http://news.virginia.edu/content/rare-book-school-uva-creates-new-mellon-fu…
OCTOBER 29, 2012
A new fellowship program of the Rare Book School at the University of
Virginia will train an emerging generation of humanities scholars in
the study of the book.
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation recently awarded Rare Book School an
$896,000 grant to fund The Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in
Critical Bibliography program, which will supply 20 three-year
fellowships for junior faculty, postdoctoral fellows or doctoral
students in the humanities interested in bibliographical studies.
The goal is to encourage humanities scholars to look at books as
artifacts that contribute more to the study of a subject than the text
on their pages, said Michael Suarez, director of Rare Book School. The
fellows will attend three courses at Rare Book School, with travel and
research stipends, as well as other training opportunities.
“Our aim isn’t to convert a musicologist, French literary historian or
science historian into a bibliographer, but rather to empower them
with greater interpretive capabilities by encouraging a more thorough
understanding of textual artifacts,” Suarez said.
Fifty years ago, bibliographical training was a required element of
most top graduate programs in English literature, but that’s no longer
the case, he said. The Mellon program will allow a new generation of
humanities researchers to become adept at evaluating the wealth of
scholarly information provided by a book’s physical form. That could
mean understanding the materials and methods that went into a book’s
production, or interpreting a book’s intended audience or cultural
significance, Suarez said.
“Every book is a coalescence of human intentions,” he said.
“Bibliography is a form of literacy that allows us to read the
physical book and to recover those human intentions. When we walk into
an airport and we see a certain type of book on the rack there, we
know what that book is, because we can read its social codes at a
glance. Likewise, somebody who walked into a shop in Venice in 1500
could read the social codes in Aldus Manutius's groundbreaking
editions."
The fellowship application deadline isn’t until Dec. 1, but Rare Book
School has already had about 600 requests for applications. Suarez
said he hopes some U.Va. scholars will be among the 20 selected
fellows.
“It’s true that U.Va. applicants won’t get preferential treatment, but
as this is one of the premiere places for graduate study in the
humanities, and an institution that has an extremely distinguished
group of junior faculty, I would very much hope that U.Va. would be
represented,” he said.
In addition to the courses at Rare Book Schools, fellows will have
funding for research trips to archives, a sponsored symposia in their
home departments, as well as training modeled after archeological
work, in which groups of fellows will go to research collections to
refine their scholarly techniques.
Though the program’s focus is on the study of old books, it doesn’t
encourage participants to eschew modern technology, Suarez said. In
fact, a social media component will help the fellows keep in touch
with each other on what the others are working on.
“The digital is not the enemy,” Suarez said. “We would certainly hope
that some digital humanists would be among these scholars studying the
power of bibliographical investigation and analysis, and this program
could serve as a type of bridge-building exercise.”
Should the program be a success, Suarez said he hopes it will expand
over the next two years to include a total of 60 participants, with
the possibility of an international conference about the integration
of bibliographical habits into humanistic research and teaching.
“I think this is a great opportunity for Rare Book School to be a
powerful vector for change in the humanities and a force for good in
the academy,” he said. “I believe that this grant is also a very good
thing for the University of Virginia, as it will be bringing some of
the very best and brightest humanities scholars to Grounds repeatedly
over the course of the next three years. And that creates many
possibilities for lively conversation and productive interchange.”
Media Contact:
Rob Seal
News Officer
U.Va. Media Relations
rseal(a)virginia.edu
434-243-3492
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June Samaras
KALAMOS BOOKS
(For Books about Greece)
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