This DLCL Research Group draws together scholars working on medieval material across linguistic, cultural, and geographic boundaries to examine, on the one hand, the ways in which medieval texts are framed by their material remains, and on the other, the ways in which readers, medieval and modern, must orient themselves to texts in order to engage with them. Medieval literature cannot be divorced from its material context. Each codex, scroll, or inscribed document is a unique manifestation of a text that at once provides us with a particular and historical interpretation of a text, and raises the questions how we can understand a text’s intellectual, social, and historical context, and how do we re-situate it in our present day? The questions that this research group will explore are not specific to medieval studies, but they are central to working with medieval materials. The research group welcomes participation by scholars working in other historical periods.
