Coding Codices

In this episode, Aylin and Caitlin speak with Dot Porter on book structures, manuscript studies, and transformative works in fandom. Dot Porter is Curator of Digital Research Services at the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies.

Music credits: Intro/outro music by TeknoAXE, "Chiptune Nobility" (CC BY 4.0), interludes by Aaron Kenny, "Yonder Hill and Dale" (CC0)

In this episode, Aylin, Hannah, James, and Seb discuss a recent article by Emily C. Francomano and Heather Bamford and the questions it raises about the accessibility of digital resources for medieval studies.

Music credits: Intro/outro music by TeknoAXE, "Chiptune Nobility" (CC by 4.0), interludes by Random Mind, "The Bard's Tale" (CC0)

Dr. Margaret Smith from the IRIS Center (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville) speaks about her projects focused on bridging gaps between DH studies and the St. Louis community. Her digital medieval work, Submission Strategies, maps, the spatial and social networks captured in the Irish submissions to Richard II, using these and contemporary materials to create a rich and nuanced depiction of the alliances, hostilities, and spheres of influence that shaped the interconnected social networks of England and Ireland.

Caitlin Postal and Bridget Whearty discuss labor ethics in digital medieval studies, manuscript digitization processes, and Bridget's forthcoming book, Digital Codicology.

James and Aylin talk to Sarah Fiddyment and Timothy Stinson about their work in the emerging field of biocodicology, the study of the biomolecular information found in manuscripts.

Sarah Fiddyment received her PhD from the University of Zaragoza in 2011, working in the field of proteomics in cardiovascular research. She moved to the University of York in 2012, where she developed a non-invasive sampling technique that has enabled her to establish the emerging field of biocodicology. In 2019, Sarah joined the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at Cambridge as part of the ERC funded Beasts to Craft project.

Timothy Stinson is Associate Professor of English at North Carolina State University. He is co-director of the Medieval Electronic Scholarly Alliance, director of the Society for Early English and Norse Electronic Texts, co-director of the Piers Plowman Electronic Archive, associate director of the Advanced Research Consortium, and editor of the Siege of Jerusalem Electronic Archive. He has also collaborated with colleagues in the biological sciences to analyze the DNA found in medieval manuscripts.

Music credits: Intro / outro: TeknoAXE, “Chiptune Nobility” (CC BY 4.0), interludes: Random Mind, “Rejoicing” (CC0).

In this episode, Caitlin Postal and James Harr talk to Eric Ensley and Matthew Kirschenbaum about the archive, both digital and material. Eric Ensley is a curator of rare books and maps at the University of Iowa. He received his PhD in English from Yale University in 2021 and holds an MLS from the University of North Carolina. Among his current projects is a digital edition of a Piers Plowman manuscript held in the Beinecke library, which he is co-authoring with Ian Cornelius of Loyola-Chicago. Matthew Kirschenbaum is a professor of English and Digital Studies at the University of Maryland. He is the author of Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination and Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing. His next book, Bitstreams: The Future of Digital Literary Heritage, will be published in the fall by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Elisa Cugliana speaks about her digital scholarly edition of Marco Polo's travelogue that she is working on for her joint PhD degree at the universities of Venice and Cologne. Topics of discussion include the tradition of Italian philology and textual criticism, the transmission history of Marco Polo's travel report which originated at the end of the 13th century, and how scholarly editorial principles intersect with the technological possibilities of the digital.