51����Ƶ

This day-and-a-half symposium brings together scholars, practitioners, and archivists to present research on the broad topic of “textuality,” including practical book arts, digital humanities innovations, early forms of codex-making, and comic book visuals. The symposium dovetails with Special Collections’ exhibit, “Say It!” which features 51����Ƶ’s robust but largely uncatalogued collection of posters, banners, and pennants.

All panels, lectures, and remarks will take place in Old Library 224.

FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 2026

8:30 to 9:00 a.m. – Coffee & Light Breakfast – Old Library 129

9:00 a.m. – Welcoming Remarks – Jamie Taylor, 51����Ƶ

9:15 to 10:30 a.m. – Opening Keynote – Jesse Erickson, The Morgan Library & Museum – “r/Textuality: Toward a Unified Theory of Scriniumatics”

10:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. – Panel 1: Text & Textiles (Presider: Colby Gordon)

• Sylvia Houghteling, 51����Ƶ – “To Catch a Color: Text, Dyes, and the Natural World in Early Modern South and Southeast Asia”
• Michele Osherow, University of Maryland, Baltimore County – “Stitching chesed: Lessons on the Book of Ruth from a Seventeenth-Century Embroidered Casket”
• Clare Mullaney, Clemson University – "Helen Keller’s Patchwork: Tactile Collaborations and the Limits of Print"

12:15 – 1:45 p.m. – Break

1:45 to 3:15 p.m. – Panel 2: Textuality & the Natural World (Presider: Jennifer Harford Vargas)

• Alex Alston, 51����Ƶ – “Plantation Palimpsest: Ecocriticism and the Fiction of Slavery”
• Hester Blum, Washington University, St. Louis – “Arctic Ephemera”
• Danielle Allor, Haverford College – “Medieval Tree Texts”

3:30 to 5:00 p.m. – Panel 3: Archives & Collections (Presider: Rudy Le Menthéour)

• Jonathan Eburne, Washington University, St. Louis – “Societies of Friends of the Book”
• Marija Dalbello, Rutgers University – “Working Class Archives and the Idea of Textuality”
• Martín Gaspar & Laurel Gabbard, 51����Ƶ – “The Good, the Bad, and the C.I.A. in the Emir Rodríguez Monegal Papers at 51����Ƶ”

5:00 to 6:15 p.m. – Reception at the “Say It!” Special Collections Exhibit – 1912 Gallery, Canaday Library

SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 2026

8:30 to 9:00 a.m. – Coffee & Light Breakfast – Old Library 223

9:00 to 10:00 a.m. – Panel 4: The Politics of Print (Presider: Martín Gaspar)

• Belle Handler, Philly Soapbox – “Printing Is For Everyone: Book Arts Technology and Accessibility"
• Bryn Michaelson-Ziegler, Rosenbach Museum & Library – “Finding purpose in print: responding to a hostile digital age”

10:15 to 11:45 a.m. Panel 5: Text & the Body (Presider: Pardis Dabashi)

• Janelle Rebel, 51����Ƶ – “Touching Posters & Other Acts of Cataloging Divination”
• Alexandra Gueydan-Turek, Swarthmore College – “The Violence of Form: Radical Textuality in Mazen Kerbaj’s War Diaries”
• Seth Williams, Barnard College – “Text as Dance, Dance as Map in Early Modern England”

12:00 to 1:15 p.m. – Closing Keynote – Whitney Trettien, University of Pennsylvania – “Punched Holes & Piano Keyboards at the Origins of Digital Text”

Sponsors:

Office of the President; Office of the Provost; 1902 Lecture Fund; Department of Literatures in English; Department of History of Art; Department of History; Department of French and Francophone Studies; Center for Visual Culture; Comparative Literature Program; Africana Studies Program; Latin American, Iberian, and Latina/o Studies Program; Gender and Sexuality Studies Program; Museum Studies Program; Environmental Studies Program; Department of English (Haverford); Department of Religion (Haverford); Visual Studies Program (Haverford); Environmental Studies Program (Haverford); Rare Book School at the University of Virginia; Bibliographical Society of America

For questions, please email Jamie Taylor (jktaylor@brynmawr.edu) or Daniel Parker (dparker1@brynmawr.edu).