HF8: Curating the Middle Ages

Collaborative Goals

• Assess methodological concepts of a more inclusive Middle Ages (i.e. the Global Middle Ages, microhistory, etc.) and their applications in a special collections setting.
• Interrogate the ways in which the paradigms of a global Middle Ages and a diverse special collections might intersect, where they might productively trouble our assumptions about the past and our concretization of those assumptions in our conceptualization of "special collections".
• Develop a set of approaches and tools aimed at diversifying the collections that we steward.
• Exchange linguistic and historical competencies in describing and interpreting items in our collections that have been under-researched due to a lack of in-house expertise.
• Explore and assess pedagogical approaches to premodern collections within the framework of inclusive primary source instruction and curation.
• Build a Humanities Corridor network of GLAM professionals, faculty, and students who work with premodern collections.