A New Philology reading list

I sometimes get asked about literature on New Philology (New Medievalism/Material Philology). This is an incomplete, but hopefully helpful, reading list for those interested in New Philology and related perspectives. The list presents the literature I have read up on and actually applied in my own research, as well as some valuable input from Hugo Lundhaug. Please, feel free to improve the list by adding other helpful references in the commentary field below.

Forerunners and classics

Cerquiglini, Bernard. Éloge de la variante: Histoire critique de la philologie. Paris: Seuil, 1989

• or read the English version: In Praise of the Variant: A Critical History of Philology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.

Nichols, Stephen. “Philology in a Manuscript Culture,” Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 65/1 (1990):1-10.

•    And do have a look at the other articles in 65/1 as well

Zumthor, Paul. Essai de poétique médiéval. Paris: Seuil, 1972.

•           or go for the English translation: Toward a Medieval Poetics. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1992.

Introduction/ “In a nutshell”

Driscoll, Matthew J. “Words on the Page: Thoughts on Philology, Old and New.” Pages 85-102 in Creating the Medieval Saga: Versions, Variability, and Editorial Interpretations of Old Norse Saga Literature. Edited by Judy Quinn and Emily Lethbridge. Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2010.

• Have a look also at Judy Quinn’s introduction (pp. 13-37)
•  Look for other publications by Driscoll

Studies and discussions (selection)

Bradshaw, Paul F. “Liturgy and ‘Living Literature’.” Pages 138-53 in Liturgy in Dialogue:Essays in Memory of Ronald Jasper. Edited by Paul F. Bradshaw and Bryan Spinks.  London: SPCK, 1993.

• Look for other publications by Bradshaw, particularly if you’re interested in liturgy

Brownlee, Marina S., Kevin Brownlee, and Stephen G. Nichols, eds. The New Medievalism. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1991.

• Check out the essays by S.G. Nichols, David F. Hult, R. Howard Bloch etc.

Busby, Keith, ed. Towards a Synthesis? Essays on the New Philology. Amsterdam: Ropopi, 1993.

                                                                                          

Lied, Liv Ingeborg. “Nachleben and Textual Identity: Variants and Variance in the Reception History of 2 Baruch”. Pages 403-28 in Fourth Ezra and Second Baruch: Reconstruction after the Fall. Edited by Matthias Henze and Gabriele Boccaccini with the collaboration of Jason M Zurawski. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 164. Leiden: Brill, 2013.

Lied, Liv Ingeborg and Hugo Lundhaug, eds. Snapshots of Evolving Traditions: Jewish and Christian Manuscript Culture, Textual Fluidity, and New Philology. Under contract with De Gruyter. Forthcoming.

• An introduction to New Philology; studies and discussions of the applicability of the perspective to late ancient and early medieval Christian and Jewish texts.

Lundhaug, Hugo. “Case Study, Coptic: Textual Fluidity and the Nag Hammadi Texts”. Handbook of Oriental Manuscript Studies. Forthcoming.

Lundhaug, Hugo. "Nag Hammadi Codex VII and Monastic Manuscript Culture." Forthcoming in Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Coptic Studies, Rome, September 17-22, 2012. Edited by Alberto Camplani et al.

• And have a look at Lundhaug’s NEWCONT project here.

Trachsler, Richard. "How to do Things with Manuscripts: "From Humanist Practice to Recent Textual Criticism," Textual Cultures 1:1 (2006): 5-28.

Varvaro, Alberto. "The 'New Philology' from an Italian Perspective," Text 12 (1999): 49-58.

Philology, background and contextual; related theoretical inputs; other helpful reading

Bryant, John. The Fluid Text: A Theory of Revision and Editing for Book and Screen. Editorial Theory and Literary Criticism. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2002.

Petrucci, Armando. Writers and Readers in Medieval Italy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Timpanaro, Sebastiano. Genesis of Lachmann’s Method. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.

• At least, read Glenn W. Most’s “Editor’s Introduction”.

Look also for literature by

Stephen Nichols (follow him on Academia.edu),
John Dagenais (for instance The Ethics of Reading in Manuscript Culture),
Andrew Taylor (Textual Situations: Three Medieval Manuscripts and Their Readers),
Daniel Hobbins (Authorship and Publicity before Print)
Odd Einar Haugen (“The Spirit of Lachmann, the Spirit of Bedier”)