Campus & Community

‘Collecting the Medieval Book in America’: A Keynote Lecture and Panel Discussion

Thursday, February 6, 2025, By Cristina Hatem

Syracuse University Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) is hosting a hybrid conference “Collecting the Medieval Book in America,” on Feb. 26 from 4 to 7 p.m. EST.  The event will take place in person in Bird Library’s Peter Graham Scholarly Commons (Room 114) and online via Zoom. The conference features a panel discussion with library curators, faculty, and antiquarian booksellers, and a keynote lecture, titled “Since the Census: A Century of Manuscript Collecting in North America,”  by Lisa Fagin Davis, executive director of the Medieval Academy of America. Those interested in attending should register online.

The panel discussion will be held from 4 to 5:15 pm. Panelists include:

  • Brian Brege, Associate Professor, History, Syracuse University
  • Anna Siebach-Larsen, Director of the Rossell Hope Robbins Library and Koller-Collins Center for English Studies, University of Rochester
  • Juilee Decker, Director of the Museum Studies program, Rochester Institute of Technology
  • Irene Malfatto, Independent Scholar and Bookseller at Bruce McKittrick Rare Books (Philadelphia)
  • Moderators: Samantha Herrick, Associate Professor, History, Syracuse University and Irina Savinetskaya, Curator of Early to Pre-20th Century, Special Collections Research Center
person sitting at table with open book in front of them

Lisa Fagin Davis

The keynote lecture by Lisa Fagin Davis and Q&A will take place from 5:45 to 7 p.m.

“All Western European medieval manuscripts on this continent had to travel thousands of miles to get here. Bringing together experts from academia, libraries, museums, and antiquarian bookselling, the interdisciplinary conference Collecting the Medieval Book in America explores who has been collecting Western medieval manuscripts on this continent and why, and what the past and current collecting practices reveal about the broader perceptions of the Middle Ages in North America,” said Irina Savinetskaya.

The conference is hosted by the Special Collections Research Center in conjunction with the SCRC Spring 2025 exhibition, “The Making of the Medieval Book” and is organized by “Curating the Middle Ages,” a CNY Humanities Working Group. The event is co-sponsored by CNY Humanities Corridor and the Bibliographical Society of America, with additional support from the Department of History, Department of Art History and the Global Premodern Studies Faculty Working Group.

Communication Access Realtime Translation will be provided. If you require an accommodation, use English as a second language, or have dietary needs, please email Max Wagh by February 12 at mlwagh@syr.edu.