Penn Material Texts

Did you know you don’t have to wait until every Monday to dive into material texts? 📚✨ Catch up on past talks (2020–present) anytime on our YouTube channel - revisit old favorites or catch up on what you missed! Scholarship on demand, whenever curiosity strikes. ▶️ www.youtube.com/@pennsworksh...

✨ We hope that you can join us for Rita's talk! “The Natural and the Strange: Seeing and Making Plants in the Schoenberg Herbal (LJS 419).” October 19 • 🕔 5:15 PM ET 📍 Penn + Zoom pennmaterialtexts.org

REMINDER: Join us in the Material Texts series on Monday, October 19, for a special presentation by Rita de Cássia do Monte Lima, winner of the Stallybrass Prize in the graduate category!

📣 A special History of Material Texts session! We're thrilled to hear Rita de Cássia do Monte Lima (Penn), 2026 Stallybrass Prize winner, present “The Natural and the Strange: Seeing and Making Plants in the Schoenberg Herbal (LJS 419).” Oct. 19 · 5:15 pm ET 📍 Penn + Zoom pennmaterialtexts.org

REMINDER: Today at 5:15 pm ET! Join us for David McKnight’s talk, “Not Guilty: Frances Steloff vs. the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.” 📍 Van Pelt Library + Zoom Details: pennmaterialtexts.org

At our next meeting on Monday, October 12, at 5:15 pm EST, we are thrilled to welcome David McKnight to the workshop, for a talk titled “Not Guilty: Frances Steloff vs. the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice." 📍In-person @Van Pelt + zoom Full details at: pennmaterialtexts.org

📣 Reminder! Happening soon! We are looking forward to Prof. Barnes' talk, and hope you can join us - either in-person on the sixth floor of Penn's Van Pelt Library or remotely on Zoom! 🗓️ October 5 🕔 5:15 PM EST (See pennmaterialtexts.org for details.)

✨ Tomorrow, we are thrilled to welcome Rhae Lynn Barnes for a talk on "A Dark Cast: Disability, Blackface, and the Print Culture of Roosevelt's WPA." In-person on the sixth floor of Penn's Van Pelt Library or remotely via Zoom. October 5 • 🕔 5:15 PM EST Full details at: pennmaterialtexts.org

Reminder! We hope that you can join us this evening for Prof. Del Soldato's talk! September 28 • 🕔 5:15 PM EST Attend in person on the sixth floor of Penn's Van Pelt Library, or remotely on Zoom. (See pennmaterialtexts.org for details.)

Poison, medicine, biblical exegesis—and conspiracy philology. ☠️ Join us next Monday as we welcome Eva Del Soldato (Penn) for a talk titled “Who Poisoned Jesus Christ? A Seventeenth-Century Franciscan and Conspiracy Philology.” 📅 Sept. 28, 5:15 PM ET 📍 Van Pelt + Zoom 🔗 pennmaterialtexts.org

Reminder: We look forward to welcoming Prof. Rousmaniere today, and hope that you can join us! “From Page to Exhibition: Creating Art of Manga” 🗓️ September 21 • 5:15 PM EST In person on the sixth floor of Penn's Van Pelt Library & on Zoom. 🔗 pennmaterialtexts.org

This Monday, September 21, we welcome Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere (MOA Museum of Art, and Professor Emerita at the University of East Anglia), who will speak on “From Page to Exhibition: Creating Art of Manga” 🕔 5:15 PM EST 📍At Van Pelt Library & on Zoom Full details at: pennmaterialtexts.org

🌊 Tomorrow: Inaugural talk of our Fall 2026 season! Julie Nelson Davis (Penn) opens the series with 🗻 “Invention and Authenticity: Reproduction, Fabrication, and the Modern Market for Ukiyo-e Prints.” 🗓 Sept. 14 | 5:15pm ET 📍 Van Pelt Library + Zoom 🔗 Full details at: pennmaterialtexts.org

✨WE’RE BACK! ✨ Fall 2026 kicks off on Sept. 14 with Julie Nelson Davis (Univ. of Pennsylvania) speaking on 🖼️ “Invention and Authenticity: Reproduction, Fabrication, and the Modern Market for Ukiyo-e Prints.” 📍In person at Van Pelt Library + on Zoom | 5:15pm ET | All welcome! 🔗 pennmaterialtexts.org

📣 We hope you can join us for the finale of our Spring 2026 seminar series! This evening, we welcome Roger Chartier (Collège de France / University of Pennsylvania) for a talk titled: “Revolution and Erasure: France 1789” 🕔 5:15 PM EST 📍 Van Pelt Library & on Zoom pennmaterialtexts.org

Next week, Monday, is the final presentation in the Spring26 seminar series! We are excited to welcome Roger Chartier (Collège de France/ University of Pennsylvania) for a talk titled “Revolution and Erasure. France 1789.” Apr. 27 • 🕔 5:15pm EST At Penn & on Zoom! Details at: pennmaterialtexts.org

🔔 Happening tomorrow! We look forward to welcoming Prof. Gamer and Prof. Parker, and hope you can join us - either in-person on the sixth floor of Penn's Van Pelt Library or remotely on Zoom! 🗓️ April 20 🕔 5:15 PM EST Full details are at pennmaterialtexts.org.

Coming up in the Material texts workshop series this Monday, April 20, at 5:15pm EST, we welcome Michael Gamer (UPenn) and Deven Parker (Univ. of Glasgow), who will present on "Slow History on Stage (and Page): The Other Burney Collection." Hope to see you there! 📍 pennmaterialtexts.org

🔔 Reminder: We look forward to welcoming Prof. Brophy tomorrow, and hope that you can join us! “Printing Political Dissent: German Publishers in the Age of Revolutions.” 🗓️ April 13 • 5:15 PM EST In person on the sixth floor of Penn's Van Pelt Library & on Zoom. 🔗 pennmaterialtexts.org

Next up in the History of Material Texts seminar series, we look forward to welcoming James Brophy (University of Delaware), who will speak on “Printing Political Dissent: German Publishers in the Age of Revolutions.” April 13 🕔 5:15 PM EST • In person @Penn + Zoom 📍 pennmaterialtexts.org

Reminder! We hope that you can join us tomorrow evening for Prof. Drpić's talk ! April 6 • 🕔 5:15 PM EST Attend either in-person on the sixth floor of Penn's Van Pelt Library, or remotely on Zoom. (See pennmaterialtexts.org for details.)

This Monday, April 6, we welcome Ivan Drpić (UPenn), who will speak on “Painters at Play: The Excessive Epigraphy of a Late Byzantine Church.” 🕔 5:15 PM EST 📍At Van Pelt Library & on Zoom Full details at: pennmaterialtexts.org (Image: St. Merkourios, Church of the Virgin Peribleptos, Ohrid.)

✨We are thrilled to welcome Peter Stallybrass and Ann Rosalind Jones tomorrow at 5:15pm EST - hope to see you there! Attend in-person on the sixth floor of Penn's Van Pelt Library or remotely via Zoom. March 30• 🕔 5:15 PM EST Full details at: pennmaterialtexts.org

In the lead-up to Monday's presentation, Ann Rosalind Jones (Smith College) speaks on "Style and Status in Four Tudor Portraits" at the Philadelphia Art Museum. 🗓️ March 28• 5:15 PM EST • In-person and on Zoom! Info and Registration: www.philamuseum.org/events/eda-g...

The Workshop in the History of Material Texts hosts another special presentation this coming Monday, March 30! Peter Stallybrass, the founder of this workshop, and Ann Rosalind Jones, jointly present on “Expelling European Jews? The Printing and Reprinting of a Renaissance Costume Book.”

The third and final lecture by Joan Judge in the Rosenbach Lecture series in Bibliography happens tomorrow, Thursday March 26, at 5:30pm ET. 🖼️ Itinerant Chinese Texts and Images: Toward Methodologies for Tracing Epistemes 🕠 5:30 PM ET • In-person and Zoom!

Today, the Workshop in the History of Material Texts co-hosts the first of the 2026 Rosenbach Lectures in Bibliography, as we welcome Joan Judge (York University). Please note the change in timings from our regular programming, and the need to register for a separate zoom link this week.

📣 Reminder! Happening tomorrow! We are looking forward to Prof. Lupton's talk, and hope you can join us - either in-person on the sixth floor of Penn's Van Pelt Library or remotely on Zoom! 🗓️ March 16 🕔 5:15 PM EST (See pennmaterialtexts.org for details.)

✨ This Monday, we’re delighted to welcome Christina Lupton (University of Pennsylvania) for a talk on her new book project, titled “When Writing Isn’t Work: Ronald Fraser, the New Left Review, and the ‘Work’ Essays (1964-9).” 🗓️ March 16 • 5:15 PM EST • In-person and on Zoom! 🔗 pennmaterialtexts.org

The workshop in the History of Material Texts will not be meeting this coming week as we are closed for Spring Break. We reconvene on March 16. Earlier talks (2020–present) are available on our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@pennsworksh...

We hope that you can join us tomorrow evening for Prof. Teuscher's presentation at the workshop! Mar 2 • 🕔 5:15 PM EST Attend either in-person on the sixth floor of Penn's Van Pelt Library, or remotely on Zoom. (See pennmaterialtexts.org for details.)

This coming Monday, March 2, at 5:15 pm EST, we are thrilled to welcome Simon Teuscher (University of Zurich) to the workshop, where he will speak on “Kinship Diagrams and the Quest to Dematerialize Relatedness.” 📍At Penn's Van Pelt Library & on Zoom 💻! Full details at: pennmaterialtexts.org

We regret to announce that Prof. Blum’s presentation this Monday has been cancelled due to the major winter storm affecting Philadelphia. We look forward to welcoming her to the workshop in the coming academic year. Stay tuned for updates!

Next week in our seminar series, Monday, February 23, at 5:15 pm EST, we are thrilled to welcome Hester Blum ((Washington Univ. in St. Louis) who will speak on “Polar Erratics." At Penn & on Zoom! Full details at: pennmaterialtexts.org

✨John Garcia @jgarc.bsky.social speaks tomorrow at 5:15pm EST - hope that you can make it! Attend in-person on the sixth floor of Penn's Van Pelt Library or remotely via Zoom. Feb 16 • 🕔 5:15 PM EST Full details at: pennmaterialtexts.org (Pic: Indenture form, Historical Society of Pennsylvania)

This Monday, Feb 16, 5:15pm EST 📚 We welcome John Garcia (American Antiquarian Society) @jgarc.bsky.social for “Black Lives in the Early U.S. Book Trades.” Join us for a rich conversation on race, labor, and the history of print. Details: pennmaterialtexts.org Hope to see you there!

Hope that you can join us this evening as we welcome John Bidwell for this special talk! In person on the sixth floor of Penn's Van Pelt Library & on Zoom. Feb 9 • 🕔 5:15 PM EST See pennmaterialtexts.org for details. (Pic: Engraving. Philadelphia: Joseph Leeds, 1873. The New York Public Library.)

📜 Join us this Monday as we mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence with John Bidwell (Morgan Library & Museum), speaking on “Printed Declarations: Life, Liberty, Editions, Issues, and States.” Feb 9 • 🕔 5:15 PM EST • In person @Penn + Zoom 📍 pennmaterialtexts.org

Today! Priya Nambrath (University of Pennsylvania), will present on “Scribal Worlds in Motion: Loss, Identity, Afterlives.” 🗓️ February 2 • 5:15 PM EST • Hybrid 🔗 pennmaterialtexts.org

Next up! This Monday, February 2, 5:15pm ✨ Priya Nambrath (Fellow in the History of Material Texts, University of Pennsylvania) will be talking about “Scribal Worlds in Motion: Loss, Identity, Afterlives.” In person and on Zoom Details: pennmaterialtexts.org Would love to see you there!

Tomorrow! The Workshop in the History of Material Texts welcomes Adrian Johns for a talk on “Looking for Labels: The Science of Safety and the Defenders of Information.” ❄️ Zoom only due to the snow. 🔗 pennmaterialtexts.org Stay warm, log in from your couch, and let the archives travel to you! ❄️📚

🚨 Spring seminar alert! The History of Material Texts series at Penn launches this Monday as we welcome Adrian Johns (Univ. of Chicago) who will speak on “Looking for Labels: The Science of Safety and the Defenders of Information.” 📍 In person + Zoom | January 26, 5:15pm EST 🔗 pennmaterialtexts.org

🟡🎶 Tomorrow, 5:15 PM EST! ✨📜 Final Fall ’25 seminar with Emily Green on “Bad Candles, Glasses, Earthquakes & Headaches: Reasons for Musical Error c.1770.” 🌐 Hybrid event — details at pennmaterialtexts.org.

♫ Final seminar of the season! This Mon, Dec 1 · 5:15 PM EST, we welcome Emily Green for “Of Bad Candles and Glasses, Earthquakes, and Headaches: Reasons for Musical Error around 1770.” 🎶 🔥 Don’t miss this one — in person at Penn & on Zoom. Details: pennmaterialtexts.org

🔔 Hey everyone! Tomorrow, Monday at 5:15 PM EST we’re diving into “To Dye a Page, to Weave a Book: Cloth Materials and Texts in South Asia” with Sylvia Houghteling (Bryn Mawr College). 🧵 Hybrid event - details at pennmaterialtexts.org. Come explore the vibrant worlds of cloth, color, and text!

✨ Join us this Monday as we dive into the vibrant world of cloth, color, and text! We’re welcoming Sylvia Houghteling (Bryn Mawr College) for a talk titled “To Dye a Page, to Weave a Book: Cloth Materials and Texts in South Asia.” 🗓️ Nov 24 • 5:15 PM EST • Hybrid 🔗 pennmaterialtexts.org