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    Patterns in the Transmission of Cultural Texts: The Case of Medieval Miscellany Manuscripts

    Video
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    Birnbaum_Patterns_in_the_transmission.mp4 (792.3Mb)
    Issue Date
    2012-03-06
    Author
    Birnbaum, David J.
    Type
    Video
    Published Version
    https://youtu.be/UYpl7ICVfEQ
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    Abstract
    Medieval Slavic miscellanies are a type of free-form encyclopedia, compilations of texts of various genres from various sources. Compilation in medieval literary culture was as much a creative act as the authoring of entirely new texts, and the producers of new manuscripts were free to draw on all available sources, creating compilations whose originality was not constrained by any attempt to reproduce earlier compilations literally or faithfully. The variation that occurs in miscellany manuscripts is nonetheless surprisingly constrained; it is almost unheard of for two miscellanies to correspond perfectly in their contents, but there are nonetheless frequent partial correspondences that cannot be explained by genre, subject matter, or any other organizing principle, and that are inconsistent with a hypothesis that scribes compiled manuscripts without explicit constraint—even if that is what they thought they were doing. This presentation describes some of the patterns of agreement that emerge from comparing the structure of miscellany manuscripts, leading to a conclusion that despite the scribe’s complete freedom to choose his texts, the contents of miscellany manuscripts were nonetheless severely constrained by the tradition, and in specific ways.
    Description
    Digital Humanities Seminar, University of Kansas—Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities & Hall Center for the Humanities, March 6, 2012: http://idrh.ku.edu

    David J Birnbaum is Chair of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh.
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/1808/30301
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    • IDRH Events [113]

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    785-864-8983

    KU Libraries
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    Contact KU ScholarWorks
    785-864-8983
    KU Libraries
    1425 Jayhawk Blvd
    Lawrence, KS 66045
    785-864-8983

    KU Libraries
    1425 Jayhawk Blvd
    Lawrence, KS 66045
    Image Credits
     

     

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