Exploring the world of books at Oxford
Posts about ongoing student work in the History of the Book course.
Eighth week of Michaelmas brought the moment we had all been waiting for… having spent the term learning from the experts, it was time for the History of the Book students to put all their newly-founded knowledge into practice. With over a million special collections items to choose from, finding a project was no easy …
The anthology of poems and pictures based on the Year Abroad project by Tara Williams, sponsored by a Lidl GB award from the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages. Download the eBook as two-on-one pdf or read it on Google Books. Watch the launch: Tara Williams writes: This anthology, comprising of ten poems with accompanying …
By Molly Bray (MSt in Medieval Studies) For our first session as book-historians-in-training, we asked the question, ‘what is a book?’ Is it the form, the function? Now, for our second session, we get to see and, indeed, operate the mechanics that make one. Held behind a large wooden door and the once-accurate waymarker of …
One of the Taylor Editions practicum placement students from the MSc in Digital Scholarship programme writes on creating different TikTok series inspired by the “Epic!: Homer and Nibelungenlied in Translation” and “Kafka’s Languages” exhibitions, as well as creating her own digital edition of a text inspired by the Kafka exhibition, displayed in the Voltaire Room at the Taylor Institution Library from 29 May–13 June.
One of the Taylor Editions practicum placement students from the MSc in Digital Scholarship programme writes on creating a digital edition of her own Slovak language learning notebook. Visit Kafka’s Languages in the Voltaire Room, Taylor Institution Library from 29 May–13 June to see the exhibition that inspired this project. For the 2022–23 academic year, …
«Κελαδήματα» by Tianyi Liu (MSt. Modern Languages 2023/24) For my History of the Book project in Hilary term 2024, I worked on an early 20th century Modern Greek poem called «κελαδήματα» [Birdsongs]. It was published in 1919 in the Greek journal «Ο λόγος», a physical copy of which is available in the Greek Reading Room …
Clara Busch, MSt. Modern Languages 2023-24 It is Monday, January 8th, and a small group of students and scholars gather it the Weston Library to have first look at what is to become the focus of our History of the Book project: Kafka’s Hebrew notebooks. 2024 marks the centenary of the death of Franz Kafka …
Exhibition in the Voltaire Room, Taylor Institution Library29 May to 13 June 2024 Who was Kafka? It is hard to escape Kafka at the moment in Oxford, with the Kafka24 celebrations marking 100 years since his death, on 3 June 1924. He is one of the most significant German-language authors of the 20th century, and …
David Hirsch studies Translation Studies at Heidelberg University and spent his mandatory placement in Oxford during Hilary Term 2024, working with Henrike Lähnemann I was very nervous arriving in Oxford, as I had never had an experience quite like this before. It was quite beneficial to me, then, to be instantly thrown in the deep …
By the end of Michaelmas term, I came across a volume at the Weston Library on which several villancico chapbooks were bound. The volume itself had no title, no index, no author. There was nothing that could point to its origin but a shelfmark – Arch. Sigma III 70 – belonging to an enigmatic collection. …