The Minnesota Manuscript Research Laboratory is a project developed by the Center for Medieval Studies (CMS) of the Institute for Advanced Study in the College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, in collaboration with the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library at Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota.

The Laboratory’s purpose is to provide an orientation to the study of medieval manuscripts and their contents to qualified graduate and undergraduate students, faculty and other interested individuals. 

During the week beginning Sunday, June 8 and ending on Friday, June 13, the Laboratory will hold a workshop to give participants a practical, hands-on introduction to the study of manuscripts at an important research center, the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library.

Facilities, accommodations, amenities:

The workshop sessions will be held at the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, at Saint John’s University and Saint John’s Abbey, which are world-renowned for their extensive collection of microfilm and digital images of medieval manuscripts. Their ever-expanding collection contains images of over 100,000 medieval manuscripts. Students will also have access to the Alcuin Library at Saint John’s, which contains not only a collection of rare printed books, but also extensive materials on the history of religion, including many books and journals difficult to find elsewhere in the state. Students will be housed in a dormitory on the Saint John’s campus and take meals in the campus refectory. They will also be welcome to attend, as observers or participants, monastic prayer services, which continue a liturgical tradition established early in the Middle Ages. These services are held in Saint John’s Abbey Church, designed by the noted architect Marcel Breuer (1902-1981). In the evening, they may enjoy the beautiful grounds, where hiking, swimming and canoeing are available.

Costs:  Cost of room for five nights, full board (three meals per day), and educational activities is $650.00  for full-time University of  Minnesota students, registered for Spring semester, 2008.  Other individuals may enroll in the workshop as space permits, and will pay the same cost of $650.00 plus a $25 application fee.  Funds are available to defray fees for University of Minnesota graduate students officially registered for the Medieval Studies minor. Other students are encouraged to inquire about the availability of funds from their own academic departments.

 

The Manuscript Laboratory’s program design and teaching materials are largely the collaborative work of the following three Minnesota scholars:

Diane Warne Anderson (Ph.D., Duke University) has taught palaeography and Latin for the University of Minnesota Department of Classics and Near Eastern Studies and for CMS. She has also taught Latin and Greek at Saint John’s University and St. Olaf College. She has been employed as a cataloguer of medieval manuscripts at HMML and has published scholarly contributions to manuscript studies.

Susan J. Noakes (Ph.D., Yale University) is Director of the Center for Medieval Studies and Professor of French and Italian at the University of Minnesota. Among her many publications on medieval literature are several which treat centrally the history of manuscripts, early printed books, and reading practices in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, including Timely Reading: Between Exegesis and Interpretation (Cornell U. Press, 1988)

Theresa M. Vann (Ph.D., Fordham University) is the Joseph S. Micallef Curator of the Malta Study Center at the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library and Adjunct Associate Professor of History at Saint John's University. She has edited several scholarly books, is publishing a translation of The Siege of Rhodes, and has overseen the creation of HMML's on-line manuscript catalogue.

How to Apply

For a two-page application, contact

The Center for Medieval Studies
302 Nolte Center, 315 Pillsbury Dr. S.E.
Minneapolis, MN 55455.
Phone:  (612) 626–0805
Email:  cmedst@umn.edu
Applications accepted until May 16, 2008