Event

Friday Workshop & Reception: Free Library of Philadelphia, Parkway Central Library, 1901 Vine St, Philadelphia, PA, 19104

Saturday Symposium: University of Pennsylvania, Claudia Cohen Hall, G17 Auditorium (entrance at rear of building) , 249 South 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA

In partnership with the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Penn Libraries are pleased to announce the 4th annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age. This year's symposium will explore a range of issues relating to Asian reading and writing cultures, especially as they pertain to the manuscript source. Our focus will be on Asian manuscripts from the Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian traditions. We will bring together scholars representing these traditions to examine the ways in which hand-produced texts shape both meaning and interpretation, and to a larger extent, the cultural norms that define their use.  We will also consider the role that modern digital technology can play to facilitate the study of manuscripts today.

An addition to the program this year is the Friday afternoon workshop: Bringing Out the Best from Your Collections:  Ask the Experts!, to be held Friday, October 21, 2-5 pm, at the Free Library of Philadelphia (Parkway Central Library, 1901 Vine St, Philadelphia, PA, Room 108).  This workshop is geared especially toward librarians and curators who oversee collections of Asian manuscript material but is open to anyone who wishes to learn more about caring for and interpreting these fascinating and often little understood objects.

For more information on the symposium and workshop and for registration, go to http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/lectures/ljs_symposium4.html.