Conferences and Events

AY 2024-25

Authorship attribution meets medieval textual transmission

Thursday | October 10 | 4–6pm | 6415 Dwinelle Hall

The Medieval Studies Program at UC Berkeley is pleased to present a guest lecture by Prof. Haukur Þorgeirsson (Árnastofnun):
One of the core philological questions we can ask about a text is who the author was. For medieval works this question has been alternatively in and out of fashion, depending on how interested scholars are in individual genius or communal creativity. The advent of stylometry – computer-assisted analysis of word frequency patterns – has brought some powerful tools to the field of authorship attribution. Stylometry is highly effective at identifying the fingerprints of modern authors but to apply stylometry to ancient or medieval works we must confront complicated questions of collective authorship and textual transmission. In this talk I will describe my experiences in applying authorship attribution methods to Old Norse texts. I will particularly focus on the nexus between stylometry and traditional philological textual criticism. The texts considered include the classical works of Old Icelandic literature, the Prose Edda and the sagas of the Icelanders.
The presentation will be followed by a reception
All are welcome

Berkeley Medieval Studies Symposium 

6 September, 3pm, 6415 Dwinelle Hall

[Full Program Here]

3:10 Maria Mavroudi (History): Byzantine Culture as an Introvert and Extrovert in Modern Historiography: Perceptions of Byzantium’s Compatibility with Western Modernity

3:40 Shu-han Lou (English): Reading Old English poetry with Song Dynasty Commentary

4:10 Break

4:20 Henry Ravenhall (French): Touch and the Subject of the Roman de la Rose

4:50 Kate Heslop (Scandinavian): Runic Poetry and Roman Minitexts on the Viking Age Monument at Karlevi, Öland

AY 2022-23

Berkeley-Stanford Medieval Studies Symposium

7 April 2023, UC Berkeley [Program] 

AY 2021-22

Stanford-Berkeley Medieval Studies Symposium

15 April 2022, Stanford [Program]

Berkeley Medieval Studies Symposium

6 November 2021, UC Berkeley [Program]

AY 2018-19

Berkeley-Stanford Medieval Graduate Student Conference: Medieval Boundary Making

6 April 2019, UC Berkeley [Program]

AY 2014-15

Medieval Ethics and Aesthetics: The Good and the Beautiful?

Keynote Lecture: "The Ars Disputandi and the 'Art' of Disputation"

Alex Novikoff

Fordham University

20-21 February 2015

AY 2013-14

The Material Middle Ages: An International Graduate Student Conference

Keynote Lecture: "Paratextual Cues in Late Medieval Books: Detecting Female Networks"
Cynthia Brown
University of California, Santa Barbara

28 February-1 March 2014

AY 2012-13

Re:form: An Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference in Medieval Studies

Keynote Lecture: "Re:forming the Pavement Hours (York Minster XVI.K.6)"
Jessica Brantley
Yale University

15-16 February 2013.

AY 2011-12

Eighth Annual Anglo-Saxon Studies Colloquium Graduate Student Conference: "Philology"

Keynote Lecture: "We Philologists"
Jan Ziolkowski
Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Medieval Latin, Department of Classics, Harvard University
Director of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection

24-25 February 2012.

AY 2010-11

Reading the Middle Ages: An International Graduate Student Conference

Keynote Lecture: "Producing the Lector"
Rita Copeland
Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Endowed Term Professor in the Humanities, University of Pennsylvania

25-27 March 2011