The Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CEMERS) will host its 50th anniversary conference – titled “The Pre-modern Book in a Global Context: Materiality and Visuality” – Oct. 21 and 22, at the University Downtown Center. The conference, which begins at 9 a.m. each day, is free and open to all Binghamton University faculty, students and staff. Guests can arrive at any time during the conference.
This conference will address all aspects of the study of the pre-modern book as artifact. Plenary lectures include:
• Bruce Holsinger, University of Virginia, “Theologies and Biologies of the Book: Past and Present”
• Lucille Chia, UC Riverside, “Impressions of East Asian Book Cultures: Print and Manuscript Culture in China and Japan, 7th-17th Centuries,”
• Megan Hale Williams, San Francisco State University, “Ideals and Realities in Late Fourth-Century Historical Research: Books and Libraries in Late Antiquity,”
• David Roxburgh, Harvard University, “Emulation in the Arts of the Book: The Early Fifteenth-Century Timurid Workshop in Herat.”
A plenary panel on technology and the study of the book will feature William Noel, University of Pennsylvania, Suzanne Paul, Cambridge University Library, and Paola Ricciardi, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK.
An additional 74 papers will be presented in concurrent sessions. For more information, including the full program, go online.