Germanic Philology LM (2014/2015)

Learning outcomes

The Migration of Cultural Memory
Textual Scholarship and Digital Humanities

The course aims at overviewing the fundamental positions in today’s philology and textual scholarship, and the new perspectives opened by the digital tools and the web for the general understanding of the Humanities in social life. Preliminarily will be shortly discussed the growth of literacy and written traditions in Germanic-speaking countries, from the early Middle Ages to the modern epoch, illustrating the methods of philological inquiry [point 1. in the Bibliography]. After this introduction on history and methods of ‘traditional’ philology, the course main topics will be concerned with:
- Trends in recent textual scholarship (Greg, Greetham, Tanselle, Moretti, McGann) [point 2.a in the Bibliography]
- A short history of digitization [point 2.b. in the Bibliography]
- Positions and projects within the field ‘Germanic Philology’ (a selection of relevant initiatives, e.g.from TEI to MENOTA; Robinson, collate and the treatment of medieval textual variance; editing Beowulf in the Digital Age; the Parzival-Projekt [point 3 in the Bibliography]

Bibliography and sitography

1. The growth of literacy: the medieval manuscript and philological methods

either

- HAUGEN, Odd Einar, Textkritik and Textphilologie, in HAUGEN, Odd Einar, and Astrid VAN NAHL, Hrsg., Altnordische Philologia: Norwegen und Island, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007, pp. 99-145.
and

or

- LUISELLI FADDA, Anna Maria, Tradizioni manoscritte e critica del testo nel Medioevo germanico, Roma-Bari, Laterza (pp.181-248)

2.a. Trends in textual scholarship

- BUZZETTI, Dino, and Jerome MCGANN, Critical Editing in a Digital Horizon, in Text Encoding Initiative (TEI): Electronic Textual Editing [chap. Codex-Based Scholarship and Criticism]
< http://www.tei-c.org/About/Archive_new/ETE/Preview/mcgann.xml >

- STOLZ, Michael, Parzival-Projekt - English Presentation
<http://www.parzival.unibe.ch/englishpresentation.html>


2.b. Digital Humanities

either

FIORMONTE, Domenico, Scrittura e filolologia nell’era digitale, Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 2003 (Parte I, 1: Temi e paradigmi della rivoluzione tecnologica, pp. 21-53; 2: Breve storia della scrittura elettronica, pp. 54-106; Parte II: Per una filologia digitale, pp. 157-208)

or

- M. Lana, Critica testuale e informatica (2009)
<http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/critica-testuale-e-informatica_%28XXI-Secolo%29/>

3. Initiatives within the field ‘Germanic Philology’

- ELECTRONIC-BEOWULF
< http://ebeowulf.uky.edu/vitellius/nowellcodex#beo >

- STOLZ, Michael, et al., Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival. A New Critical Electronic Edition
< http://www.parzival.unibe.ch/englishpresentation.html >

An oral examination, with a midterm written test (on point 1 in Bibliography)
Suggestions for further readings and other bibliographical materials will be published on the elearning page