Text & Textuality: A Symposium

This day-and-a-half symposium brings together scholars, practitioners, and archivists to present research on the broad topic of “textuality,” including practical book arts, digital humanities innovations, early forms of codex-making, and comic book visuals. The symposium dovetails with Special Collections’ exhibit, “Say It!” which features Bryn Mawr’s robust but largely uncatalogued collection of posters, banners, and pennants.

All panels, lectures, and remarks will take place in Old Library 224.

FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 2026

8:30 to 9:00 a.m. – Coffee & Light Breakfast – Old Library 129
9:00 a.m. – Welcoming Remarks – Jamie Taylor, Bryn Mawr College
9:15 to 10:30 a.m. – Opening Keynote – Jesse Erickson, The Morgan Library & Museum – “r/Textuality: Toward a Unified Theory of Scriniumatics”

10:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. – Panel 1: Textuality & the Natural World (Presider: Jennifer Harford Vargas)

• Alex Alston, Bryn Mawr College – “Plantation Palimpsest: Ecocriticism and the Fiction of Slavery”
• Hester Blum, Washington University, St. Louis – “Arctic Ephemera”
• Danielle Allor, Haverford College – “Medieval Tree Texts”

12:15 – 1:45 p.m. – Break

1:45 to 3:15 p.m. – Panel 2: The Politics of Print (Presider: Martín Gaspar)

• Clare Mullaney, Clemson University – "Helen Keller’s Patchwork: Tactile Collaborations and the Limits of Print"
• Belle Handler, Philly Soapbox – “Printing Is For Everyone: Book Arts Technology and Accessibility"
• Bryn Michaelson-Ziegler, Rosenbach Museum & Library – “Finding purpose in print: responding to a hostile digital age”

3:30 to 5:00 p.m. – Panel 3: Archives & Collections (Presider: Rudy Le Menthéour)

• Jonathan Eburne, Washington University, St. Louis – “Societies of Friends of the Book”
• Marija Dalbello, Rutgers University – “Working Class Archives and the Idea of Textuality”
• Martín Gaspar & Laurel Gabbard, Bryn Mawr College – “The Good, the Bad, and the C.I.A. in the Emir Rodríguez Monegal Papers at Bryn Mawr College”

5:00 to 6:15 p.m. – Reception at the “Say It!” Special Collections Exhibit – 1912 Gallery, Canaday Library

SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 2026

8:30 to 9:00 a.m. – Coffee & Light Breakfast – Old Library 223

9:00 to 10:00 a.m. – Panel 4: Text & Textiles (Presider: Colby Gordon)

• Sylvia Houghteling, Bryn Mawr College – “To Catch a Color: Text, Dyes, and the Natural World in Early Modern South and Southeast Asia”
• Michele Osherow, University of Maryland, Baltimore County – “Stitching chesed: Lessons on the Book of Ruth from a Seventeenth-Century Embroidered Casket”

10:15 to 11:45 a.m. – Panel 5: Text & the Body (Presider: Pardis Dabashi)

• Janelle Rebel, Bryn Mawr College – “Touching Posters & Other Acts of Cataloging Divination”
• Alexandra Gueydan-Turek, Swarthmore College – “The Violence of Form: Radical Textuality in Mazen Kerbaj’s War Diaries”
• Seth Williams, Barnard College – “Text as Dance, Dance as Map in Early Modern England”

12:00 to 1:15 p.m. – Closing Keynote – Whitney Trettien, University of Pennsylvania – “Punched Holes & Piano Keyboards at the Origins of Digital Text”

Sponsors: Office of the President; Office of the Provost; 1902 Lecture Fund; Department of Literatures in English; Department of History of Art; Department of History; Department of French and Francophone Studies; Center for Visual Culture; Comparative Literature Program; Africana Studies Program; Latin American, Iberian, and Latina/o Studies Program; Gender and Sexuality Studies Program; Museum Studies Program; Environmental Studies Program; Department of English (Haverford); Department of Religion (Haverford); Visual Studies Program (Haverford); Environmental Studies Program (Haverford); Rare Book School at the University of Virginia; Bibliographical Society of America

For questions, please email Jamie Taylor (jktaylor@brynmawr.edu) or Daniel Parker (dparker1@brynmawr.edu).