The first publication from the CAS project "Books Known Only by Title: Exploring the Gendered Structures of First Millennium Imagined Libraries" led by professors Liv Ingeborg Lied and Marianne Kartzow Bjelland in 2020/2021, has been released.
2020/2021
Books Known Only by Title
Books Known Only by Title
Exploring the Gendered Structures of First Millennium Imagined Libraries
Humanities
Principal investigators
Abstract
References to books ascribed to figures known from the extended biblical narrative are abundant in Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and other texts from the first millennium. One intriguing category of such references that remains largely unexplored is books known only by title. Books known only by title are postulated books surviving neither as extant documents, nor as excerpts or quotations of any substantial length - these books are claimed books, known as named entities through the medium of other writings. Drawing on and combining theoretical perspectives developed in Book History and Gender Studies, this project maps and explores occurrences of books known only by title and associated in particular with female figures in book lists and literary texts. The project aims to critically engage the dominant academic imagination of first millennium literary culture and to change conventional ideas about book culture, imagined libraries, and gender in the first millennium.
Fellows
Esther Brownsmith
Postdoctoral Fellow
Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society (MF)
Year at CAS
Matthew P. Monger
Associate Professor
Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society (MF)
Year at CAS
News
Liv Ingeborg Lied, professor at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society (MF), served as project leader at CAS back in 2020/2021 together with professor Marianne Bjelland Kartzow. Their project, 'Books Known Only by Title: Exploring the Gendered Structures of First Millennium Imagined Libraries', delved into the largely unexplored category of "books known only by the title" in texts from the first millennium, focusing specifically on postulated books associated with female figures from the biblical narrative.