HF8: Curating the Middle Ages
About
This Working Group brings together curators and scholars of the Middle Ages who seek to highlight underrepresented voices in institutional collections and to broaden our understanding of the medieval period through engagement with primary sources.
Active since: 2022
Open to New People
- Syracuse University
- University of Rochester
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.
Group Organizers
Anna Siebach-Larsen
Director, Rossell Hope Robbins Library and Koller-Collins Center for English Studies, University of Rochester
Group Members
- Juilee Decker, Professor of History and Museum Studies Program Director, Rochester Institute of Technology
- Nancy Norwood, Curator of European Art, Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester
- Lisa Wright, Digitization Specialist, Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester
Activities
Curating the Middle Ages Planning Meeting
March 17, 2023, 10:30 a.m.
A Viewing of Medieval Manuscripts
May 5, 2023, 9:30 a.m.