Update for July/August 2007

Unfortunately, though we managed to 'complete' S&P 30.2 before anyone away over winter, this issue was not fully typeset as planned. In order to avoid a three-month hiatus we have organised issues 30.2 and 30.3 to be typeset elsewhere. S&P 30.2 was sent to the printers this morning (cover-art below); S&P 30.3 should follow it in about one month.

Though the contents will not be finalised for another couple of days, it is likely that S&P 30.3 will contain the following

Opinion Piece: Tara McLeod on "The Private Press in New Zealand in the Twenty-First Century"

Article 1: T. L. Burton & K. K. Ruthven, "William Barnes’s River Flowers and the 1844 Edition of His Poems of Rural Life in The Dorset Dialect."

Article 2: Keith Maslen, "The Bibliography Room Press 1961–2005: A Short History and Checklist."

Bibliographical Note 1: B. J. McMullin, "Dawson Described."

Bibliographical Note 2: Patrick Spedding, "A Reading of Gay’s Fables."

Reviews: Studies in Bibliography, vol. 54 (reviewed by B. J. McMullin); Teaching Bibliography, Textual Criticism and Book History (reviewed by Roger Osborne); Studies in Bibliography, vol. 56 (reviewed by Keith Maslen).

Note: Joe Rudman's respond to the articles by John Burrows and Anthony J. Hassall and Wallace Kirsop's "Museums, Lyceums, Athenaeums and Mechanics' Institutes," have been carried over to S&P 30.4.

FSU Book History appointments

Prof. Gary Taylor, Director of History of Text Technologies at Florida State University explains that FSU has recently made five senior and three junior appointments in book history, and plan further appointments. I thought BSANZ members would be interested to know more concerning these appointments. The following details were provided by Prof. Taylor:

Senior Appointments

Prof. François Dupuigrenet Desroussilles (Interdisciplinary Humanities): for two decades rare book curator in the Bibliothèque Nationale, one of the world's finest collections of manuscripts and early printed books, where he organized such exhibitions as "God's Kingdom. The Bible in France from saint Louis to the Revolution."  A specialist in the literary and visual cultures of France and Italy he taught for many years the history of the book and the history of communication in the universities of Geneva, Lugano and Lyon while directing the French national school for  chief librarians.

Prof. Elaine Treharne (English): Treharne works on English manuscripts of the early medieval period, their contexts of production, their physical compilation and their cultural significance. She is the Principal Investigator of a five-year project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, "The Production and Use of English Manuscripts, 1060 to 1220." Treharne is Chair of the Teachers of Old English in Britain and Ireland, Convenor of the English Association's Research Group "The History of Books and Texts", and an Editor of Review of English Studies, Speculum and Literature Compass.

Assoc. Prof. Anne E. B. Coldiron (English): Coldiron specializes in late-medieval and Renaissance literature. Her research focuses on French-English literary relations, translation, poetics, and early printing, with special attention to cross-cultural aspects of textual transmission. She has held, among other awards, Folger research grants, a Kluge Fellowship in the Library of Congress, and an NEH fellowship.

Assoc. Prof. David L. Gants (English): Gants was formerly Canada Research Chair in Humanities Computing at the University of New Brunswick. He publishes on bibliographical, textual, and technological matters, and is the Electronic Editor of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson. He is also director of the Early English Booktrade Database project, which seeks to describe, quantify, and classify every book in the STC period.

Assoc. Prof. Elizabeth Spiller (English): Spiller is the author of "Science, Reading, and Renaissance Literature" (Cambridge, 2004), a study of the historic emergence of literature and science that focuses on the role of reading in the creation of knowledge. She has just completed an NEH Fellowship to pursue work on her current book, "Reading in Color: Race, Romance, and the Complexion of Early Modern Print Culture," a project that examines how reading practices contributed to the creation of racial identities in early modern culture. She is also the editor of a two volume collection of seventeenth century English recipe books (Ashgate, forthcoming).

Junior Appointments

Dr Ilaria Andreoli (assistant to the HOTT director) specializes in art history, particularly 16th c. French and Italian book illustration.

Dr Stephanie Leitch (assistant professor, Art History) specializes in 16th c. German prints.

Dr Crisobal Silva (assistant professor, English) specializes in early American epidemiology and its relationship to print culture.

FSU will be advertising for a senior position in 17th c. French book history late in 2007, and for three more junior positions in 2009.

Course on Analytical Bibliography

The Bibliographical Society of Canada will sponsor a course on analytical bibliography to be held at the University of Toronto between 27 and 31 August 2007.

The course will focus on historical bibliography, textual bibliography, and descriptive bibliography. The course instructor is Carl Spadoni. Guest lecturers (Patricia Fleming, Judy Donnelly, Randall Speller, Elizabeth Driver, etc.) will also give presentations pertaining to early printing, imprint bibliography, subject bibliography, author bibliography, and other matters.

This course is intended for librarians, literary scholars, historians, graduate students, and others interested in book collecting and the history of the book. Further information about the course will be supplied to applicants at a later date. The cost of the course is $500 or $250 for students, retirees, and unwaged persons.

Contact: Carl Spadoni (address details, etc, here)