Toronto Old English Colloquium 2025
When and Where
Thursday, April 17, 2025 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm
3rd Floor
Lillian Massey Building
125 Queen's Park, Toronto, ON, M5S 2C7
Speakers
Janet Ericksen
Description
The Toronto Old English Colloquium welcomes Janet Ericksen, Chancellor and Professor of English at the University of Minnesota Morris, for a lecture entitled “Reading the Gaps in MS Junius 11,” preceded by a symposium on the poems of the Junius Manuscript.
Join us in person or virtually via Zoom
Thursday, April 17 / 2:30 pm / RSVP required (click here)
SCHEDULE
11 am-1 pm (light breakfast 10:30 am), Room 310 - Symposium: Poems of the Junius Manuscript (presented by Students from MST 1388 ‘The Junius Manuscript: Old Testament Narratives’)
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Christopher Chang, “Know Way Out: Epistemological Uncertainty in Junius 11 and the Benedictine Reform”
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Ruoji Guo, “Greener on the Other Side: Representations of Greenness in the Junius Manuscript”
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Thomas Kalil, “Halls and Hosts: Heroic Bodies of Water in the Junius Manuscript”
1 pm, Great Hall - Lunch
2:30-4:30 pm, Great Hall / Zoom, Lecture:
Janet Ericksen, Reading the Gaps in MS Junius 11
Abstract: The pages of the book now catalogued as Oxford, Bodleian Library manuscript Junius 11 present multiple formats to readers, including completed illustrations integrated with text in the Genesis section, abundant unfinished spaces in its middle portions, and predominantly text-only pages in Christ and Satan. The completed illustrations create a complex interweaving of visual and textual narratives that asks for careful navigation, while the unfinished spaces, rather than representing mere deficits, may have enhanced meditative reading of the sort encouraged by monastic training. The manuscript’s combination of illustration, blank space, and text distinguishes it from other surviving Old English manuscripts, and the varying page layouts would have facilitated different types of reading engagement. The gaps—the unillustrated, unwritten spaces—reveal more than they leave out.
followed by Q & A / discussion
4:30 pm, Great Hall, Reception
Contact Information
Centre for Medieval Studies
Sponsors
Department of English, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of St. Michael's College
Map
125 Queen's Park, Toronto, ON, M5S 2C7