• The Affordances of the Book: A Case Study of the Glastonbury Miscellany (Trinity College, Cambridge, MS O.9.38) and its Digital Remediation

    Author(s):
    Tom White (see profile)
    Date:
    2023
    Subject(s):
    Manuscripts, Archives, Transmission of texts, Digital humanities, World politics
    Item Type:
    Article
    Permanent URL:
    https://doi.org/10.17613/jgfh-p421
    Abstract:
    [Article draft from Summer 2021; very unlikely to be revisiting/revising this, so here it is!] This essay argues that recent work on affordances provides a potentially valuable theoretical tool for thinking across the history of the medieval manuscript, from the making and remaking of the codex to the intricacies of its digital remediation. It does so via a discussion of the origins and eventful life of the Glastonbury Miscellany (Trinity College, Cambridge, MS O.9.38). Originally compiled at Glastonbury Abbey, the manuscript was transported to London after the Reformation, where it became part of a new network of reading and use. In the first part of the discussion, I frame the varied additions to the manuscript in the sixteenth century by way of recent work on affordances by scholars in the field of communication studies. The second half of the discussion turns to the history of the digital Glastonbury Miscellany and to the affordances of the interface through which users now read and study it. Following some of the threads from this part of the discussion, I close by reflecting on how scholarly resources and activities are nested—or perhaps more accurately, entrapped—within large corporations’ attempts to capitalise users’ behavioural data and to enclose and monopolise digital space.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    2 months ago
    License:
    Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
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