TXTDS 220 A: Making Manuscripts: Manuscript and Handwriting Technologies from the Antiquity to Today

Instructor: Dr Beatrice Arduini  (barduini@uw.edu)

Class meets: MW 1:30 - 3:20 PM SMI 107

Office hours: MW 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM (PDL C-249) and by appointment. Please email me at barduini@uw.edu to set up an appointment in person or via Zoom.

Brief course description:

Quills, pens, pencils, vellum, and paper: we forget that in our digital age, the most enduring writing technologies have been the tools we use to write by hand. We still often sign, now with a stylus or our finger on a screen. In spring quarter, you can explore the rich history of handwriting and manuscripts, from medieval manuscripts to handwriting today in TXTDS 220: Making Manuscripts: Manuscript and Handwriting Technologies From Antiquity to Today, taught by Professor Beatrice Arduini. Students will have a chance to visit UW Special Collections and see rare manuscript fragments and books up close, some dating back to the 12th century. 

Follow us on Instagram @uwtextualstudies.

Assignments and Grade Breakdown

Participation / Class Preparation                                            15 %

Annotations with Hypothesis                                                  25%

Weekly, short responses                                                          30 %

Final Project                                                                              30 %

                                                                                                                   = 100 %

Required books:

There are no required books for this course. All readings will be available on Canvas.

Learning objectives:

• Investigate the historical approaches that inform book cultures in the present.
• Gain hands-on experience working with archival and visual material through class trips to libraries and Special Collections.
• Learn how to locate archives (physical and digital) for researching particular topics using finding aids, inventories, and database lists.
• Survey extant medieval/premodern national literatures, reading in translation and in the original from genres including poetry, epic, cosmology, religious response, ritual instruction, and scriptural hermeneutics, emphasizing historical and comparative approaches.
• Interrogate digitization projects (What is being prioritized? What perspectives on literary and cultural history are being valorized or diminished? Why? how does this shape what research is possible without visiting archives? Which archives don’t have digitization projects in progress?).
• Learn how to conduct research in digital databases and use this research to write history.
• Explore uses of data science, neural network-based handwritten text recognition and other computational methods are now helping make sense of the texts on a large scale.

Participation and Classroom Environment:

The success of this class depends on you sharing your own thoughts and questions. Don’t be shy and share your insights with all – this classroom serves as a space to discuss and learn together. To ensure success and provide a safe environment for everybody, all discussions are expected to be conducted in a respectful manner and in a professional behavior. Diverse experiences and perspectives have an important place in our classroom. We intend to present material in a respectful way regarding gender, sexuality, disability, socioeconomic status, age, culture, ethnicity, race, and disability. We want to create a welcoming and respectful learning environment together. By participating in this class, you are committing to establishing this classroom as a safe environment for everybody.

Note: the syllabus may be changed at any time if necessary.

I will communicate changes to the schedule via Canvas.