Upcoming Beck Lectures in June

Dr. Matthew Driscoll

Tuesday, June 19th, 7:30 p.m.Harry Hickman Building, Room 116

“The Value of Books: Magnús í Tjaldanesi and the End of Manuscript Culturein Iceland”

Magnús Jónsson (1835-1922), from the farm Tjaldanes in western Iceland,was among the last in a long line of book-loving Icelanders, ordinarypeople with little or no formal education, who spent the long wintermonths copying out the texts of sagas. In his hand are preserved copies,in many case two, three or even four, of nearly two hundred sagas, about adozen of which are not found elsewhere. This paper will look at Magnús andhis scribal production.

Dr. Matthew Driscoll

Wednesday, June 20th, 8:30 a.m.Harry Hickman Building, Room 105

"Everything But the Smell: Toward a More Artefactual Digital Philology"

The paper will present some of the issues, both practical and theoretical,involved in describing and transcribing Icelandic primary sources usingTEI-conformant XML, looking in particular at how the ideas of theso-called ‘new’ or ‘material’ philology impact upon scholarly editorialpractice, and how various aspects of the text’s ‘artefactuality’, aspectswhich have generally (and often but not always by necessity) beenoverlooked in traditional printed editions, can be presented in thecontext of an electronic edition, without compromising the edition’susability.

Ragnheiður Mósesdóttir

Wednesday June 20th, 7:30 p.m. Harry Hickman Building, Room 116

"The Publications of the Arnamagnæan Commission 1772-1936.”

The Arnamagnæan Collection takes it name from Professor Árni Magnússon (1663-1730), whose collection of Icelandic and other early Scandinavianmanuscripts is among the largest and most important in the world. In hiswill he left the collection and a small bequest to the University ofCopenhagen, stipulating that students should be set to work editing thetexts. In 1772 a Royal Commission was established to oversee this work. This lecture will concentrate on the early work of the Commission, thechoice of texts to be edited, the editorial principles employed andproblems encountered, as well as the reception of the works published inthe period 1772 to 1936.