The Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) cordially invites you to the online workshop 'Manuscript Albums: Collecting & Compiling Handwritten Items'

Friday, 29 October, 02:00 pm CEST – Saturday, 30 October, 06:15 pm CEST

Registration: https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/en/register-workshop13

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In various cultural contexts, it has been common practice to collect and compile in one ‘codicological unit’ handwritten items that are of various origins. The contributions to such manuscripts were usually selected in accordance with a thematic focus and can comprise text, musical notation, images, or pieces of decorative arts. These ‘one-volume’ collections are often named ‘albums’. Sometimes this naming goes back to their original context, as in the case of alba amicorum; sometimes it was used by later researchers, as in the case of Persian or Ottoman albums. Regarding their material composition and production, manuscript albums are not homogeneous: On the one hand, items can enter the collection by being written directly on the blank pages of a book or on loose sheets of paper that are prepared for this purpose. On the other hand, single folios, cut-outs from book pages, and other handwritten pieces can be mounted onto blank pages or inserted into new page margins. And collections of loose album leaves can be bound to a codex, kept in a box, or connected in some other way.

In the workshop, we want to focus on manuscript albums compiled to collect knowledge and memoirs as well as artistic and/or authentic handwriting of more than one individual. By assessing examples from various manuscript cultures that meet the criteria described above, we aim at a comparative view on the material aspects of these written artefacts, their production and use.

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PROGRAMME

Friday, 29 October 2021, 02:00pm–05:35pm CEST

02:00–02:25: Welcome and Introduction

Session 1: 02:25pm–03:35pm CEST
Chair: Uta Lauer (Hamburg)

02:25–03:00: Ilse Sturkenboom (Munich): ‘Chinese’ Paper in the Istanbul Albums H. 2153 and H. 2160: Evidence for Fifteenth-Century Appreciation and Appropriation of Foreign Aesthetics in North Western Iran
03:00–03:35: Hans Bjarne Thomsen (Zurich): The Tekagami and the Japanese Album Culture

03:35–03:50: Break

Session 2: 03:50pm–05:35pm CEST
Chair: Thies Staack (Hamburg)

03:50–04:25: Henrike Rost (Berlin): Nineteenth-Century ‘Musik-Stammbücherʼ: Variety of Material and Contexts of Use
04:25–05:00: Sabine Kienitz (Hamburg): From Church Wall to Paper Work: On Interpreting Intercession Books as Albums
05:00–05:35: Gwendolyn Collaço (Los Angeles): Traces of Market Trends: Mapping the Image Corpus and Codicology of Ottoman Costume Albums

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Saturday, 30 October 2021, 02:00pm–06:15pm CEST

Session 3: 02:00pm–03:45pm CEST
Chair: Andreas Janke (Hamburg)

02:00–02:35: Friederike Weis (Berlin): Emperors, Women, Saints, Angels: Images in Indian Albums and their European Titles
02:35–03:10: Oliver Huck (Hamburg): Album Amicorum, Commonplace Book, and Lute Book
03:10–03:45: Deidre Lynch (Cambridge, MA): Bugs in Books

03:45–04:00: Break

Session 4: 04:00pm–05:45pm CEST
Chair: Janina Karolewski (Hamburg)

04:00–04:35: Robyn Dora Radway (Budapest/Vienna): Caspar von Abschatz’s Album Amicorum: Collecting (in) the Ottoman World
04:35–05:10: Janine Droese (Hamburg): Albums as Monuments: On the Production and Use of Public Albums in 19th-Century Europe
05:10–05:45: Stephanie Bung (Duisburg/Essen): Collecting Handwritten Items in Seventeenth-Century France

05:45–06:15: Final Discussion – Moderator: Oliver Huck (Hamburg)