Manuscript Lecture Series

Begun in 2025 to celebrate the OSU Library’s exciting new collecting area of medieval and early modern manuscripts, OSU Library and the OSU Center for the Humanities are collaborating on an annual lecture series focused on manuscripts. The first two lectures in the series were funded by a Centennial Grant from the Medieval Academy of America. The series launched with Dr. Maeve Doyle, Associate Professor of Art History, Eastern Connecticut State University, who presented "Mermaids, Monkeys, and Men Laying Eggs? Interpreting Images in the Margins of Medieval Manuscripts" in spring 2025. The fall semester lecture will be on October 7th, when Dr. Jes Boon, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will be speaking on "Bloody Mary: Gendered Devotion to the Virgin in Spain c. 1500." The talk will be held in the Peggy V. Helmerich Browsing Room at the Edmon Low Library, 4:00-5:30 pm.

Past Events

Mermaids, Monkeys, and Men Laying Eggs? Interpreting Images in the Margins of Medieval Manuscripts with Dr. Maeve K. Doyle

April 8, 2025, Peggy V. Helmerich Browsing Room, Edmon Low Library

Medieval Manuscripts: Student Research Presentations

April 18, 2023, Peggy V. Helmerich Browsing Room, Edmon Low Library

Students from several courses at OSU presented their research on the manuscripts hosted at the OSU Library. There were short spoken presentations, as well as posters on display.

"Dirty Digital Books"

Feb. 7, 2023, Peggy V. Helmerich Browsing Room, Edmon Low Library, OSU
Dr. Kathryn Rudy spoke on "Dirty Digital Books," describing a project that uses digital technology to assess  wear on medieval manuscripts to try to determine how they may have been used. 

Parchment Production: Lecture and workshop

March 20-22, 2023, OSU-Stillwater
In two separate events,  Jesse Meyer discussed various aspects of parchment production and then held a hands-on workshop. 

Reflections: Modern Mirrors of Medieval Life or, the Medieval Manuscripts in Philadelphia & Why the Matter Today

Nov. 12, 2019, Peggy V. Helmerich Browsing Room, Edmon Low Library, OSU

Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis was a recently-completed CLIR-funded project to digitize and catalog 475 medieval and Renaissance manuscripts from Philadelphia-area institutions. To celebrate the project, Dot Porter curated an exhibition in spring 2020 at the Free Library of Philadelphia. In her talk, Porter introduced the BiblioPhilly project and discuss the plan for the exhibit, which has the aim of bringing medieval manuscripts closer to a modern audience.