Introduction to English Paleography
A December Weeklong Skills Course directed by Heather Wolfe
This weeklong course provides an intensive introduction to handwriting in early modern England, with a particular emphasis on the English secretary hand of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Working from manuscripts in the Folger collection, up to fifteen participants will be trained in the accurate reading and transcription of secretary, italic, and mixed hands. They will also experiment with contemporary writing materials (quills, iron gall ink, and paper), learn the terminology for describing and comparing letterforms, and become skillful decipherers of abbreviations, numbers, and dates. All transcriptions made by participants will become part of the Early Modern Manuscripts Online (EMMO) corpus.
Director: Heather Wolfe is Curator of Manuscripts at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Dr. Wolfe has published widely on early modern English manuscripts and is currently thinking about early modern writing paper, filing systems, civilité type, and Shakespeare’s coat of arms. She is principal investigator of EMMO, curator of Shakespeare Documented: An Online Exhibition, and co-director of the Mellon-funded Before Farm to Table initiative.
Schedule: Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m.– 4:30 p.m., 10–14 December 2018.
Apply: 4 September 2018 for admission and grants-in-aid. The application portal may be found here: https://www.folger.edu/application-information-and-guidelines
Please contact [email protected] with any questions.
