2012 Spring Humanities Symposium
The Transforming Book
Feb 20 - 25, 2012
The book is among the most significant and transformative inventions of human civilization: portable, and thus private and personal; the world’s original information technology; the great repository containing a vast array of ideas and quantitative data; a canvas for the expression of human imagination and vision; the means of mass communication and historic preservation. The book is an unprecedented piece of technology because of its compactness, sturdiness, ease of reference and economy. No surprise then, that books have their own scholarly discipline (codicology), and that we just can’t stop talking about them. Who hasn’t been in a book group, a book club, a bookstore, a book fair or on Amazon.com (let alone in a book as a reader) within the last year? The book has been transforming our social, cultural, economic, religious, and political lives and civilizations for many centuries now. Yet the form of the book itself has also been transforming: whether available on order, on tape, on line, on demand, or on Kindle. From scroll to codex to digital image, from wax and wood to papyrus and vellum to paper and now to screen, the materials used to form the book have transformed its appearance over time. Transforming human lives and being transformed in its own format, the book throughout history and across cultures has provided one of the foundational binding forces connecting human beings, institutions, societies, and cultures. As a result, the book has quite often guided human beliefs and actions. Given its rich history, continued contemporary relevance, and fascinating future possibilities, the book will remain a focus of human attention and transformation for years to come, especially in the context of ongoing global and technological developments. These and other aspects of the book will be explored in the 2012 Spring Humanities Symposium.
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Howe Atrium, Boyer Hall | 3:45–4:30 p.m. |
Faculty-Student Colloquium I |
The Transforming Book is Transformed: The Common English Bible |
Boyer Hall 130 | 4:30 – 6 p.m. Panel Discussion: Dr. Emerson Powery and students from BIBL 313 (Gospel of Mark) |
Surely a transformative book, the Bible itself over time has gone through many changes through the process of translation. The panel will consider a new translation, known as the Common English Bible, and its relationship to more established versions of the Bible. This will lead to a broader discussion on how we read and understand Christian theological traditions in the context of personal and communal faith. |
Faculty-Student Colloquium II |
The Transformed Reader: John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” |
Boyer Hall 134 | 4:30 – 6 p.m. Panel Discussion: Dr. Samuel Smith and students from ENGL 310 (Milton and Hermeneutics) |
How do books actually transform readers? The panel will address this question through a study of how an encounter with Milton’s epic poem can transform both a reader’s sense of self, as well as affect a reader’s experience with other texts, such as the Bible. |
Departmental Lecture Series I Faculty Transformation: Readers and the Bible |
Boyer Hall 131 | 7– 8:30 p.m. Panel Discussion: Department of Biblical and Religious Studies Faculty |
A departmental faculty panel will discuss the many ways in which the Bible has been a transformational force in their lives, and how
their vocation as academic scholars of the scriptures has enriched their ability to understand biblical texts.
Faculty-Student Colloquium III |
Transforming Minority Voices |
Boyer Hall 130 | 4–5:30 p.m. Panel Discussion: Dr. Crystal Downing and students from ENGL 494 (Literature Seminar) |
How are books transformed when depicted on screen, and how has this served as a means of expression for minority voices? A student panel will explore these questions through a series of readings and movie clips from selected literary works. They will conclude with reflections on what this transformation might mean for inclusion or exclusion from the literary canon of classic books.
Chicano/a Voices: Transforming the Canon (Elena Casey)
The Help: Transforming Black Voices from Novel to Film (Lesley Hansen)
The Voice of Nature and the Transformative Spirit (Travis Carey) |
Faculty-Student Colloquium IV |
The First Modern Novel: Don Quixote’s Transformation of Literature |
Boyer Hall 131 | 4–5:30 p.m. Panel Discussion: Dr. Gladys Robalino and students from SPAN 314 (Renaissance and Baroque Spanish Literature) |
The emergence of the modern novel marks a transformative moment in western literary history. So what makes Don Quixote the first modern
novel? A student panel will explore this question by considering Cervantes’ mastery at transforming old cultural forms into the modern genre
of the novel through the use of comedy, tragedy and the unique friendship between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
Faculty-Student Colloquium V |
E-Books and Trade Books: Interactions of Six-Year-Olds with Different Literary Media |
Boyer 134 | 4–5:30 p.m. Dr. Anita Voelker and Alyssa Reph |
This session will present findings from a qualitative research study into the relationship between digital media and the cultivation of children’s
literacy development. In particular, speakers will provide an analysis of the benefits and limitations of the use of e-books as a format for teaching
six-year-olds how to read. |
Departmental Lecture Series II Not Your Grandfather’s Book: The Transforming History Textbook |
Boyer Hall 131 | 7–8:30 p.m. Panel Discussion: Department of History Faculty |
Textbook debates have stirred much fury in recent decades and nowhere more intensely than over history textbooks, which are expected to contain
the “fixed facts” that all educated citizens should know. A departmental faculty panel will discuss the transformations of the history textbook during
the past century, revealing both the continually changing and contested nature of these publications, as well as their historical function as momentary
repositories of a given era’s expectations for regional, national and global knowledge
Symposium Faculty Lecture Series I |
The Transformed Book: The Practice of Rewriting and Rewritten Gospels |
Boyer Hall 130 | 4 – 5:30 p.m. Dr. Meg Ramey, Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies |
The practice of rewriting is a phenomenon that has been around for centuries, and perhaps the most rewritten stories of all western literature are the gospel accounts of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. This lecture will consider a recent genre of historical fiction known as the “Jesus novels,” with a focus on the motivations of the authors and the typical techniques used in these narratives. |
Symposium Faculty Lecture Series II |
E-Books in the Academy: Transforming and/or Alarming? |
Boyer Hall 131 | 4 – 5:30 p.m. Faculty Panel Discussion: Dr. Mike Cosby, Dr. John Fea, Dr. David Pettegrew, Dr. Gene Rohrbaugh and Dr. Valerie Smith |
One of the most engaging discussions in academia these days is the use of e-books in the classroom. A panel of faculty members from across the campus, led by Beth Mark and Beth Transue, will explore ways in which e-books have either transformed or complicated student learning in their arts, humanities and science classrooms. The panel will then offer their assessment of the value of e-books for pedagogy and learning relative to print books. Sponsored by the Murray Library |
Departmental Lecture Series III |
Transforming Political Thought: Seminal Books on Politics |
Boyer Hall 131 | 7–8:30 p.m. Panel Discussion: Department of Politics Faculty |
Books have served as both transmitters as well as conservers of transformational thinking. With this in mind, a departmental panel will present four books that individual faculty members believe have transformed political thought throughout the past two centuries. The book titles suggest their perennial importance to Anglo-American politics: “The Federalist Papers,” “Democracy in America,” “The Acquisitive Society” and “Power and Interdependence.” |
Symposium Faculty Lecture Series III |
Theileman van Braght Said It, I Believe It, and That Settles It (or Maybe Not): Three Contemporary Approaches to the “Martyrs Mirror” |
Boyer Hall 131 | 4–5:30 p.m. |
Dr. David Weaver-Zercher, Professor of American Religious History |
The “Martyrs Mirror” has enjoyed a higher status in Anabaptist circles than any other non-biblical book, with more than 2,000 copies sold every year by the Mennonite Church’s Herald Press. Thus, this 350-year-old book continues toinhabit and shape the sacred worlds of modern Anabaptists. This lecture will explore the strikingly different approaches to reading and interpreting this book that exist among various Anabaptist communities, and the resulting influence on the construction of Amish-Mennonite identity today. |
Symposium Faculty Lecture Series IV |
Ancient Book, Modern Scroll: The Strange Juxtaposition of Messiah College’s Torah Scroll and “Codex Sinaitcus” |
Boyer Hall 134 | 4–5:30 p.m. |
Dr. Brian Smith, Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies |
Tucked away in Murray Library is a little-known treasure: a nineteenth-century Torah scroll produced by hand in a Jewish scriptorium in southern Russia. On a nearby library shelf there is a printed facsimile edition of the 1,600-year-old “Codex Sinaitcus,” arguably the oldest significant book to survive from antiquity. This lecture will address the significance of each “book” as a representation of communal commitment to the texts during almost two millennia, while also observing the occasional ironic disconnect between chronology and technology. |
Symposium Keynote Address
The Book: Its Future and Its Past
Eisenhower Campus Center, Brubaker Auditorium | 8–9:30 p.m.
Dr. Anthony Grafton, President of the American Historical Association, Henry Putnam University Professor of History and Chairperson of the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University |
See box below for details. |
Plenary Session: Symposium Keynote Address Talkback |
Boyer Hall 131 | 4 –5:30 p.m. |
Campus-Wide Discussion with Refreshments |
Panelists: Dr. Bernardo Michael (history), Dr. Peter Powers (humanities), |
Dr. Tim Schoettle (philosophy), Dr. Kate Simcox (communication) and |
Dr. Kim Yúnez (modern languages) |
Symposium Guest Lecture
"The Book That Nobody Read": Chasing the Revolutions of Nicholaus Copernicus
Boyer Hall 131 | 7 - 8:30 pm
Dr. Owen Gingerich, Professor Emeritus of astronomy and history of science, Harvard University
Until recently it has been assumed that, in spite of its historical impact, Copernicus' "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres" (1543) was the book
that nobody read” because of its technical content. Dr. Owen Gingerich, one of the leading historians of science of his generation, has discovered through
meticulous research that this assumption is badly mistaken. The lecture then is about the book and its readers and the story of how this manuscript’s wide
readership explains its transformative influence in scientific thought.
Co-sponsored by the Central Pennsylvania Forum for Religion and Science
Symposium Partnership with the Midtown Scholar Bookstore I
Opening Reception with Refreshments
The Midtown Scholar Bookstore | 1 –1:30 p.m.
.1302 North Third Street, Harrisburg, Pa
We are delighted to partner with the Midtown Scholar Bookstore in Harrisburg to celebrate books as vehicles for transforming individual lives and human cultures. Come join us in the festivities. |
Symposium Partnership with the Midtown Scholar Bookstore II |
Exhibit Lecture: The History of Book Publishing in Central Pennsylvania |
Catherine Lawrence, Independent Scholar and Owner of the Midtown |
Scholar Bookstore | The Midtown Scholar Bookstore | 1:30–2 p.m. |
1302 North Third Street, Harrisburg, Pa. |
A presentation by Catherine Lawrence on the history of book publishing in our egion will be accompanied by an exhibit of rare books. |
| Symposium Partnership with the Midtown Scholar Bookstore III |
Making New from Books: Redactive Poetry Workshop
The Midtown Scholar Bookstore |2:30 - 3 p.m.
.1302 North Third Street, Harrisburg, Pa
Liz Laribee '07 will conduct a redactive poetry workshop, which practices a form of poetry that makes creative use of old, unusable books. New poetry is created
by destroying a text within a page of prose and piecing together an alternative text from the words found there. The bookstore will provide cast-off and wrecked
books from which participants will create new poetry. Redactive poetry has piqued cultural interest in recent years through the Humument Project and the
general resurgence of found art within the literary community. A closing reception will follow for mingling and poetry writing
Keynote Speaker: Anthony Grafton
Thursday, 23 February 2012 | 8 - 9:30 pm
Brubaker Auditorium, Eisenhower Campus Center
Our keynote speaker for the 2012 Spring Humanities Symposium will be Anthony Grafton, Henry Putnam University Professor of History and the Chairperson of the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University. Professor Grafton is a world renowned scholar in cultural and intellectual history with a special focus on the history of books and readers. He joined the Princeton History Department in 1975 after earning his A.B. (1971) and Ph.D. (1975) in history from the University of Chicago. Professor Grafton is the author of ten books and the coauthor, editor, coeditor, or translator of nine others. A gregarious and much sought-after speaker, he has been lecturing most recently about the digital future as well as the historical past of the book. The Sunday Times recently described him as “an immensely learned devotee of the book in all its aspects,” and as such Grafton has published studies like From Humanism to the Humanities (1986), Defenders of the Text (1991), The Footnote: A Curious History (1997), Bring Out Your Dead: The Past as Revelation (2001), and Codex in Crisis (2008). He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books, and the Times Literary Supplement among others. Professor Grafton is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a corresponding fellow of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and the British Academy. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Science Foundation, and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. He has been a visiting professor at the Collège de France and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (both in Paris), the Warburg Haus in Hamburg, the University of Munich, and Columbia University, and he has enjoyed visiting scholar status at the American Academy in Rome, Pembroke and Merton Colleges, Oxford, and Christ’s and Trinity Colleges, Cambridge. In 2002 he received the Balzan Prize for History of the Humanities from Merton College, Oxford, and in 2003 the Mellon Foundation Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities. He has also been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (1989) and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (1993). Professor Grafton will speak on the topic of “The Book: Its Future and Its Past .” This keynote event is scheduled for Thursday, 23 February 2012 at 8:00 p.m. in Brubaker Auditorium.
