[1] From: "Walter E. Stephens" (45)
<Walter.E.Stephens@Dartmouth.EDU>
Subject: for Humanist
Please cross post to appropriate lists.
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Books and the Imaginary
Humanities Research Institute
Dartmouth College
Winter Term 1997
With support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment
for the Humanities, Dartmouth College will sponsor its eighth Humanities
Research Institute during the Winter term (3 Janurary - 6 March) of 1997. This
multi-disciplinary Institute will bring together scholars from Dartmouth and
other U.S. and foreign universities to pursue individual research on the
Institute topic.
The Topic. The institute, directed by Associate Professor of French and
Italian Walter Stephens, will survey how the book has been figured in the
imagination, from ancient times to the present, and across several cultures.
Imaginary books, whether metaphorical or legendary, have been exploited by
writers and artists since before Plato, in order to explore the relation
between writing and life, representation and reality. Possible topics for
fellows might include encounters with the book by oral cultures;
representations of books and writing in religious and occult discourse (e.g.,
Kabbalah, alchemy, fundamentalisms, the grimoire); in Etruscology, Egyptology,
philology, semiology, or mythography; literary forgeries and strategies of
authorization; pictorial, plastic, or cinematic representations of books and
writing; the history of printing or genres (e.g., the encyclopedia); the
histories of libraries and/or collecting; bibliomania; "hypertext" and the
future of the book in the electronic age. There will be numerous lectures by
distinguished researchers, a film series, a final colloquium, and one or more
exhibitions of books and writing materials.
Fellows. The Winter 1997 Humanities Institute will gather eight faculty
members from Dartmouth and four from other universities, plus the Distinguished
Senior Fellow. Residential Fellows from outside Dartmouth will receive a
stipend of $3500, office space, assistance in finding housing, library and
computer services privileges. Fellows should arrange for academic leave from
their home institutions.
Senior Fellow. The Senior Fellow for the Winter 1997 Institute will be
Professor Moshe Idel of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a renowned expert
on the Kabbalah, one of the richest sources of lore on the significance of
books and writing.
Updates and further information on the Institute and Dartmouth College are
available at our Worldwide Web site: http://www.dartmouth.edu/acad-inst/hri/
How to Apply. Applications must be received by January 31, 1995. For further
information, please write: Professor Walter Stephens, Humanities Institute
Director, c/o Sandra Gregg, 6201 Wentworth Hall-Room 307, Dartmouth College,
Hanover NH 03755-3526;call (603) 646-3756; or e-mail:
sandra.gregg@dartmouth.edu