Master Classes

This program is on hiatus while the Beinecke reimagines its offering of non-credit seminars. Please direct any inquires to beinecke.education@yale.edu.

May 2019 Classes

Beinecke Master Classes are non-credit seminars offered without fee to Yale graduate students. Under the direction of distinguished visiting scholars, these intensive seminars explore research methods and skills utilizing primary materials from the collections of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Five full-day sessions (with lunch breaks) are scheduled for each class, from 9:00 a.m. to 5 p.m. The classes will be conducted at the Beinecke Library. Enrollment is limited. See details below for the three classes, their dates, and application procedures.

Literary Biography — Archives and Life Stories

Instructor: Karin Roffman

May 13-17, 2019

Using Yale Collection of American Literature and James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection archives, this five-day master class will consider theoretical and practical issues specific to biographical research and writing. Students will explore strategies for identifying and understanding material, literary, and biographical resources–correspondence, personal papers, photographs, ephemeral publications, objects, and more. The class structure will include lectures, research workshops, and fieldtrips to campus collections and archival processing facilities.

The course is open to Yale University graduate students, in Arts & Sciences and the professional schools. There is no charge; attendance through the week is required.

Requirements:

Students will be required to complete reading assignments before and during the class.

To apply, please send a paragraph stating your reasons for wishing to attend the course and your experience with archival research to Nancy Kuhl, Curator of Poetry, Yale Collection of American Literature (nancy.kuhl@yale.edu) by Monday, April 1, 2019.

Italian Paleography

Dennis Dutschke

May 13-17, 2019

This course will be taught in English and will look at Italian handwriting from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. The Renaissance had a profound effect on Latin and Italian paleography and the rise of Italian as a literary language will be one focus of the course. The course will also include the merchant hands used by most Italians in the 13th-16th centuries to conduct business, write letters, etc. The course will be offered at the Beinecke Library at Yale University from May 13-17th, 2019.

The course will be taught be Dennis Dutschke, professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis. His research and teaching focuses on Medieval and Early Renaissance Italian Literature, with an emphasis on philology and paleography. He has written numerous articles and books, ranging from the Census of Petrarch Manuscripts in the United States (published in 1986) to the recent edition of a 14th century poem, Teo da Perugia, La Caccia (published in 2018).

Students should have a basic reading knowledge of Italian; you will be transcribing Italian documents and some of the secondary readings are in Italian. Students are encouraged to buy a copy of Armando Petrucci, Breve storia della scrittura latina, Rome, Baggato Libri, 1989.

To apply, please fill out the application form online here at: http://bit.ly/2UJxC6f by Monday, April 1, 2019.

Arabic Paleography: Introduction to Arabic Manuscript Research

François Déroche

May 28-31, 2019

Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library is hosting a week-long masterclass for graduate students at Yale and selected graduate students from other universities to impart the skills and knowledge needed to conduct original research using Arabic manuscripts. Jointly sponsored by the Beinecke, the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations, and the YUSRIA initiative of the MacMillan Center Council on Middle East Studies, this course will feature an eminent guest instructor along with Yale professors to introduce the fundamentals of Arabic palaeography, codicology, and textual criticism. Students completing the course will be prepared for and oriented to further research in hitherto untapped manuscript sources. The Beinecke holds the third largest collection of Arabic manuscripts in the United States, many of which have never been consulted by scholars for research.

The class will be taught by François Déroche, Professor at the Collège de France, is the world’s foremost authority on early Qur’an manuscripts and a leading scholar of the history of the Arabic book. His many publications include Islamic Codicology: An Introduction to the Study of Manuscripts in the Arabic Script (2006), Qur’ans of the Umayyads (2014), and Le transmission écrite du Coran dans Jes débuts de l’lslam: le codex Parisino-Petropolitanus (2009), among many others. His work has done much to clarify how the Qur’an text was first transmitted, and has established a categorization of the earliest manuscripts dating to the seventh and eighth centuries CE.

To apply, please fill out the application form online here: http://bit.ly/2RG3u9W by Monday, April 1, 2019.

May 2018 Class

Typography and Design; John Gambell, instructor

Previous Classes

DATE	CLASS	INSTRUCTOR
May 2017	The Celluloid Paper Trail:Descriptive Cataloging, Evaluation, and Valuation of Film Scripts and Photographs in Twentieth Century American Cinema	Kevin Johnson, Royal Books
May 2014	Renaissance Spanish Paleogaphy	Dr. John O’Neill, Curator of Manuscripts and Rare Books Hispanic Society of America
May 2013	Editing Middle English Manuscripts	Tony Edwards, Professor of Medeival Manuscripts, University of Kent at Canterbury
May 2013	The Physical Structure of Prints	Richard Benson, Professor,Yale School of Art
May 2012	Working from the Archive: Pictures as Primary Sources	Laura Wexler, Professor of American Studies and of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and George Miles, Curator, Yale Collection of Western Americana
May 2011	Working with Alternative Media: Documenting Counter-Culture	Johan Kugelberg, author and curator based in New York
May 2011	Approaches to Biography in the James Weldon Johnson Collection	Emily Bernard, Associate Professor of English and ALANA U. S. Ethnic Studies at the University of Vermont
May 2010	Bibliographical Description and Scholarly Editing	G. Thomas Tanselle, retired from the vice presidency of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

2000-2009

DATE	CLASS	INSTRUCTOR
May 2009	English Paleography and Archival Sources, 16th-18th Century	Maija Jansson, Director of the Yale Center for Parlimentary History
January 2009	English Paleography and Archival Sources (16th-18th Century)	Maija Jansson, Director of the Yale Center for Parlimentary History
May 2008	Humanistic Script in Italy	Stefano Zamponi, Professor of Latin Palaeography, Director of the “Dipartimento di Studi sul Medioevo e il Rinascimento,” and Director of the School of Doctoral Studies in Philology and Textual Transmission at the University of Florence
May 2008	Pictures as Primary Sources	Martha Sandweiss, Professor of American Studies and History, Amherst College
May 2007	Late Bibliographical Description and Scholarly Editing	G. Thomas Tanselle, former Vice President of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and Professor of Bibliographic Studies at Columbia University.
May 2007	English Paleography and Archival Sources (16th-18th Century)	Maija Jansson, Director of the Yale Center for Parlimentary History
May 2007	The Industrial Book in America, 1830-1914	Michael Winship, Iris Howard Regents Professor II of English at the University of Texas at Austin
May 2006	Late Medieval Latin Script	Albert Derolez, Curator Emeritus of Special Collections in the Universiteitsbibiotheek Gent; Professor Emeritus of Palaeography and Codicology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles
May 2006	Shakespeare and the Book	Peter Stallybrass, Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Humanities and Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania
May 2005	Late Medieval Latin Script	Albert Derolez, Professor Emeritus of Palaeography and Codicology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles; President of the Comité International de Paléographie Latine
May 2005	Milton and the Book	Stephen B. Dobranski, Professor of Renaissance Literature and Textual Studies at the Georgia State University
May 2004	The Italian Book and Renaissance Drama	Louise George Clubb, Professor Emerita of Italian Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley
May 2004	Editing Debussy	Denis Herlin, CNRS in Paris
May 2004	Pictures as Primary Sources for American History	Martha Sandweiss, Amherst College
May 2004	Interpretive Acts: Theory and Practice in the Scholarly Editing of Literary Texts	Michael F. Suarez, S.J., Oxford University & Fordham University
May 2003	Composing Italian Opera	Philip Gossett, University of Chicago
May 2003	Manuscripts and Meaning: Reading the Primary Sources of Tudor and Stuart England	David Scott, History of Parliament Trust
May 2003	Maps as Historical Tools	Barbara McCorkle, former curator of the Yale University map collection
May 2003	History of the Book	John Barnard, retired Professor of English Literature at the University of Leeds
March / May 2002	Reading Prints and Graphic Images, 1740-1840	Brian E. Maidment, University of Salford
March / May 2002	Pictures as Primary Sources for American History	Martha Sandweiss, Amherst College
March / May 2002	Bibliographical Description and Scholarly Editing	G. Thomas Tanselle, Guggenheim Foundation
March / May 2001	Approaches to Biography	Hermione Lee, University of Oxford
March / May 2001	The Material Culture of American Photography	Peter Palmquist, David Plowden, Richard Benson
March / May 2001	Interrogating Manuscript Sources of Tudor and Stuart Britain	David Scott
March / May 2000	Introduction to Arabic Manuscripts	Adam Gacek, McGill University
March / May 2000	Late Medieval Latin Scripts	Albert Delorez, Université Libre de Bruxelles
March / May 2000	Bibliographical Description and Scholarly Editing	G. Thomas Tanselle, Guggenheim Foundation
March / May 2000	Scribal Culture: Scribal Treason	Harold Love, Monash University
March / May 2000	Introduction to Greek Manuscripts	Mervin Dilts, New York University
March / May 2000	Italian Family Archives: The Spinelli Collection	Carol Bresnahan Menning, University of Toledo

Pre 2000

Date	Class	Instructor
May 10-21, 1999	Introduction to Arabic Manuscripts	Adam Gacek, McGill University
May 10-21, 1999	Bibliographical Description and Scholarly Editing	G. Thomas Tanselle, Guggenheim Foundation
May 10-21, 1999	Pictures as Primary Sources for American History	Martha A. Sandweiss, Amherst College
May 10-21, 1999	Late Medieval Latin Scripts	Albert Delorez, université libre de Bruxelles
May 1998	Introduction to Greek Papyri	Roger S. Bagnall, Columbia University
May 1998	Pictures as Primary Sources for American History	Martha A. Sandweiss, Amherst College
Spring 1997	Coptic Documentary Papyri	Terry Wilfong, University of Michigan & Sarah Clackson, Cambridge University
March 1994	Renaissance Italian Documents	Gino Corti