RI Medieval Circle Lecture • Andrew Albin (Fordham University)\ , "On the Sonic Percolation of Manuscripts"

About this event

It is an oft-repeated, less oft studied commonplace that the reading of books in the Middle Ages was an enduringly, preferentially vocal affair. As scribes copied their exemplars, as choirs sang from service books, as readers read from their volumes in public or in private, they knew and employed the inked pages before them as beginning and ending in uttered sound. What, though, was sound for these medieval readers? What was the voice made of, what were sound's material physics, and how did books weather the iterative sonic outpouring that was their native and active environment? In this talk, I review later medieval writings on the nature of sound, voice, and their interaction with physical bodies to advance an unfamiliar phenomenology of the premodern book that starts with the ear, instead of the eye, as a foremost site of embodied literate encounter. About the SpeakerAndrew Albin is Professor of Engl ish and Medieval Studies at Fordham University. His scholarship in the field of historical sound studies examines medieval sonic materialities, experiential frameworks, embodied listening practices, and ear-forward approaches to manuscript studies. His work has been recognized with grants and fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation, Medieval Academy of America, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, and Yale Institute of Sacred Music. He is the author of Richard Rolle's Melody of Love: A Study and Translation, with Manuscript and Musical Contexts (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2018). In partnership with the Met Cloisters, he facilitates the Fordham Medieval Dramatists (https://medievaldramatists.ace.fordham.edu/ (https://medievaldramatists.ace.fordham.edu/)), New York City's only dedicated medieval play-making ensemble. He is also a regular collaborator with Washington, D.C.-based InSeries Opera (https://www.inseries.org/), and will serve as dramaturg and librettist for the 2027 production of The Triumph of F.A.U.V.E.L., An Ass. Presented by the Pro gram in Medieval Studies. Melody of Love: A Study and Translation, with Manuscript and Musical Contexts (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2018). In partnership with the Met Cloisters, he facilitates the Fordham Medieval Dramatists ( ), New York City's only dedicated medieval play-making ensemble. He is also a regular collaborator with Washington, D.C.-based

InSeries Opera , and will serve as dramaturg and librettist for the 2027 production of

The Triumph of F.A.U.V.E.L., An Ass.

Presented by the

Program in Medieval Studies.