The Bodleian Libraries (BODcasts‪)‬ Oxford University

This talk will consider how and why the frontispiece to this edition was different from those in earlier editions and place the image in relation to other images of ballroom dance bands before and after 1728. The music publisher John Playford built his success on the publication in 1651 of the first book to give tunes and dance instructions for country dances. He named it The English Dancing Master and in subsequent editions The Dancing Master. The frontispiece to the eighteenth and final edition of vol. 1 (c.1728) shows a trio of musicians – violin, oboe, bassoon – accompanying a group of country dancers in a ballroom. This talk will consider how and why the frontispiece to this edition was different from those in earlier editions and place the image in relation to other images of ballroom dance bands before and after 1728. The speakers will also examine Hogarth’s print A Country Dance and what it tells us about decorum and licence in mid-18th century ballroom dancing.
Jeremy Barlow specialises in English popular and dance music from 1550 to 1750, and also has a particular interest in the illustration of music and social dance over the centuries. He has lectured on a variety of subjects for organisations such as the The Arts Society, U3A, the Art Fund and National Trust. His books include The Enraged Musician: Hogarth’s Musical Imagery (Ashgate) and The Cat & the Fiddle: Images of Musical Humour from the Middle Ages to Modern Times (Bodleian Library). The Bodleian Library has also published A Dance Through Time: Images of Western Social Dancing from the Middle Ages to Modern Times. Jeremy is well known for his work on Playford and has published an edition of Playford's dance tunes, The Complete Country Dance Tunes from Playford’s Dancing Master (1651–ca.1728) (Faber Music).
Alice Little is a Research Fellow at the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments, part of the Music Faculty of the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on collectors and collecting, particularly eighteenth-century tunebooks and their compilers, looking at what sources the collections were gathered from and what the selection of music says about the people and cultures that collected and used them.

Conservation Scientist Prof. Dr. Mandana Barkeshli looks at lacquered bookbindings made by Persian artisans in the 16th to 19th centuries. Persian artisans are known for their contributions to the field of bookbinding, with the lacquered bookbinding technique being one of their notable breakthroughs. This intricate technique involves multiple layers, each with their own materials, methods, and motifs that have been used from the Safavid to Qajar periods.

Professor Barkeshli delves into the details of each layer and explores the various treatments used during manufacture, as well as providing insight into the environmental enemies of the lacquered bookbinding.

Prof. Dr. Mandana Barkeshli is Head of Research and Post Graduate Studies of De’ Institute of Creative Arts and Design UCSI University in Malaysia and Principle Fellow at University of Melbourne. Her current research project is titled, 'Paper Dyes Used in Persian Medieval Manuscripts: Creating a Materials Construction Digital Database'. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

An introduction to the analysis of painted Byzantine and Japanese manuscripts by the Bodleian Libraries' new Heritage Scientist. The post of Heritage Scientist at the Bodleian Libraries was re-instated at the beginning of 2023, enabling the analysis of manuscripts in the library’s collection. The focus so far has been on Byzantine manuscripts from the 10th to 13th centuries, and Japanese scrolls from the 17th century which contain painted pictures. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Daniel Meadows is a pioneer of contemporary British documentary practice. A photographer, documentarian and digital storyteller. He returns to the Bodleian library to muse on his life and archive and the power of photography. Photographer Daniel Meadows is a pioneer of contemporary British documentary practice. A photographer, documentarian and digital storyteller, he has spent his life recording British society, challenging the status quo by working in a collaborative way to capture extraordinary aspects of ordinary life through pictures, audio recordings and short movies.
 
Fifty years ago, photographer Daniel Meadows set out in The Free Photographic Omnibus, a Leyland Titan double-decker remodelled as his mobile home, darkroom and gallery. He drove it around towns and villages and offered free portraits to the people he met on his travels. The photographs became a vast and beautiful archive, now safely deposited in the Bodleian Library.

In this talk, Daniel Meadows triumphantly returns to muse on his life and work and the power of photography. He shows examples of his archive and reflects on a lifetime of creative work.
 
The Bodleian Library acquired the full Daniel Meadows Archive in 2018.

What is queer bibliography? How does it intersect with other critical bibliographies, (feminist, Black and liberation bibliography)? How does it relate to traditional bibliographic practice? What opportunities might queer methods and approaches provide? Following the inaugural symposium Queer Bibliography: Tools, Methods, Practices and Approaches in early February 2023 at the Institute of English Studies, hear Sarah Pyke and JD Sargan discuss this emerging subfield with Adam Smyth.

Organised by Oxford Bibliographical Society. Speakers, Sarah Pyke (Institute of English Studies, London), and JD Sargan (University of Limerick). Chaired by Adam Smyth (Oxford University).

In this lecture, Matthew Kirschenbaum considers textual stability, a concern of publishers and readers since before the advent of printing, in the post-digital era. Books are not dead as was once feared. But they are not the same either. With digital processes and workflows now thoroughly integrated into the art and industry of publishing and printing them, books are altered by the post-digital moment in which we have arrived. Matthew Kirschenbaum’s lecture will pay particular attention to questions of textual stability, a concern of publishers and readers since before the advent of printing. How stable are texts when the book is now manifest as a collection of digital assets, a network which only might, at times, assume the physical and tangible form of the familiar codex?