14532

SoSe 19: (HS) From scrolls to scrolling: Introduction to Jewish manuscript & book cultures

Agata Paluch

Additional information / Pre-requisites

Sprache: Englisch

Comments

In his Master of Death, Michael Camille dubbed the study of manuscripts a close encounter with the worlds long bygone. Recent integration of digital technologies into the study of manuscripts and books as well as histories of reading and editorial practices provided these disciplines with a new impetus. This course offers a broad introduction to the history and methods of transmitting knowledge in writing in the premodern culture. We will begin our investigations with the transition of Jewish scribal culture from the writing formats of scroll to codex, and finish with the questions of accessibility and use of manuscripts and books as digital images. We will explore the evolution of scripts in medieval and early modern Jewish manuscripts. Individual types of scripts will be studied in detail both using digital images and physical items studied in situ at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. We will also learn basic methods of assessing date and provenance of written materials by investigating the physical side of manuscripts and books such as decorations, bindings, collation, and layout. Finally, we will consider the impact of new methods of text production on Jewish reading and writing practices from the early modern times up to the digital era. Bibliography: Colette Sirat, Hebrew Manuscripts of the Middle Ages, edited and translated by Nicholas de Lange, (Cambridge U. P.) Cambridge, 2002 Malachi Beit-Arie´, Hebrew Codicology: Historical and Comparative Typology of Hebrew Medieval Codices based on the Documentation of the Extant Dated Manuscripts Using a Quantitative Approach, preprint internet English version 0.2 (April 2018) Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, Check list for observation and evaluation of Hebrew script, Instrumenta BwB 2, 2013 close