Rare Book School

Mike Kelly delivered the 2026 NEH-SHARP Living American History in Primary Documents Lecture, "Indigenous Agency & Intervention in the Bibliographical Record," at the University of Virginia on 22 July, 2026. About the Talk: This talk draws from the past thirteen years that Mike Kelly has spent building the Native American Literature Collection in the Archives & Special Collections at Amherst Colle...

Michael Stamm delivered the 2026 Kenneth Karmiole Endowed Lecture on the History of the Book Trades, "Landscapes, Labor, and the Infrastructures of Printed Newspapers," on 8 July 2026. About the Talk: Printed newspapers have become endangered as digital distribution has transformed the news business and the ways that people access information. This talk returns to the decades in our previous centu...

Matthew Kirschenbaum delivered Rare Book School's 2026 Sol M. and Mary Ann O’Brian Malkin Endowed Lecture, "From text to .txt: Making Material Messes in a Sloppy World," on 6 July 2026. About the Talk: By the turn of the millennium, the word “text” had become a verb. Three-and-a-half years ago, ChatGPT was released into the wild, decisively severing the link between writing and human expression. I...

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 𝗦𝘂𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻 𝗟𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗪𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝑵𝑩: 𝘋𝘶𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘯 𝘶𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮 𝘶𝘱𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘵 45:31, 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦. 𝘞𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘘&𝘈 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘥. Rare Book School is founded on a shared commitment to “responsible stewardship of the...

Elizabeth Canning delivered Rare Book School's 2026 Kenneth W. Rendell Endowed Lecture, "Women’s Libraries & Their Afterlives," on 10 June, 2026. Women’s book collections appear in a wide range of forms: as catalogued libraries; as groups of surviving books linked by inscription and family use; or as volumes dispersed but still traceable through the historical record. In some cases, a woman’s libr...

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 𝗞𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗔𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝗟𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 When London viewers opened elegant folio books like Oriental Scenery or The Costume of China they were not just engaging with visual and cultural difference. They were also seeing an image process that was quite familiar. Polite interest in picturesque sketching meant that many Britons had experience drawing outlines, “dead coloring” shad...

RBS faculty member Paul Needham (Princeton Univ.) gave a public lecture on "The Catholicon Press Revisited: The Evidence of Nailheads" on 29 July 2025. You can watch the full recording of the lecture on YouTube at https://youtu.be/o4aMEB38slw?feature=shared. 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸: The 𝘊𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘰𝘯, whose colophon states that it was printed in Mainz, 1460, has been the subject of controversy for more than f...

Christopher N. Warren delivered the 2025 Sol M. and Mary Ann O’Brian Malkin Lecture, “What is Computational Bibliography?”, on 30 July 2025. You can watch the full recording of the lecture on YouTube at https://youtu.be/ElvNacFyoWQ?feature=shared. 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸: Book historians have long faced a methodological dilemma. Do we want to study particular material objects in granular detail, or are we...

Rachael DiEleuterio gave the inaugural Sue Allen Lecture for Women in Book History, on “Curious and Creative Women,” on 28 July 2025. She was joined by Daphne Sawyer, who endowed the lecture in memory of her mother, Mary Sawyer (1925–2024), and of longtime RBS faculty member Sue Allen (1918–2011). You can watch the full recording of the lecture on YouTube at https://youtu.be/2YurCWdLYIo?feature=sh...

James H. Marrow gave a public talk on “Iconographic Disjunction in the Ruskin Psalter/Hours: A Flemish Illuminated Manuscript of ca. 1470–80,” on 23 July 2025, as part of Rare Book School's 2025 Summer Lecture Series. You can watch the full recording of the lecture on YouTube at https://youtu.be/LxIPOQ6ehss?feature=shared. 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸: Illustrated by a cycle of nine historiated initials of scen...

This NEH-SHARP Living American History in Primary Documents Lecture by E. M. Rose was part of Rare Book School's 2025 Summer Lecture Series. You can watch the full recording of the lecture on YouTube at https://youtu.be/VaN2qqFnPto?feature=shared. 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸: What did American colonists need to know? What should they believe? The Virginia Company had clear ideas about such things as demonstrat...

Rare Book School's 2025 Kenneth Karmiole Endowed Lecture on the History of the Book Trades featured a talk by Mark McConnell on “Publishing in the Renaissance: Christophe Plantin’s Business Strategy." The event took place on 9 July 2025. You can watch the full recording of the lecture on YouTube at https://youtu.be/QFmRSz-laUE?feature=shared. About the Talk: Printing technology accelerated the for...

This recording of the 2025 Kenneth W. Rendell Endowed Lecture by Janine Barchas was part of Rare Book School's 2025 Summer Lecture Series. You can watch the full recording of the lecture on YouTube at https://youtu.be/BQNQuKHBdD4?feature=shared. 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸: In the latter half of the nineteenth century, cheap and shoddy reprintings of Jane Austen’s novels performed the heavy lifting of bringing...

This talk by Mindell Dubansky was part of Rare Book School's 2025 Summer Lecture Series. You can watch the full recording of the lecture on YouTube at https://youtu.be/SsTUbRhUYDs?feature=shared. 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸: Throughout the world, for hundreds of years, people have expressed themselves by making plain and decorated objects in imitation of specific titles and types of books. No genre of book or...

Ashley Cataldo, “Collecting Daily Life in Early American Manuscripts," NEH-SHARP Lecture, 31 July 2024 by Rare Book School Lectures

Li Wei Yang, “Yongle Dadian: An Emperors' Encyclopedia,” Malkin Lecture, 29 July 2024 by Rare Book School Lectures

Aaron Pratt, “Buying a Book in Early Modern England,” 22 July 2024 by Rare Book School Lectures

G. Scott Clemons, "De Motu Librorum: On the Movement of Books," Rendell Lecture, 8 July 2024 by Rare Book School Lectures

Deborah Parker, "A Librarian Like No Other: Belle da Costa Greene and Self-Invention," 12 June 2024 by Rare Book School Lectures

Stephen Karian, "Scholarly Editing and the Challenges of Attribution," 10 June 2024 by Rare Book School Lectures

LeRonn Brooks, "Archive of the People: The Johnson Publishing Company," 3 June 2024 by Rare Book School Lectures

Richard B. Sher, “New Light on the Early Publication History of Boswell's Life of Johnson," Karmiole Lecture, 10 July 2024 by Rare Book School Lectures

Kailani Polzak, "Pacific Encounters in Print," The Kress Foundation Lecture, 31 July 2023 by Rare Book School Lectures

Craig Welsh, "The Typesetting & Designs of the Declaration of Independence Broadsides," 26 July 2023 by Rare Book School Lectures

Christy S. Coleman, "A Nexus of Learning—Museums and the Importance of Public History," 24 July 2023 by Rare Book School Lectures