Paleography Refresher Course (skills course)

For more past programming from the Folger Institute, please see the article Folger Institute scholarly programs archive.

This was a spring 2007 skills course.

This six-week, skills-course refresher was designed to provide a review of English secretary and italic handwriting. It also provided participants with an opportunity to explore further the manuscript collections of the Folger Shakespeare Library, including correspondence, literary works, accounts, inventories, miscellanies, commonplace books, wills, and deeds. Applicants described their previous training, including introductory level courses or self-directed work in the archives. They also described the documents or classes of manuscript materials with which they were currently working and the nature of their research projects. Participants’ own materials, approaches, and bibliographical and editorial challenges help shaped the course, as participants introduced their materials to others in the course. In addition to the standard award of one night of lodging per session, the application review committee awarded an additional two nights' lodging to funded participants who could profitably extend their time with the collections.

Director: Heather Wolfe is Folger Curator of Manuscripts. She has written numerous articles on manuscript studies and has most recently edited The Trevelyon Miscellany of 1608: A Facsimile Edition of Folger Shakespeare Library MS V.b.232 and The Literary Career and Legacy of Elizabeth Cary, 1613–1680 (both forthcoming 2007)