Emerson Storm Fillman Richards

• Indiana University Bloomington, PhD student, Comparative Literature (in progress)• University of Florida, M.A., Department of English (2013) • University of Florida, B.A., English & Medieval and Early Modern Studies (2011)

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William T. Buice III Scholarship

I am pleased to announce that I have been awarded a William Buice scholarship to attend a session of Rare Book School this summer. I hope to attend two session this summer, and one next summer, and complete a certificate of proficiency in the history of manuscripts. 

http://rarebookschool.org/admissions-awards/scholarships/buice/

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Yale’s Graduate Workshop in Digital Editing Medieval Fragments

I have been selected to participate in a workshop hosted and run by Yale and the Beinecke in November. 

“Training goals include digital editing and TEI markup, the paleography and codicology of medieval rolls and fragments, and project-based collaboration in the digital arena. These strands combine in the design of the workshops: participants work closely with one another to transform newly learned skills into a concrete digital artifact, and so prepare themselves to take on future digital collaborations.”

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Assistant Archivist in IU Library’s Moving Image Archive

As of August, I have joined the IUL MIA team as an assistant archivist. I’m working with Andy Uhrich on some projects the details of which will be publicized later and being trained as a 35mm specialist. In the meantime, I am inspecting film for quality and describing their condition. For now, I’ve been working primarily with educational films and local ads from the 1950s. 

Having been an amateur film-maker and a sometimes-paid analogue photographer, I’m excited to have the opportunity to revisit my interest in film while adding to my special collections experiences. 

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Rare Book School, Second Session

At the end of July, I will be returning to UVA for my second session of Rare Book School. During this session, I will take Professor M. Michèle Mulchahey’s Seminar in Western Codicology. 

I am attempting to complete a RBS certificate with a specialization in the history of manuscripts. 

Here is a description of the course:

“The principles, bibliography, and methodology of the analysis and description of Western medieval and Renaissance manuscripts. The course includes a survey of the development of the physical features of manuscript books and practical work by the students on particular points. Applicants must have considerable background in the historical humanities, and a good basic knowledge of Latin and Latin paleography is needed.

Traditional research on manuscripts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance is based principally on the study of script and illumination. Without neglecting these important aspects, this course will show that there are other—and sometimes more conclusive—means to approach the codex and to uncover the information it conveys. The course will deal with manuscript materials, structure, layout, script and decoration, showing how to investigate and describe these features.”

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Transcribathon U. South Carolina

Before ‘Understanding the Medieval Book’, which will begin tomorrow, we were invited to participate in the Folger Library’s Transcribathon. For the past 4.5 hours, I’ve been transcribing an early modern (ca. 1630) miscellany in secretary hand on politics, death, and food, which features some very anti-Scottish sentiments. 

Here’s what I have for page 38:

And nothing heer seemes more ugly to mee of them hearafter I will discourse as followeth I pray remember my service to my honorable majesty​​ I would not wish to be king of Scotland only if were to make her queane I have sent you a breife description of this kingdome wi​th​ the natural condition of th​e​ people For th​e​ country I cousell it is too good for them that inhabit it & to bad for others to bear th​e​ chore to conquere it, th​e​ ayre might be wholesome but for tth​e​ stinking people th​a​t​ ​live in it & th​e​ ground might be made fruitful had they wit to manure it. Their beaste generally are al smal, women only excepted then whi​ch​ there are no greater in the worlde. There is greate store of foule, as foule houses foul. dishes pots foule linnen foul trenchers and napkins foul sheets and shirts, wi​th​ ​whi​ch​ fort of foul we had like to have been famished as th​e​ children of trad​ were wi​th​ th​e​ fowle in th​e​ wilderness they have great score of fish too & good for them that can eat them raw, but if they once come into their hands they are as good as 3 dayes old, for th​e​ butter and cheese I will not medle with it nor any man else th​a​t​ loves his life. They have also great score of deare but they are so far from th​e​ places I have been of, that I had rather believe it then to goe to disprove it I confesse al th​e​ deare I met wi​th​ was​ deare lodging deare horsemeat dear tobacco and English deare. As for fruit for their grand...​ ...​ sake they never planted any, for other trees had Christ been betrayed in ... ​country ...​ doubled he should have been had he come as as stranger a mong them Judas had sooner found th​e​ grace of repentance than a tree to hang himself. They have many ... in whi​ch​ they tel me ...​ much ...​ but they shew none of it. Nature hath only discovered unto shame form mines of Coales to shew to what end she created them. I saw but ...​ grasse, same only in pottage, and no fl...​ thistle was not given them for naught page break​

www.transcribe.folger.edu [USC]

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Rare Book School (UVA)

In June, I will be at UVA for Consuelo Dutschke’s Rare Book School session, Introduction to Paleography 800-1500. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to tie together in a formal class what I’ve taught myself and what I’ve learned in Italy and France last year. 

More information about the program can be found here: 

http://rarebookschool.org/courses/manuscripts/m10/

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Flanagan Colloquium 2016

I’m pleased to be presenting along side my colleagues in the department of Comparative Literature for the 2016 Flanagan Colloquium this Friday. My paper will use comparative methods of manuscript studies to determine date and origin to suggest that the Lilly Library’s antiophoner, Ricketts P, is in fact 13th century Anglo-Norman, rather than, as it is labeled, 14th century Italian with connections to the scuola giottesca. 

Indiana University Department of Comparative Literature The C. Clifford Flanigan Memorial Colloquium Friday, April 15 | 2:00 – 4:00 pm | Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center

The colloquium will be judged by a panel of Comparative Literature faculty. A prize will be awarded to the winning presentation.

         Our presenters for this year’s colloquium are: Emerson Richards Towards a more precise dating and origin of antiphoner Ricketts P, Lilly Library, Bloomington, IN

Alan Reiser Sexual Awakening or Rape: Suppressed memory of social rape in Tamura Toshiko’s “Wolfberry Temptation”

Ali Frauman Taboo-Breakers and the Intimate Monster in Snorra Edda and the Saxon Genesis

The event will be moderated by Professor Bill Johnston. A round-table discussion and light reception will follow the presentations.

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'The Purchasing Power of a Batman’ @ the IU Medieval Symposium

IU’s 28th annual Medieval Studies symposium will be April 8-9th in Wylie Hall 015. 

I will be presenting a paper stemming from research I began in a seminar on Old Russian literature last semester, taught by Ari Stern-Gottschalk. In this paper, which has been much narrowed from its initial conception & title, I will be comparing representations of Muslims and Islam by way of an 15th century Eastern Orthodox Russian merchant, Afanasy Nikitin, and a 14th century Roman Catholic Anglo-Norman author, John Mandeville. This comparison will yield a more nuanced understanding of how even very different cultures (Rus’ and Anglo-Norman) viewed and interacted with Islam. 

http://www.indiana.edu/~medieval/symposium.shtml

10.30 - 12 noon — Negotiating Gender and Identity Moderator: Dr. Arwen Taylor (Visiting Lecturer, Indiana University) "Reforming Lay Masculinity in an Age of Crusade and Penitential Warfare," Connor Kelly, Ph.D. student, Queen's University (Canada), Department of History "'To Be Praised with Foreign Words': Nicholas Kallikles' Epitaph for the sebastos Roger and the Integration of Norman Chiefs into Byzantine Elite under Alexios I Komnenos," Luisa Andriollo, Postdoctoral Fellow at Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, Princeton University "'The Purchasing Power of a Batman and Assorted Monsters': Comparing Representations of Peoples Encountered in Afanasy Nikitin and John Mandeville's Journeys East," Emerson Storm Fillman Richards, Ph.D. student, Indiana University, Department of Comparative Literature

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M.L.S. @ IU

I’ve been accepted to the MLS program at IU. I will start in Fall 2016, as I finish up my CompLit coursework & take my quals. 

I will be taking the specialization in Rare Books and Manuscript Librarianship, and focusing on academic librarianship. The emphasis on manuscripts should dovetail nicely with my Apocalypse/Romance manuscript dissertation idea. 

Hopefully, if things go as I plan, I’ll be finishing up the PhD, MLS and a certificate from Rare Book School in the next two years. 

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Understanding the Medieval Book VI & IU’s Symposium

On April 8-9th, I will give a paper titled “The Purchasing Power of  a Batman and Assorted Monstrosities”, which will look at  the representations of Estern peoples in Nikiton Afanasy’s Journey Across Three Seas and John Mandeville’s Travels. This paper will be part of the 28th annual IU Medieval Studies Symposium, the theme of which is Medieval Globalism. 

Then, on the 10th, I will attend the VIth annual ‘Understanding the Medieval Book’, with Ray Clemens of Yale, organized by Scott Gwara and hosted by the University of South Carolina. This is a two day, 12 hour seminar on all aspects of medieval codicology utilizing the rare books library at USC. 

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Spring Coursework ‘16

This spring, I will take a course with Sarah Van Der Laan on the Renaissance Epic, a course with Jacob Emery on Nabokov’s works, and a survey of Latin literature course.

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The Lilly Library aids the British Library in reuniting leaves from the Hungerford Hours

[This may appear on the Lilly’s blog, in which case, I will take this post and put up the link ]

In Spring 2016, a collaboration between Rosemarie McGerr, Hildegard Keller, and the Lilly library will bring us ‘The Performative Book: Agent of Creativity from Medieval Europe to the Americas’. While assisting Professor McGerr on her part of this project by photographing and researching the manuscripts that will be displayed, I was tasked with finding an image from the Hungerford Hours depicting the commissioner (perhaps Sir John himself) and his wife kneeling before a crucified Jesus.

I subsequently found this illumination in a book chapter by Michael Michael—the illumination in question is in a private collection in London—but not before I had emailed the British Library to see if they had any leads. The Section of Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern manuscripts responded with a bibliography and an interest in our holding.

 Catalogued by Christopher de Hamel in his Gilding the Lilly, Gottfried MSS (de Hamel number 44) contains a single parchment leaf of 166 mm by 107mm. On the recto, a flourish has been trimmed at the top, but the Latin text of the Use of Sarum’s Nunc dimittis (The Song of Simeon) is intact, as well as the coat of arms of which are “probably those of Sir John de Patteshulle (d. 1349) of Pattishall, Northamptonshire, and of Crawley, Bedforshire” (de Hamel 97). The verso concludes the Latin and begins Compline for the Hours of the Cross in Anglo-Norman and features a gilded illumination of the entombment of Jesus, who is surrounded by St. John the Evangelist, the Virgin, Mary Magdalene, and Joseph of Arimathea. This is a leaf from the fourteenth century East Anglian Hungerford Hours.

 Despite de Hamel’s mention of “the calendar and one of the miniatures are now in the British Library Add. MSS 61887 and 62106” (97), the BL was unaware that the Lilly had this leaf, and this exchange, launched by a simple query, has culminated in the Lilly’s leaf being listed and recognized in their effort to digitize and locate extant leaves of the Hungerford Hours.

 We are delighted now to report that we were notified this week that the British Library has completed the digitization of their Hungerford leaves which are now available online. The Lilly Library is continues to be deeply committed to sharing our resources in this way in order to facilitate both the work of scholarly researchers as well as sustaining the interests of the general public. The Medieval Manuscripts Blog of the British Library has written a short piece, “Piecing together the Puzzle of the Hungerford Hours”, detailing the project and mentioning our contribution.

 by Emerson Storm Fillman Richards

             * Christopher de Hamel, Gilding the Lilly: A hundred Medieval and Illuminated Manuscripts in the Lilly Library, The Lilly Library 2010.

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Spring Teaching, 2016

This upcoming Spring, I will be teaching for the Department of Comparative literature. I will be the instructor of record for CMLT-C 155, “Culture & the Modern Experience”. The ‘modern experience’ my class will focus on is America in the 1960s. My course descriptions follow below and will be available on the department website shortly. 

·       Short version:

American in the 1960s still influences modern culture as evidenced by fashion, film, fiction, and non-fiction. Through artifacts ranging from the Space Needle, psychedelic-rock lyrics, to the wrenching images of the Viet Nam war, as well as the written word, modern and then-contemporary, this course examines the domestic and international cultural legacy left by this explosive period in recent history.

 ·       Long version :

 Infamous Gonzo journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, lamented once that “San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run… but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant”. The cultural legacy of the American 1960s extends its reach around the world, as evidenced by fashion, film, fiction and non-fiction.  

This course will examine cultural artifacts from each year successively in the 1960s (with a possible foray into late 1950s sci fi as background, and early 1970s as a continuation of the zeitgeist), in order to try to defy Hunter S. Thompson as best we can and touch a sense of knowing, or at least understanding, the 1960s and its legacy of tensions that exploded and changed the nation. Broadly, we will cover the Cold War and the Space Race, the racial tensions, the conflicts between the New Left and the Conservative Right, and the culture around the Viet Nam war (protesters and patriots, and patriotic protesters).  

Readings will include Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Ed Sander’s 1968, selections from Tod Gitlin’s The Sixties: Days of Hope, Years of Rage, in addition to journalism from the time, and modern critical literature. We will watch Hair, and speeches by John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X. We will make use of the important field of photojournalism, and examine propagandistic and candid images of the time.  For each year covered, we will listen to popular songs from that year, and analyze the lyrics for cultural contexts. 

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Harvard Celtic Colloquium 2016

I have, at last, returned from Cambridge, MA, where I attended the HCC for the 4th time. Each time, I appreciated the opportunity to learn about Celtic material to which I would otherwise not have access. 

While there, I was able to use the Houghton. The MSS I consulted were mostly 13th century Bibles with historiated initials-- my interest in the French Apocalypse continues-- but I was also able to see a 15th c. Roman de li Rose, and 14th c. Tristan Fragment. I helped fix some cataloguing issues (the Roman was listed as a 14th c. MSS, and one of the Bibles had had some of the initials cut out, and that was not yet recorded). 

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Two Appointments

This fall, in addition to teaching Tales of King Arthur, as a guest lecturer in conjunction with my colleague, I will also be serving as a research assistant to Professor McGerr and will be a reference attendant/ receptionist at the Lilly Rare Books and Manuscripts Library. 

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Courses ‘15 (Update)

Due to departmental rescheduling, the course on Medieval Selfhood has been postponed until Spring, so I have altered my schedule. I will still be taking Old Irish, but have opted to take a course on Medieval Russian Literature (with texts in translation). I will also be taking 4 hours of research credit from the Department of Comparative Literature. 

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Fall ‘15 Courses at Indiana University

This year will be my last year of PhD coursework. This fall, I am taking Medieval Latin, Old Irish, and a comparative literature course treating the construction of self in Western Medieval texts. Course descriptions below:

• CLAS-L 540 Readings in Medieval Latin: Alan of Lille

Selections from the works of the twelfth-century intellectual, including the Plaint of Nature and the Anticlaudianus, as well as from his rhetorical, exegetical, theological, and polemical works. We will also examine the poet's historical and intellectual surroundings, personal and political networks, the transmission and reception of the texts, and recent scholarly disputes about his identity. Students should have at least advanced-intermediate skill in Latin; the ability to read secondary literature in modern French will also be helpful. No previous experience with medieval Latin is required.

• ENG-G 601 Medieval Languages: Introduction to Old Irish

The topic this semester will be the Old Irish language. Irish is a Celtic language, related to Welsh, Breton, Cornish, and several extinct continental languages, including Gaulish. Modern Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx are descended from Old Irish. The Old Irish period lasted roughly from 600 to 900 CE, the Middle Irish from ca. 900 to 1200. In addition to laws, glosses, saints' legends, and tracts on grammar, poetic meter, medicine, and a wide variety of other topics commonly treated in medieval vernacular literatures, Old Irish literature includes a sizeable body of poetry and of sagas, the latter particularly relating to the heroes of ancient Ulster. Some of the most remarkable characteristics of the language are these: (1) a system of initial consonant mutations, whereby grammatical relations are indicated by the interchange of initial consonants in individual words (as in Welsh); (2) palatalization of consonants, which may differentiate inflectional forms within paradigms, and which is one source of complexity in the orthography; (3) extreme allomorphy within some verb paradigms; (4) conjugated prepositions (as in Welsh); and (5) infixation of prepositions within some verb forms. The textbook for the course will be Ruth and Winfred Lehmann's Introduction to Old Irish (MLA, 1975), which includes the delightful tale Scéla Muicce Meic Da Thó 'The Story of Mac Da Thó’s Pig'. Later in the semester we will read selections from J. Carmichael Watson's edition of Mesca Ulad 'The Intoxication of the Ulstermen' (Dublin, 1967). There will be two examinations and some shorter exercises.

• MEST-M 502 CMLT-C 523 Constructing the Self in Medieval European Literature

This semester, we will explore what medieval lyrics, plays, and narratives -- both courtly and devotional texts -- can reveal to us about the role of performance in constructing identity and community in medieval European cultures. We will examine such topics as the relationship of musical and dramatic performance of verbal texts to the visual arts, the representation of reading as performance, and the construction of gender and faith as performance. Our common readings will include lyrics poems by Yehuda Halevi, Hildegard von Bingen, Lombarda de Toulouse, Walther von der Vogelweide, Alfonso X, and Guillaume de Machaut; plays such as Abraham, Aucassin and Nicolette, The N-Town Mary Play, and The Second Shepherds’ Play; and narratives such as The Song of the Cid, The Romance of Silence, the Decameron, The City of Ladies, and The Book of Margery Kempe. Students will prepare two class presentations on critical or theoretical readings and complete an individual research project on the role of performance in a medieval text of their choice.