Collecting the Global Middle Ages - NYIABF Lecture

In recent decades, the field of medieval studies has experienced a “global turn.” As a growing contingent of scholars examine the Middle Ages across geographies, cultures, and linguistic communities, the scope of medieval collections within libraries has also expanded beyond the traditional center of Europe. Join curators Agnieszka Rec and Michelle Al-Ferzly as they discuss the impact of the global for collecting at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale, where the collection of Early Books and Manuscripts is being re-shaped to not only expand geographically, but also to consider the dynamic connections of book histories and intellectual  traditions across the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia.

Speakers:

• Michelle Al-Ferzly is a curator at the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Yale University, working with Islamic and Asian collections. She received her Ph.D. in the History of Art from the University of Michigan, where she completed a dissertation on the art of dining in the medieval Islamic world. Prior to joining the Beinecke, Michelle was a Research Associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she worked on the Africa & Byzantium exhibition and contributed to the show’s catalog.

• Agnieszka Rec is a curator at the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Yale University, working with early European manuscripts. She earned her doctorate in medieval history from Yale and her B.S., also from Yale, in mathematics and humanities. Rec has pursued a consciously cross-disciplinary path through cultural heritage collections exploring the scientific materials at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, the Indigenous manuscripts recovered at the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS), and the wide-ranging scholarship published by the Medieval Academy of America and “Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies.”

Saturday programs will be in the Colonel’s Reception Room, which is all the way down the right hallway, the last room on the left (the south side of the building, closest to 66th St). There will be signage on site at the fair with more information and directions.