CELL: Seventeenth-Century Libraries: Problems & Perspectives

Centre for Editing Lives & Letters (CELL)
University College London
June 6th-8th 2019
Venue: University College London, IAS Common Ground

This symposium brings together a group of UK-based academics and librarians, as well as key Continental scholars, in an attempt to consolidate current research, for the first time, on seventeenth-century libraries and book collecting. Much research has been done, but it remains scattered across disciplinary divides. Until separate findings have been amalgamated, we will not be able to establish the patterns of book acquisition and library formation for this important period.

Seventeenth-Century Libraries: Problems & Perspectives will address questions of topography and typology, networks of library activity, administration, visual identity, dispersal, owners and content, and definitions of public and private. The symposium will also confront current topics of cultural and intellectual history – especially heritage and antiquarianism, the circulation and management of knowledge, and the rise of consumerism and the culture of collecting, as presented in such books as Arthur MacGregor’s Curiosity and Enlightenment (2007), Ann Blair’s Too Much to Know (2010), and Linda Levy Peck’s Consuming Splendor (2005).

AHRC Network: Voices and Books, 1500-1800

Co-led by Professor Jennifer Richards (Newcastle University) and Professor Richard Wistreich (Royal Northern College of Music)

This is an AHRC-funded network of early modern scholars based in the UK and US (literary scholars, linguists, historians, musicologists) and partners (British Library; City Library, Newcastle; National Early Music Association UK; The Reading Experience Database; Seven Stories, National Centre for Children's Books) who are committed to recovering the history of reading aloud and listening to books. In 2014 we will be organising three workshops, to be held at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, Strathclyde University, Glasgow and the British Library, London. And in 2015 we will host an International Conference on Reading Aloud 1500-2015 at City Library, Newcastle. Please see below for an invitation to attend our first workshop in Manchester. For more information, see our website:http://research.ncl.ac.uk/voicesandbooks/

'Voices and Books, 1500-1800' Workshop 1: Saturday 12th April 2014

Venue: Conference Room, Royal Northern College of Music, 124 Oxford Road Manchester M13 9RD

Saturday Programme

10.00 Neil Rhodes (St Andrews University): 'Speech and Text in Early Modern England: An Outline of Some Problems'
10.50 Communal sight-reading from part-books: live demonstration with RNCM vocal students, with commentary by Richard Wistreich
11.45 Coffee
12.00 Abigail Williams (St Peter's College, Oxford) 'Practices of reading aloud in the eighteenth century'

1.00 Lunch (at RNCM)

1.45 Richard Bethell (National Early Music Association): 'The Hegemony of Vocal Sound through the Long Eighteenth Century' (with live demonstration by a singer - followed by discussion)
2.30 Felicity Laurence (Newcastle University): 'Children's voices in the contemporary classroom'
3.15 Tea
3.30 Margaret Wilkinson (Newcastle University): Writing for radio
4.15 Closing discussion
5.00 Finish

This event is free and open to anyone who would like to come. If you are interested in attending, however, please contact the Network Co-ordinator: Helen.Stark@ncl.ac.uk. (N.B. places may be limited).

Bursaries to attend! We have bursaries for unsalaried ECRs (within 2 years of PhD) and PhD students to cover some of the cost of travel / accommodation to attend a workshop. If you would like this support please send a short statement about how attendance at one of the workshops would benefit your research to the Network Co-ordinator:Helen.Stark@ncl.ac.uk.