Special Collections – Workshops & Events

Randall McLeod lecture, March 7 in Special Collections

Randall McLeod, Department of English, University of Toronto, will be featured in the second of a series of lectures in Book Studies presented by the Nicholson Center for British Studies in collaboration with the Special Collections Research Center.

Dr.  McLeod’s lecture, “Sortes Vergilianæ,” will be held on Wednesday, March 7, in the Special Collections Research Center, Regenstein Library at 5:00 pm, with a reception to follow.

Sortes biblicæ and sortes Vergilianæ involve opening at random the Bible or Vergil and letting one’s finger fall blindly on a passage, to read as an oracle.  In this lecture, McLeod will consult the 1501 Aldine edition of Vergil, the first book printed in italics.  By total accident, his finger will fall on the blank area at the bottom of the last page of the Eclogues!  Trying again, his random finger will fall on the blank bottom of the title page!!  Surrendering to destiny, McLeod will then voluntarily investigate all the blank areas of this edition, and an hour will scarcely suffice to analyze his startling findings: for all such white spaces in this Vergil, as in the whites of most Renaissance printed books, are not really blank.  This lecture will show you how to read and interpret texts hidden there.  They are the body language of the book.

This lecture celebrates the re-opening of the Special Collections Research Center.

This lecture is free and open to the public. Persons who require assistance to participate fully in this event should contact Jeanne Fitzsimmons in advance

David S. Katz lecture, February 9 in Special Collections

David S. Katz, the Abraham Horodisch Chair for the History of Books and Professor of History at Tel Aviv University, will be featured at a lecture presented by the Nicholson Center for British Studies and the Chicago Center for Jewish Studies.

Dr. Katz’s lecture, “Matthew Arnold, Spinoza, the Zulus and Biblical Arithmetic in Victorian England,” will be held on Thursday, February 9, in the Special Collections Research Center, Regenstein Library at 5:30 pm, with a reception to follow.

This event celebrates the re-opening of the Special Collections Research Center.

The lecture is free and open to the public. Persons who require assistance to participate fully in this event should contact Miller Prosser at  m-prosser@uchicago.edu in advance.

* * *

David S. Katz is the Abraham Horodisch Chair for the History of Books at the Department of History, Tel Aviv University. Professor Katz has been the Director of the Fred W. Lessing Institute for European History and Civilization (2006-present) and the Director, Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center (2005-2006). In 1997, he was elected permanent Fellow at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Zentrum zur Erforschung der Frühen Neuzeit, Renaissance Institut, Frankfurt, Germany. In 1993 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, England (1993).

Professor Katz has appeared on Israel Television Channel Two, BBC Radio 4, BBC Television, CBS’ Sixty Minutes, CBS News, and NBC’s Dateline. He is the general editor of Brill’s Series in Jewish Studies (1988-present) where he has overseen the publication of 41 books. His own publications include: God’s Last Words: Reading the English Bible from the Reformation to Fundamentalism  (London & New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004) and The Jews in the History of England, 1485-1850 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).

Sacred Trash – lecture today in Special Collections

The Nicholson Center for British Studies
And
The Chicago Center for Jewish Studies
are pleased to present

Peter Cole and Adina Hoffman

Lecture:

Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of Cairo Geniza

Special Collections
Regenstein Library
1100 E. 57th St.

Monday, January 23, 5:30 pm

Reception to follow

*****

Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza tells the story of the recovery from a Cairo geniza (a repository for worn-out texts) of the most vital cache of Hebrew manuscripts ever discovered. The 2012 Goldberg lecture will feature a conversation with the co-authors of this fascinating book, Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole. The recipient of a 2007 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, Peter Cole has published three books of poetry, and his next work, The Poetry of Kabbalah: Mystical Verse from the Jewish Tradition is forthcoming in 2012 from Yale University Press. Adina Hoffman is the author of My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet’s Life in the Palestinian Century (Yale University Press). A biography of Taha Muhammad Ali, it won the UK’s 2010 Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize. Her essays and criticism have appeared in the Nation, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and on the World Service of the BBC, among others. The recipient of a 2011 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, she is one of the founders and editors of Ibis Editions and lives in Jerusalem and New Haven.

*****

The lecture is being organized by the Special Collections Research Center and the Center for Jewish Studies. It is being co-sponsored by the The Newberger Hillel Center, the Center for Jewish Studies, the Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library, and The Nicholson Center for British Studies.

 This event is free and open to the public.
Contact Miller Prosser at 773.702.7108 or m-prosser@uchicago.edu with questions or to request a disability accommodation.

Ann Blair lecture Monday, Jan. 9 in Special Collections

The Nicholson Center for British Studies, in collaboration with the Special Collections Research Center, is pleased to present Ann Blair, Henry Charles Lea Professor of History at Harvard University, who will lecture on the topic:

“Forms of Collaboration in Early Humanist Works”

This lecture celebrates the re-opening of the Special Collections Research Center.