Working with Archives: Joys and Tribulations of Investigating Historical Sources (plus a hands on session)

Stanford Manuscript Sciences hosts Martha Newman, a medievalist and a collector of stories. We’ll hear all about her adventures in the archives and we’ll look at some examples of historical documents and manuscripts to think about ways of approaching these medieval textual objects.
In her work, Professor Newman explores the ways religious practices and ideas intersect with social change in western Europe. Her research focuses on monasticism, monastic attitudes toward women and the poor, and religious conceptions of labor. Her latest book, Cistercian Stories for Nuns and Monks: The Sacramental Imagination of Engelhard of Langheim, was published by The University of Pennsylvania Press in 2020. It investigates a collection of Cistercian stories dedicated to a community of religious women and analyzes their presentation of a sacramental religiosity that nuns and monks could share. In the last few years, she has also published “The Necromancer and the Abbot: Summoning the Dead in Cistercian Exempla” in the Journal of Medieval History; and “Assigned Female at Death: Joseph of Schönau and the Disruption of Medieval Gender Binaries,” in Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography.
Please use the registration link if you plan to attend.