SIGLUM has been founded to carry out comprehensive research into manuscripts. It aims to promote the study of manuscripts and the development of different manuscript cultures through the ages. Our group was set up by a team of philologists in 2020 but it soon attracted other scholars, including historians, art historians, conservators, chemists, experts on the history of the book and paper production, linguists, literary critics, cultural experts, musicologists, archivists and librarians. Our research projects embrace manuscripts from different geographical and cultural regions and include both, early sources as well as contemporary handwritten documents. We share the passion for manuscripts and we recognize the need to study them in their manifold aspects and in an integrated way – as carriers of texts, works of art, monuments of culture, heritage of the past and material objects. The manuscripts we study come from various collections, such as Warsaw University Library, the National Library in Warsaw, departmental libraries and many other archives in Poland and abroad.
SIGLUM is an inclusive group, open to new people, projects and areas of research. We would like the manuscript studies to be a vital part of the academic universe. We hope that everyone who has thus far worked independently will join us so that SIGLUM can become a prominent research unit at the University of Warsaw. If you want to join us let us know by sending an email to siglum@wn.uw.edu.pl.
Research Group for the Study of Manuscripts SIGLUM extends an invitation to an online lecture by Prof. Anna Wojtyś (University of Warsaw), entitled Chaucer’s Treatise on the Astrolabe: text, manuscripts, and traps for the translator. The meeting will take place on 28 May 2024 at 17:00-18:30 CET via Zoom. To register for the meeting please contact us at siglum@wn.uw.edu.pl.
Another lecture in the series of meetings on Geoffrey Chaucer organised by the Bodleian Library will take place on Wednesday, 24 April 2024 at 14:00 GMT (15:00 CET). During the talk entitled “Exhibiting Chaucer”, Marion Turner (JRR Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall) will discuss the current exhibition Chaucer Here and Now. Registration for the meeting is still open: Bodleian Library events.
Research Group for the Study of Manuscripts SIGLUM extends an invitation to a lecture by Dr. Dmitry Bondarev, entitled “Islamic manuscript cultures of West Africa”. The lecture will take place on April 30 2024, at 2:15-3:45 CET via Zoom. To register for the meeting, please contact us at siglum@wn.uw.edu.pl. Dr. Dmitry Bondarev will talk about the manuscript tradition of pre-colonial West Africa, almost unknown outside specialised circles. The manuscripts in question were made in Muslim intellectual and religious centers located in today’s Chad, Nigeria, Mali, Guinea and Senegal. In addition to Arabic, the manuscripts contain texts of various length in […]