Tuesday, September 28, 2021 – Thursday, December 9, 2021
(This program continues for multiple sessions)
Tuesdays and Thursdays
1–2:30 pm CST
Online

Led by Lia Markey, Rebecca Fall, and Christopher Fletcher, Newberry Library

Centuries before television, smartphones, and social media, books were the primary means by which people made sense of the world around them. In cultures throughout the world, manuscripts and printed materials of all kinds were used to archive professional and personal lives, cultivate relationships with the divine, care for minds and bodies, and visualize faraway lands and peoples. Today, these books stand as material witnesses to medieval and early modern efforts to engage with major social, intellectual, and cultural challenges.

Hosted by the Newberry Library’s Center for Renaissance Studies (CRS), this 10-week course will use the multidisciplinary field of book history to explore how medieval and early modern people used different media—theological texts, maps, travel narratives, reference works, literature, and more—to make sense of a changing world. Through lectures, discussions, and interactive workshops with faculty from CRS consortium institutions, participants will learn how book history can illuminate the ways in which premodern people used religion, science, art, and technology to grapple with new economic, intellectual, and cultural challenges in a rapidly-expanding global community. In so doing, students will develop a framework for using the past to help illuminate and guide their own contemporary experience.

Format

Hosted by the Newberry Library’s Center for Renaissance Studies (CRS), this 10-week course will use the multidisciplinary field of book history to explore how medieval and early modern people used different media—theological texts, maps, travel narratives, reference works, literature, and more—to make sense of a changing world. Through lectures, discussions, and interactive workshops with faculty from CRS consortium institutions, participants will learn how book history can illuminate the ways in which premodern people used religion, science, art, and technology to grapple with new economic, intellectual, and cultural challenges in a rapidly-expanding global community. In so doing, students will develop a framework for using the past to help illuminate and guide their own contemporary experience.

Confirmed Guest Speakers

Claudia Brittenham, University of Chicago
Kevin Gosner, University of Arizona
Elizabeth Hebbard, Indiana University
Stephanie Leitch, Florida State University
Ryan Netzley, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale
Julia Schleck, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
JB Shank, University of Minnesota
Jyotsna Singh, Michigan State University

Cost and Registration

This seminar is free and open for undergraduate students in any field of medieval or early modern studies, but space is limited. Priority will be given to undergraduates from CRS consortium institutions.

To apply for the course, complete the online application form on the Newberry website. Credits for the course will be given by students’ home institutions. Accepted students must make arrangements with their home institutions to receive credit for the course. Please direct any questions to renaissance@newberry.org.