Lisbon, 6-7 June 2019
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Over the past decades, genetic criticism has shifted our attention from text as product (the final published text) to text as process (the restoration and analysis of how it came into being). Modern autographical manuscripts have played a key role in this shift. These manuscripts, while attesting the processual status of literary creation, challenge common typographical notions of layout, linearity, and direction, as well as concepts of textual completeness, univocity, and cohesion. To avoid falling prey to a mass of frequently inchoate and scattered data, which would reduce textual scholars to silence or to merely list what they observe, the genetic analysis of such manuscripts depends on connecting the available information and thereby critically imagining textual stages.
Following Hans Zeller, the proponents of the TEI Encoding Model for Genetic Editions view the information conveyed by the manuscript (each occurrence of deletion, addition, substitution, permutation) as pertaining to the record, whereas the textual stage belongs to the field of interpretation. Consequently, interpretation is needed in order both to assign scattered writing traces to a given time span and to attribute intentional coherence to these script acts, which, according to Almuth Grésillon, are the two criteria for the identification of a writing stage. Although it is always controversial to argue that there is a record without a modicum of interpretation, one can safely say that genetic analysis is served by this functional frontier between data observation and critical imagination. Specially focused on single document writing stages and revision campaigns, this symposium welcomes proposals on any of the following topics:
- Identification
The identification of writing and revision stages is usually accomplished by taking into due consideration criteria such as writing instruments, topography, and writing ductus (number, sequence, and direction of the written strokes). However, there are cases when these criteria seem to contradict each other. What techniques are used to identify different instruments and deduct pauses from the analysis of the ductus? How to evaluate seemingly contradictory data?
- Encoding
One of the challenges in editing modern autographs is to represent both the materiality and the textual dimensions of the manuscript, which many scholars believe is possible in the digital medium only. Since 2011, the TEI Guidelines have incorporated a fundamental distinction between the document-oriented transcription (in <sourceDoc>) and the text-oriented transcription (within <text>), making it possible to encode either perspective, although it is difficult to do both at the same time. What are the main encoding difficulties in representing writing stages? How do editors deal with the limits of XML-TEI? Can alternative encoding models address these limits?
- Collation
Consisting of a systematic comparison of two or more entities for critical purposes, collation is at the heart of textual scholarship. How is collation to approach textual data that cannot be undoubtedly assigned to a specific writing stage? What are the challenges posed to collation by cases of textual transposition? What are the limits of automatic collation tools when processing revision campaigns?
- Visualisation
Genetic editions aim to present a narrative of the writing process. The number and type of documented actions which are assignable to successive writing stages are often too large and complex to be assimilated by the reader/user. Static and dynamic graphic representations (charts, diagrams, animations) may facilitate the visualisation of the writing process and promote new collaborations between textual scholars and animation and graphic designers. How can the digital medium contribute to the optimal representation of writing stages? What resources are best suited to help the reader see the text construct itself?
- Interpretation and Terminology
The terminology for the phenomena approached in this symposium is generally based on the dualistic assumption that there is a set of scribal actions tending to continuity (the compositional moment) and another set that is discontinuous (the revision stage, based on reading acts). How do different schools of textual scholarship approach this dualism? How can the interpretation of writing and revision stages contribute to the development of other fields of study? How do linguistics and literary studies benefit from stylochronometry?
References
Burnard, Lou; Jannidis, Fotis; Pierazzo, Elena. Rehbein, Malte. An Encoding Model for Genetic Editions. <http://www.tei-c.org/Vault/TC/tcw19.html#act_vs_state>
Grésillon, Almuth. Éléments de Critique Génétique. Paris: PUF, 1992
Text Encoding Initiative. P5: Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange. Chapter 11: Representation of Primary Sources. <http://www.tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/en/html/PH.html>
Zeller, H. “Record and interpretation: analysis and documentation as goal and method of editing.” In: Contemporary German editorial theory. Edited by Hans Walter Gabler, George Bornstein, and Gillian Borland Pierce. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995
We invite researchers to submit abstracts for a 20-minute contribution (followed by 10 mins Q&A) until the end of 2018. Submissions should include name, e-mail address, institutional affiliation and position, title of proposed paper, and abstract (350 words max.). The language of the presentation will be English.
Abstracts will be reviewed double-blind by the members of the scientific committee.
Submission of proposals: December 31, 2018.
Notification of acceptance: January 31, 2019.
Registration: March 7, 2019.
Registration fee: 50 €.