Rare Bites is a series of 30 minute lunchtime talks held monthly during semester. Each talk features an expert speaker spotlighting specific Rare Books and Special Collections resources that are part of their field of study.
The series gives the opportunity for staff & students to learn about some of the treasures and lesser-known gems within Rare Books & Special Collections.
In Discipline (1814),
the Scottish novelist Mary Brunton created one of the first intentionally
flawed heroines in anglophone fiction. Ellen Percy’s fictional autobiography
tracks her development from spoiled, selfish schoolgirl to respectable wife and
mother, as through suffering and dedicated effort her character is transformed.
Arguably the inspiration for Jane Austen’s Emma Woodhouse, Ellen’s fictional
journey is as moral as it is physical, combining traditions of spiritual
autobiography with the tropes of sentimental literature.
Discipline’s literary impact is only now being recognised, but we can see the influence of the unlikeable Ellen Percy in Austen’s ‘heroine whom no one but myself will much like’. In this talk I discuss the process of restoring Brunton’s novel for the Chawton House Novels series and explain how this remarkable novel went overlooked for so long.
Dr Olivia Murphy works on British literature and culture of the long eighteenth century, with a particular interest in women’s writing, novels, and the relationship between literature and science. She is the author of Jane Austen the Reader: The Artist as Critic (2013), the editor of Mary Brunton’s 1814 novel Discipline (2018) and the co-editor of Anna Letitia Barbauld: New Perspectives (2013) and Romantic Climates: Literature and Science in an Age of Catastrophe (2019). She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow in the English Department at the University of Sydney.
Rare Bites is a series of 30 minute lunchtime talks held monthly during semester. Each talk features an expert speaker spotlighting specific Rare Books and Special Collections resources that are part of their field of study.
The series gives the opportunity for staff & students to learn about some of the treasures and lesser-known gems within Rare Books & Special Collections.
Join Dr James Kane, lecturer at the University of Sydney discussing Florilegium, in our final rare bites talk of the year.
One of the many types of manuscript in circulation during the central Middle Ages was the florilegium (plural florilegia), a Latin word meaning ‘a collection of flowers’. Medieval writers tended to use florilegia to compile quotations and longer excerpts from works of literature, philosophy, history, and so on by the great classical and patristic authors of the past. Nicholson Ms. 2 is a late twelfth-century florilegium from France that has the distinction of being one of the earliest medieval manuscripts currently held in the Rare Books and Special Collections Library. It contains excerpts from the works of St Jerome, Apuleius, Cicero, Boethius, Seneca, and other Latin luminaries.
Though relatively unadorned, the manuscript shows various signs of usage over time and is a perfect example of how medieval annotators could keep books alive by appropriating marginal space. This talk will outline the contents of this florilegium, discuss its script and layout, and explain what its various marginal annotations and other features reveal about how it was used.
Dr James Kane is a lecturer at the University of Sydney, where he currently teaches Old English and Old Norse language and literature. He completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2016 on the topic of how crusading terminology evolved across various western languages between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. He is now preparing this thesis for publication under the tentative title Wearing the Cross in the Medieval West, c. 1095–c. 1300.
Join University of Sydney Alumnus Jenny Zhijun Yang discussing
The Orphan of Zhao in our fifth Rare Bites talk of the year.
The Orphan of Zhao was a play written by Ji Junxiang dating
back to 1330 AD and explores the main themes of revenge and retribution. The
play was the first specimen of Chinese dramatic literature translated into a
European language.
The Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections owns two
adaptations of the play by Voltaire in 1755 and Arthur Murphy in 1759. This
talk will focus on the original play and its adaptations to explore a special
type of cultural exchange.
Jenny Zhijun Yang graduated with a Master of Art Curating with distinction at the University of Sydney in 2018. She graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Arts in history and Asian studies in 2017 and was awarded the Summer Research Scholarship of the University of Auckland. Jenny is a currently a gallery assistant at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and was previously a gallery assistant at the Auckland Art Gallery. She also works as a collection manager for a private collector. Jenny has Chinese heritage and her dream is to share her knowledge of Chinese civilization with others.
This Rare Bite Talk has passed. However you can view this Rare Bite on our YouTube channel soon.
Exploring Amazing Fantasy #15: The genesis of Spider-Man
When unsuspecting teenager Peter
Parker got bitten by a radioactive spider and later realised with great power
there must also come great responsibility , America’s ‘most different new
teenage idol’ and superhero Spider-Man was born.
Join University of Sydney alumnus Matthew Skinner as he discusses the origin of Marvel Comics’ flagship character within the pages of anthology book Amazing Fantasy #15 by co-creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko (1962) in our 4th Rare Bites Talk of the year.
His presentation will explore Lee
and Ditko’s tightly plotted, scripted and drawn 11-page collaboration, why
their publisher was initially hesitant to print the story, the readership’s
reaction to their teenage protagonist, and the pair’s later feud over who
exactly created the hero.
Matthew has over ten years of
experience delivering marketing, media and communications insight across the
sports and higher education sectors.
His exposure to, and passion of,
comic books as a medium spans thrice that.
Matthew completed his Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in 2006, presenting his thesis on The Literary History of Comic Books in America Between1938-1975, and more recently his Master of Media Practice in 2010.
This talk has passed, however you can view this Rare Bite on our Youtube channel:
Rare Bites is a series of 30 minute lunchtime talks held monthly during semester. Each talk features an expert speaker spotlighting specific Rare Books and Special Collections resources that are part of their field of study.
The series gives the opportunity for staff & students to learn about some of the treasures and lesser-known gems within Rare Books & Special Collections.
Talk One: More than just its prayers: A late medieval Dutch Prayer Book in Fisher Library
Our first talk More than just its prayers: A late medieval Dutch Prayer Book in Fisher Library is by Dan Anlezark- McCaughey Professor of Early English Literature and Language; Director, Medieval and Early Modern Centre; Associate Dean Research (Education) Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Department of English who will be talking about the book from our collection: Add. Ms. 342
[A prayer book in Latin and Dutch]. 1501. Netherlands.
Add. Ms. 342 is an unstudied late medieval prayer book in Middle Dutch and Latin. This late fifteenth-century manuscript, written on paper, is only minimally decorated, and is the kind of book that was the output of mass production in the Low Countries in the later Middle Ages. The book appears to have remained in private ownership from the time it was made until relatively recently, as is indicated by the inscription of a number of names (including those of children) up to the early nineteenth century.
This short talk will provide a brief overview of the book in its evolving historical contexts, from the time of its manufacture, until it was acquired by the Fisher Library.
Talk Two: Illustrations to micrographs: Visualising patterns in Botany
Learning about the world around us involves observing and recognising the patterns. In science, learning is about sharing and challenging “the what” and “the how” of our observations through discussion within the classroom and with the scientific community at large.
Join Associate Professor Rosanne Quinnell from Life and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science discussing Botanische Wandatafeln – a series of technical scientific illustrations (1874-1911) distributed globally as teaching tools to support student learning in botany.
Reliance on these illustrations
of resources fell out favour for a number of reasons including the advent of
digital imaging which coincided with the explosion in the number of online
resources (including the University’s eBOT collection). Re-utilising Leopold
Kny’s series in a digital platform allows for an enriched dialogue about how
science, in general, and botany, is communicated.
Associate
Professor Rosanne Quinnell is from Life and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of
Science. Dr Quinnell’s research and teaching focus on plant sciences and the
use of technology-enhanced solutions to improve student learning e.g. Botany,
Zoology and Human Biology virtual microscopy slide collections, eBOT botanical
image repository, electron laboratory notebooks, CampusFlora apps.
Talk Three: Not an Ordinary Dog: Flush by Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf wrote Flush, a fictional biography of
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel, after having been captivated by
the dog’s presence in the love letters of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning.
Flush was “not an ordinary dog”, by Woolf’s description, and he is certainly
more extraordinary for his persistence in literary imagination.
Image: Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941., Flush : a biography, London : L. and V. Woolf at the Hogarth Press, 1933., 823.91 W913 J10 5
Join Dr Vanessa Berry, Lecturer in Creative Writing at the
University of Sydney discussing Flush by Virginia Woolf (1933) in our third Rare Bites Talk of
the year.
Although Flush was a bestseller for the Hogarth Press at the
time of its publication, it has long been considered one of Woolf’s minor
works. However, with the rise of animal studies in the humanities there has
been an upsurge of interest in Flush.
This presentation will introduce Flush and the genre of the
canine memoir and consider the literary potential of the human-canine
relationship.
Dr Vanessa Berry is a Lecturer
in Creative Writing at the University of Sydney, and a writer known for her
work with history, memory and archives. Her most recent book Mirror Sydney,
which examines the city’s marginal and undercurrents, was published in 2017 and
won the Mascara Avant Garde literary award.
This talk is focused on the Preclarissimus liber elementorum Eulidis (1432), the earliest Latin edition of Euclid’s Elements printed in Europe. Through this work, Dr Kotevska will discuss the re-emergence of the Elements in the Renaissance after its long disappearance from European culture in the Middle Ages. Those who tasked themselves with restoring Euclid’s mathematical works in the Renaissance variously described their project as one of revival, restitution and instauration. Who were these restorers of ancient learning whose ambition it was to return the Elements to its place as a cornerstone of mathematical learning? And what, in their view, made Euclid so obvious a candidate for intellectual consideration?
This talk will be presented by Dr Laura Kotevska, a lecturer at The University of Sydney, appointed in the Department of Philosophy and the Education Portfolio in the Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Her research concerns the intersection of moral philosophy and mathematics in the early modern era.
Rare Bites is a series of informal and entertaining 30 minute lunchtime talks held monthly during semester. “The Renaissance of Euclid’s Elements” is the sixth talk in Rare Bites 2018 series. If you want to learn about some of the treasures and lesser-known gems within Rare Books & Special Collections at the University Library, this is your opportunity.
Since 2002 Sydney University has been building a collection of Spanish Liturgical Chant Manuscripts dating from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries. While on the surface these books seem to present just a collection of often barely decipherable dots on parchment they all originally had lives of their own, and hidden within them are stories, contexts and meanings. As we take a glimpse into some of these manuscripts we will rediscover some music of earlier centuries as we interrogate some of these unique artefacts and uncover some of their secrets.
When: 26 September 2018; 1-1.30pm
Where: Fisher Library, Level 2, Seminar Room
Speaker: Jane Morlet Hardie
Rare Bites is a series of informal and entertaining 30 minute lunchtime talks held monthly during semester in 2017 and beyond. If you want to learn about some of the treasures and lesser-known gems within Rare Books & Special Collections at the University Library, this is your opportunity. Audience attendance is free. Please register here.
About the speaker: Jane Morlet Hardie is a musicologist and librarian who has been studying and writing about Spanish manuscripts and their music for more than 30 years. She has published extensively on Iberian manuscripts, sacred polyphony and liturgical chant of the Medieval and Early Modern periods. Following postgraduate study in the United States, she has given guest lectures in Spain, taught at the Universities of Michigan and Sydney and was a Senior Fulbright Scholar at Harvard where she wrote a book on Spanish Lamentations sources and their music.
Orientalist painting was one of the many genres of the 19th Century art. Thomas Allom (1804-1872) was a well-known British illustrator in the 19th Century. In Allom’s publication — China Illustrated, there are 75 steel engravings of original sketches of Chinese social habits, scenery and architectures. Orientalism shaped how Allom depicted about things and what Allom understood about Chinese society. Jenny’s talk will refer to art historian Linda Nochlin’s groundbreaking essay The Imaginary Orient to discuss orientalism in Thomas Allom’s engravings.
When: 23 August 2018; 1-1.30pm
Where: Fisher Library, Level 2, Seminar Room
Speaker: Jenny Zhijun Yang
Rare Bites is a series of informal and entertaining 30 minute lunchtime talks held monthly during semester. “Orientalism in Thomas Allom’s Engravings” is the fourth talk in Rare Bites 2018 series.
If you want to learn about some of the treasures and lesser-known gems within Rare Books & Special Collections at the University Library, this is your opportunity. Audience attendance is free for all, please register here.
About the speaker:
Jenny Zhijun Yang is the curator of a pop up exhibition currently on display in the Fisher Library on Level 4: Perspectives of an outsider: Thomas Allom’s fascination with 19th century China. Jenny is a postgraduate student studying Master of Art Curating at the University of Sydney. She graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Arts in history and Asian studies in 2017, and was awarded the Summer Research Scholarship of the University of Auckland. Jenny is currently a gallery host at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and was previously a gallery assistant at the Auckland Art Gallery. She co-curated the Giuseppe Castiglione Print Exhibition（宫廷画师郎世宁）at the George Fraser Gallery in collaboration with the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation and the National Museum of Taiwan. Moreover, Jenny has volunteered for many cultural institutions such as the Auckland War Memorial Museum, the Confucius Institute in Auckland, the Powerhouse Museum, the Verge Gallery and the Sydney Biennale. Jenny has a Chinese heritage and her global perspective was refined through exchanging to the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, attending a summer school at Sciences Po, Paris and doing an internship in Dublin, Ireland.
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