Master Classes

This program is on hiatus while the Beinecke reimagines its offering of non-credit seminars.  Please direct any inquires to beinecke.education@yale.edu.

 

May 2019 Classes

Beinecke Master Classes are non-credit seminars offered without fee to Yale graduate students. Under the direction of distinguished visiting scholars, these intensive seminars explore research methods and skills utilizing primary materials from the collections of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
 
Five full-day sessions (with lunch breaks) are scheduled for each class, from 9:00 a.m. to 5 p.m. The classes will be conducted at the Beinecke Library. Enrollment is limited. See details below for the three classes, their dates, and application procedures.
 

Literary Biography — Archives and Life Stories

Instructor: Karin Roffman
May 13-17, 2019
 
Using Yale Collection of American Literature and James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection archives, this five-day master class will consider theoretical and practical issues specific to biographical research and writing. Students will explore strategies for identifying and understanding material, literary, and biographical resources–correspondence, personal papers, photographs, ephemeral publications, objects, and more. The class structure will include lectures, research workshops, and fieldtrips to campus collections and archival processing facilities.
 
The course is open to Yale University graduate students, in Arts & Sciences and the professional schools. There is no charge; attendance through the week is required.
 
Requirements:
Students will be required to complete reading assignments before and during the class. 
 
 

Italian Paleography

Dennis Dutschke
May 13-17, 2019
 
This course will be taught in English and will look at Italian handwriting from the twelfth to the sixteenth century.  The Renaissance had a profound effect on Latin and Italian paleography and the rise of Italian as a literary language will be one focus of the course.  The course will also include the merchant hands used by most Italians in the 13th-16th centuries to conduct business, write letters, etc.  The course will be offered at the Beinecke Library at Yale University from May 13-17th, 2019.
 
The course will be taught be Dennis Dutschke, professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis. His research and teaching focuses on Medieval and Early Renaissance Italian Literature, with an emphasis on philology and paleography. He has written numerous articles and books, ranging from the Census of Petrarch Manuscripts in the United States (published in 1986) to the recent edition of a 14th century poem, Teo da Perugia, La Caccia (published in 2018).
 
Students should have a basic reading knowledge of Italian; you will be transcribing Italian documents and some of the secondary readings are in Italian.  Students are encouraged to buy a copy of Armando Petrucci, Breve storia della scrittura latina, Rome, Baggato Libri, 1989.
 
 
 

Arabic Paleography: Introduction to Arabic Manuscript Research

François Déroche
May 28-31, 2019
 
Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library is hosting a week-long masterclass for graduate students at Yale and selected graduate students from other universities to impart the skills and knowledge needed to conduct original research using Arabic manuscripts. Jointly sponsored by the Beinecke, the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations, and the YUSRIA initiative of the MacMillan Center Council on Middle East Studies, this course will feature an eminent guest instructor along with Yale professors to introduce the fundamentals of Arabic palaeography, codicology, and textual criticism. Students completing the course will be prepared for and oriented to further research in hitherto untapped manuscript sources. The Beinecke holds the third largest collection of Arabic manuscripts in the United States, many of which have never been consulted by scholars for research.
 
The class will be taught by François Déroche, Professor at the Collège de France, is the world’s foremost authority on early Qur’an manuscripts and a leading scholar of the history of the Arabic book. His many publications include Islamic Codicology: An Introduction to the Study of Manuscripts in the Arabic Script (2006), Qur’ans of the Umayyads (2014), and Le transmission écrite du Coran dans Jes débuts de l’lslam: le codex Parisino-Petropolitanus (2009), among many others. His work has done much to clarify how the Qur’an text was first transmitted, and has established a categorization of the earliest manuscripts dating to the seventh and eighth centuries CE.
 

 

May 2018 Class

Typography and Design; John Gambell, instructor

Previous Classes

 
DATE CLASS INSTRUCTOR

May
2017

The Celluloid Paper Trail:Descriptive Cataloging, Evaluation, and Valuation of Film Scripts and Photographs in Twentieth Century American Cinema

Kevin Johnson, Royal Books

May
2014

Renaissance Spanish Paleogaphy

Dr. John O’Neill, Curator of Manuscripts and Rare Books Hispanic Society of America

May 2013

Editing Middle English Manuscripts

Tony Edwards, Professor of Medeival Manuscripts, University of Kent at Canterbury

May 2013

The Physical Structure of Prints

Richard Benson, Professor,Yale School of Art

May 2012

Working from the Archive: Pictures as Primary Sources

Laura Wexler, Professor of American Studies and of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and George Miles, Curator, Yale Collection of Western Americana

May 2011

Working with Alternative Media: Documenting Counter-Culture

Johan Kugelberg, author and curator based in New York

May 2011

Approaches to Biography in the James Weldon Johnson Collection

Emily Bernard, Associate Professor of English and ALANA U. S. Ethnic Studies at the University of Vermont

May 2010

Bibliographical Description and Scholarly Editing

G. Thomas Tanselle, retired from the vice presidency of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

2000-2009

DATE

CLASS

INSTRUCTOR

May 2009

English Paleography and Archival Sources, 16th-18th Century

Maija Jansson, Director of the Yale Center for Parlimentary History

January 2009

English Paleography and Archival Sources (16th-18th Century)

Maija Jansson, Director of the Yale Center for Parlimentary History

May 2008

Humanistic Script in Italy

Stefano Zamponi, Professor of Latin Palaeography, Director of the “Dipartimento di Studi sul Medioevo e il Rinascimento,” and Director of the School of Doctoral Studies in Philology and Textual Transmission at the University of Florence

May 2008

Pictures as Primary Sources

Martha Sandweiss, Professor of American Studies and History, Amherst College

May 2007

Late Bibliographical Description and Scholarly Editing

G. Thomas Tanselle, former Vice President of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and Professor of Bibliographic Studies at Columbia University.

May 2007

English Paleography and Archival Sources (16th-18th Century)

Maija Jansson, Director of the Yale Center for Parlimentary History

May 2007

The Industrial Book in America, 1830-1914

Michael Winship, Iris Howard Regents Professor II of English at the University of Texas at Austin

May 2006

Late Medieval Latin Script

Albert Derolez, Curator Emeritus of Special Collections in the Universiteitsbibiotheek Gent; Professor Emeritus of Palaeography and Codicology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles

May 2006

Shakespeare and the Book

Peter Stallybrass, Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Humanities and Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania

May 2005

Late Medieval Latin Script

Albert Derolez, Professor Emeritus of Palaeography and Codicology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles; President of the Comité International de Paléographie Latine

May 2005

Milton and the Book

Stephen B. Dobranski, Professor of Renaissance Literature and Textual Studies at the Georgia State University

May 2004

The Italian Book and Renaissance Drama

Louise George Clubb, Professor Emerita of Italian Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley

May 2004

Editing Debussy

Denis Herlin, CNRS in Paris

May 2004

Pictures as Primary Sources for American History

Martha Sandweiss, Amherst College

May 2004

Interpretive Acts: Theory and Practice in the Scholarly Editing of Literary Texts

Michael F. Suarez, S.J., Oxford University & Fordham University

May 2003

Composing Italian Opera

Philip Gossett, University of Chicago

May 2003

Manuscripts and Meaning: Reading the Primary Sources of Tudor and Stuart England

David Scott, History of Parliament Trust

May 2003

Maps as Historical Tools

Barbara McCorkle, former curator of the Yale University map collection

May 2003

History of the Book

John Barnard, retired Professor of English Literature at the University of Leeds

March / May 2002

Reading Prints and Graphic Images, 1740-1840

Brian E. Maidment, University of Salford

March / May 2002

Pictures as Primary Sources for American History

Martha Sandweiss, Amherst College

March / May 2002

Bibliographical Description and Scholarly Editing

G. Thomas Tanselle, Guggenheim Foundation

March / May 2001

Approaches to Biography

Hermione Lee, University of Oxford

March / May 2001

The Material Culture of American Photography

Peter Palmquist, David Plowden, Richard Benson

March / May 2001

Interrogating Manuscript Sources of Tudor and Stuart Britain

David Scott

March / May 2000

Introduction to Arabic Manuscripts

Adam Gacek, McGill University

March / May 2000

Late Medieval Latin Scripts

Albert Delorez, Université Libre de Bruxelles

March / May 2000

Bibliographical Description and Scholarly Editing

G. Thomas Tanselle, Guggenheim Foundation

March / May 2000

Scribal Culture: Scribal Treason

Harold Love, Monash University

March / May 2000

Introduction to Greek Manuscripts

Mervin Dilts, New York University

March / May 2000

Italian Family Archives: The Spinelli Collection

Carol Bresnahan Menning, University of Toledo

Pre 2000

Date

Class

Instructor

May 10-21, 1999

Introduction to Arabic Manuscripts

Adam Gacek, McGill University

May 10-21, 1999

Bibliographical Description and Scholarly Editing

G. Thomas Tanselle, Guggenheim Foundation

May 10-21, 1999

Pictures as Primary Sources for American History

Martha A. Sandweiss, Amherst College

May 10-21, 1999

Late Medieval Latin Scripts

Albert Delorez, université libre de Bruxelles

May 1998

Introduction to Greek Papyri

Roger S. Bagnall, Columbia University

May 1998

Pictures as Primary Sources for American History

Martha A. Sandweiss, Amherst College

Spring 1997

Coptic Documentary Papyri

Terry Wilfong, University of Michigan & Sarah Clackson, Cambridge University

March 1994

Renaissance Italian Documents

Gino Corti