Manuscript Ecologies Symposium

Manuscript Ecologies: Art and Science in the Medieval Book is an interdisciplinary seminar dedicated to the past and present of medieval book history. Historians of science have long understood medieval books as valuable repositories for medieval scientific thought. Increasingly, however, these codices are moving out of the libraries and into the labs, as objects of scientific inquiry in their own right.  This symposium brings together a group of literary scholars, historians, art conservators, and scientists for the purpose of thinking about future directions for interdisciplinary research into the medieval codex -- both as an artifact of the past and as a source for new knowledge.

Sarah Kay (French, NYU)
"Sacrifice or Slaughter?: Bestiaries, Parchment, and the Killing of Animals"
Respondent: Nancy Turner (Paper Conservation Department, Getty Museum)

Alain Touwaide (Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions)
"Manuscript Therapeutics"
In conversation with Scott Virgil (Center for Catalysis and Chemical Synthesis, Caltech)

Faith Wallis (Social Studies of Medicine, McGill University)
"Medieval Manuscripts of 'Practical' Medicine and the Mirage of 'Use'"
Respondent: Martha Rust (English, NYU)