The Bodleian Libraries (BODcasts)

Tia Blassingame introduced her work leading the Book/Print Artist/Scholar of Color Collective (aka Book/Print Collective) and shared methods for supporting and empowering BIPOC book and print artists In this lecture, Tia Blassingame introduced her work leading the Book/Print Artist/Scholar of Color Collective (aka Book/Print Collective) and shared methods for supporting and empowering BIPOC book and print artists. She also discussed her educational work centred around Black American artists working in the book form and her curatorial work challenging the exclusion and erasure of Global Majority traditions and artistry in hand papermaking.

Founded in 2019 by book artist and printmaker Tia Blassingame, the Book/Print Artist/Scholar of Color Collective brings Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) book artists, papermakers, curators, letterpress printers, printmakers into conversation and collaboration with scholars of BIPOC Book History and Print Culture to build community, support systems.

Biography:

Tia Blassingame is an Associate Professor of Art at Scripps College, where she teaches Book Arts and Letterpress Printing, and serves as the Director of Scripps College Press. Her artist’s books and prints can be found in library and museum collections across the world. In 2019, Blassingame founded the Book/Print Artist/Scholar of Color Collective. Most recently, Blassingame has co-curated, with writer, book artist, publisher Stephanie Sauer, the NEA and Center for Craft grants-awarded exhibition, Paper Is People: Decolonizing Global Paper Cultures, held at Minnesota Center for Book Arts (14 April – 12 August 2023) and San Francisco Center for the Book (28 October -22 December, 2023). Tia Blassingame was the current Bodleian Printer in Residence, 2023.

Book/Print Collective | Instagram: @bookprintcollective

Programmed by The Centre for the Study of the Book, Bodleian Libraries.

In this session, we explore what Playford’s publishing activities can tell us about how music was incorporated into different social environments in seventeenth-century English society and the role music played in peoples lives. Although The Dancing Master was one of John Playford’s best-known and most widely distributed publications, it belonged within a music-publishing portfolio that provides something of a snapshot of the breadth of music-making activities in which people from different parts of society participated in the Commonwealth and Restoration periods. In this session, we explore what Playford’s publishing activities can tell us about how music was incorporated into different social environments in seventeenth-century English society, from the tavern to the concert room to the royal court, and what the writings of people known to have used his books, such as Samuel Pepys, tell us about the role music played in their lives.

Rebecca Herissone is Professor of Musicology at the University of Manchester and a Fellow of the British Academy. Her research focuses on the musical cultures of early modern England, particularly issues of creativity, reception and manuscript and print cultures, which has led her to work extensively on the publishing activities of John and Henry Playford, Thomas Cross and John Walsh, and to consider the complex relationships between musical notation and performance in the period. She has written three monographs, most recently Musical Creativity in Restoration England (awarded the Diana McVeagh Prize by NABMSA in 2015), and has had articles published in journals including the Journal of the American Musicological Society, Musical Quarterly, Journal of Musicology, Music & Letters, and the Journal of the Royal Musical Association. She co-edited Music & Letters from 2007–19 and is now a Vice-President of the Royal Musical Association, Chair of the Musica Britannica Editorial Committee, Series Co-Editor of Cambridge Elements in Music, 1600–1750, a General Editor of the Works of John Eccles, and a member of the Editorial Boards of the Purcell Society and Music & Letters. Her current research focuses on Purcell’s reception, particularly the material traces we can uncover of the small network of individuals who preserved, performed and transformed his music in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Alice Little is a Research Fellow at the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments, part of the Music Faculty of the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on collectors and collecting, particularly eighteenth-century tunebooks and their compilers, looking at what sources the collections were gathered from and what the selection of music says about the people and cultures that collected and used them.

This talk will consider how and why the frontispiece to this edition was different from those in earlier editions and place the image in relation to other images of ballroom dance bands before and after 1728. The music publisher John Playford built his success on the publication in 1651 of the first book to give tunes and dance instructions for country dances. He named it The English Dancing Master and in subsequent editions The Dancing Master. The frontispiece to the eighteenth and final edition of vol. 1 (c.1728) shows a trio of musicians – violin, oboe, bassoon – accompanying a group of country dancers in a ballroom. This talk will consider how and why the frontispiece to this edition was different from those in earlier editions and place the image in relation to other images of ballroom dance bands before and after 1728. The speakers will also examine Hogarth’s print A Country Dance and what it tells us about decorum and licence in mid-18th century ballroom dancing.

Jeremy Barlow specialises in English popular and dance music from 1550 to 1750, and also has a particular interest in the illustration of music and social dance over the centuries. He has lectured on a variety of subjects for organisations such as the The Arts Society, U3A, the Art Fund and National Trust. His books include The Enraged Musician: Hogarth’s Musical Imagery (Ashgate) and The Cat & the Fiddle: Images of Musical Humour from the Middle Ages to Modern Times (Bodleian Library). The Bodleian Library has also published A Dance Through Time: Images of Western Social Dancing from the Middle Ages to Modern Times. Jeremy is well known for his work on Playford and has published an edition of Playford's dance tunes, The Complete Country Dance Tunes from Playford’s Dancing Master (1651–ca.1728) (Faber Music).

Alice Little is a Research Fellow at the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments, part of the Music Faculty of the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on collectors and collecting, particularly eighteenth-century tunebooks and their compilers, looking at what sources the collections were gathered from and what the selection of music says about the people and cultures that collected and used them.

Conservation Scientist Prof. Dr. Mandana Barkeshli looks at lacquered bookbindings made by Persian artisans in the 16th to 19th centuries. Persian artisans are known for their contributions to the field of bookbinding, with the lacquered bookbinding technique being one of their notable breakthroughs. This intricate technique involves multiple layers, each with their own materials, methods, and motifs that have been used from the Safavid to Qajar periods.

Professor Barkeshli delves into the details of each layer and explores the various treatments used during manufacture, as well as providing insight into the environmental enemies of the lacquered bookbinding.

Prof. Dr. Mandana Barkeshli is Head of Research and Post Graduate Studies of De’ Institute of Creative Arts and Design UCSI University in Malaysia and Principle Fellow at University of Melbourne. Her current research project is titled, 'Paper Dyes Used in Persian Medieval Manuscripts: Creating a Materials Construction Digital Database'. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

In this online event, Ana Paula Cordeiro, the creator of Body of Evidence, speaks from the workshop in New York City where she produced it. She will be joined in conversation by Merve Emre, Associate Professor of American Literature. Body of Evidence (2020) is an artist's book that examines the role of documentary evidence in defining national and individual identity. The red, white, and blue of the printing and binding echo a national story, viewed from the perspective of an immigrant, with quotations from Rebecca Solnit, Emily Dickinson, William James, Agnes Martin, and Fernando Pessoa.

We open the conversation by examining the book’s unique structure, moving on to consider the questions posed by the book’s theme. What qualifies as a document? When does a document become evidence? And what does this evidence prove about an individual or a nation? How can an individual's narrative assert their integrity in face of dehumanization? The conversation will be launched after a live presentation of the copy of this book now in the Bodleian.

Originally from Brazil, Cordeiro is based in New York and composes her book works at The Center for Book Arts in New York City, from where she will speak. In 2020 she was awarded a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Her artist books are collected privately and institutionally.

Book Arts programme from the Bodleian Libraries Centre for the Study of the Book.

Supported by a generous donation to the Bodleian Bibliographical Press.

In this BodCast from the Friends of the Bodleian, Professor Dame Marina Warner interviews Anne Louise Avery, writer and art historian, on the subject of Avery's recent book, Reynard the Fox https://bodleianshop.co.uk/products/reynard-the-fox Based on William Caxton's bestselling 1481 English translation of the Middle Dutch, but expanded with new interpretations, innovative language and characterisation, this edition is an imaginative retelling of the Reynard story. With its themes of protest, resistance and duplicity fronted by a personable, anti-heroic Fox making his way in a dangerous and cruel world, this gripping tale is as relevant and controversial today as it was in the fifteenth century.

Reynard the Fox is available to purchase at [http://www.bodleianshop.co.uk

In this BodCast from the Friends of the Bodleian, Professor Dame Marina Warner interviews Anne Louise Avery, writer and art historian, on the subject of Avery's recent book, Reynard the Fox https://bodleianshop.co.uk/products/reynard-the-fox Based on William Caxton's bestselling 1481 English translation of the Middle Dutch, but expanded with new interpretations, innovative language and characterisation, this edition is an imaginative retelling of the Reynard story. With its themes of protest, resistance and duplicity fronted by a personable, anti-heroic Fox making his way in a dangerous and cruel world, this gripping tale is as relevant and controversial today as it was in the fifteenth century.

Reynard the Fox is available to purchase at [http://www.bodleianshop.co.uk

Join Rebecca Abrams in conversation with Samuel Fanous to discuss her riveting and beautiful new book, edited with César Merchan-Hamann, Jewish Treasures from Oxford Libraries. You can purchase the book https://bodleianshop.co.uk/products/jewish-treasures

Panel Discussion to debate the proposed changes to the policy on Open Access for monographs in the next REF after REF 2021 which will have profound implications for researchers in the humanities and social sciences. Panellists: Richard Ovenden, Bodley's Librarian, Professor Julia Smith, Chichele Professor of Medieval History, Research Director, Faculty of History, Helen Snaith, Senior Policy Advisor, Research England, David Clark, Head of Academic Division, OUP Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Russell Maret talks about the development of the primary themes of his artist's books - alphabet design, colour printing, and geometric form, also the influences of history and technology on his methods and subject matter.