can be seen as podcasts at this link.

Download the full conference programme here.

A suite of films about the collections, from the point of view of curators, conservators, and researchers, is linked here .

Fellowship opportunities for research in Bodleian Special Collections can be seen from this webpage: https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/csb/fellowships 

The Bodleian Libraries hold copper plates from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries in several different collections.  These are listed along with the finding aids in the LibGuide Printing Surfaces.

Many of the earlier plates are survivals from publishing projects, whether realised or not. Others were collected or commissioned to depict objects of antiquarian study. Still others, in the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, represent the process of printing, for instance, Copper plates for paper bags.

The Rawlinson collection of copper plates is the subject of a doctoral study by Chiara Betti, under the Collaborative Doctoral Partnership programme.

Engraved and etched copper plates owned by the London-based antiquarian collector Richard Rawlinson (1690-1755) came to the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, with his bequest of a large collection of material, in 1755. The majority of these plates were gathered by Rawlinson second-hand from printers or other collectors, and thus date from the seventeenth, and first half of the eighteenth, century. These illustrate scenes and objects of antiquarian and topographical interest and many portraits. The plates include work by seventeenth-century engravers Wenceslaus Hollar [see the catalogue of Hollar’s work by Richard Pennington, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Etched Work of Wenceslaus Hollar 1607-1677] and David Loggan. Another group of plates within this collection was made for Rawlinson himself, to depict unique objects in his own vast antiquarian collections. These collections included a large number of medieval and early modern manuscripts donated or bequeathed to several institutions including the Bodleian, as well as printed images, antique and exotic cultural objects, inscriptions, and seal matrices.
The copper plates thus sit within a much more extensive collection assembled by an eighteenth-century antiquarian, touching on areas of curatorial interest to libraries, museums, and archives. Surviving papers and notebooks of Richard Rawlinson are held at the British Library, the Bodleian Library, and at St John’s College, Oxford.

 

This AHRC-funded project led by Robyn Adams (CELL, UCL), examines the network of individuals whose donations helped to build the collections of the library. Focusing on the first two decades following the seventeenth-century refurbishment by Sir Thomas Bodley (c.1600-1620) of Oxford’s university library, the study examines the shape of the collection of the books donated and purchased with funds, the social backgrounds of the c.220 donors, and how these men and women were connected across the social compass of the time.

The Bodleian Libraries contain a wealth of material that is relevant to the study of the book in every period. This is not only in book or manuscript form, although Bodleian Special Collections are frequently used for teaching at the Bodleian’s Weston Library for Special Collections. Many non-book items–eighteenth-century pins, samples of paper, newly-made parchment, old copper plates–exist within and outside the miles of bookstack. We will be undertaking a survey of this material in 2021-22, paying close attention to what is useful for the teaching the history of books and manuscripts in the broadest sense.

Throughout this year we expect to be looking into:

• printing surfaces such as those outlined in the LibGuide Printing surfaces – Printed images in Bodleian collections – Oxford LibGuides at Oxford University
• samples of supports such as parchment and paper
• examples of writing materials and copying technologies
• the working collections of the Bodleian Bibliographical Press
• library collections assembled with an eye to the history of printing, notably the John Johnson Collection of printed ephemera
• the Strickland Gibson Collection
• … and who knows what else might come to light?

Centre for the Study of the Book | Bodleian Libraries (ox.ac.uk)

 

Palaeography, Bibliography, History of the Book

Monday 25 April 2022
CONFERENCE
The Book at the Bodleian: Whence, Where, Whither?
11am–6pm (BST)
Lecture Theatre, Weston Library and also streamed live
Free, booking required to attend in person or watch online.
Link to registration
For twenty years, the Lyell benefaction has funded a career development fellowship that has enabled scholars to study subjects that have included the History of the Book, bibliography and palaeography. For “The Book at the Bodleian”, these nine Lyell Fellows come together for the first time to reflect on developments in their respective fields and present their current research.
Speakers: Niels Gaul, Georgi Parpulov, David Rundle, Irene Ceccherini, Barbara Bombi, Cristina Dondi, Jason McElligott, Giles Bergel, Stewart Brookes

Tuesday 26 April 2022
LECTURE
Professor Marc Smith (École Nationale des Chartes and Lyell Reader in Bibliography, 2019-20)
From Round Hand to l’Anglaise: 18th century English handwriting and the Continent.
Conclusion of the Lyell Lectures, 2020
5pm–6pm (BST)
Lecture Theatre, Weston Library and also streamed live
Free, booking required
https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/apr22/marc-smith-lecture

Begins Tuesday 3 May 2022
LECTURE SERIES
The Lyell Lectures 2022
Professor Susan Rankin (University of Cambridge and Lyell Reader in Bibliography, 2021-22), ‘From Memory to Written Record: English Liturgical Books and Musical Notations, 900–1150’
3, 5, 10, 12 and 17 May 2022
Free, booking required
https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/the-lyell-lectures-2022

Book Arts

20 April 2022
BOOK ARTS ONLINE
Beyond the Pale
An exploration of black shapes on book pages begins with author and curator Andrew Spira in conversation with book historian Gill Partington.
20 April, 5.30–6.30pm (BST)
Online
Registration (to receive a Zoom link): https://forms.office.com/r/Mpjp3bzPpA

Wednesday 25 May 2022
BOOK ARTS ONLINE: FRIENDS OF THE BODLEIAN EVENT
Artists’ Books
Chris Fletcher, Keeper of Special Collections, in conversation with the American artist and designer Ben Denzer, whose witty and provocative books are acquired by the Library, and Robert Bolick, a collector of thought-provoking artists’ books and up-coming Bodleian exhibition curator. Examples of books will be shown and questions will be encouraged.
1–2pm
Online only
Free, booking required
https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/may22/artists-books

Friday 27 May 2022
HISTORY OF THE BOOK/BOOK ARTS LECTURE
The Making of Tristram Shandy
1 pm – 2 pm (BST)
Lecture Theatre, Weston Library
Free event, booking required. Find the event listing on: visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk
Laurence Sterne’s multi-volume work, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy is one of the most creatively printed novels of the handpress period. Sterne personally intervened in the printing, insisting that each copy have different material features to make readers handle and interpret the text in an entirely new way.
Explore the pages of this novel with Helen Williams (Northumbria University) and Elizabeth Savage (Institute of English Studies), who will guide us through the unique features which bring the book itself into the story.

Novel Impressions is run by Helen Williams (Northumbria University) and funded by the British Academy Rising Star Engagement Awards. It is a series of research- and practice-led events that will create network of early career researchers, printers, and curators producing print workshops for public audiences inspired by eighteenth-century literature. This particular event is supported by the Institute of English Studies, the Bodleian Library, and Book and Print Initiative.

Saturday 28 May 2022
BOOK ARTS WORKSHOP
Storylines: printing Tristram Shandy
11 am – 1 pm (BST)
Bodleian Printing Studio, Schola Musicae, Old Bodleian Library
Booking required.
Deposit of £5 refunded on arrival
In this practical workshop, find out what happens when a story breaks free of words. Join expert printmakers at the Bodleian Bibliographical Press to learn first-hand the techniques used in the convention-defying pages of a 250-year old novel.
Peter Lawrence (Society of Wood Engravers) will introduce the technique of carving illustrations in wood; Richard Lawrence and the workshop team will guide you through setting type, and demonstrate the printing of intaglio plates.
18+ only
Registration is essential. Find the event listing on: visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Maps

The next Oxford Society for Cartography (TOSCA) series will take place via Zoom Webinar at 16.30 (UK time).

Maps of the European Historic Towns Atlas series

Thursday 28 April
Maps of the European Historic Towns Atlas I: Germany
Daniel Stracke (Universität Münster)

Thursday 5 May
Maps of the European Historic Towns Atlas II: Great Britain
Keith Lilley (Queen’s University Belfast)

Thursday 12 May
Maps of the European Historic Towns Atlas III: Ireland
Sarah Gearty (Royal Irish Academy)

Thursday 26 May
Maps of the European Historic Towns Atlas IV: East Central Europe
Katalin Szende (Central European University)

Seminars run from 16.30 to 18.00 (UK time) via Zoom Webinar
For further details, please contact: tosca@bodleian.ox.ac.uk or +44 1865 287119 https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/maps/tosca

The Oxford Seminars in Cartography are supported by: The Friends of TOSCA / The Bodleian Libraries / The School of Geography and the Environment / The Charles Close Society / Lovell Johns Ltd