Take Me and Make It Happen!

The Stirling Maxwell Centre's seminar series begun in the 1980s as a regular opportunity for knowledge exchange of the Glasgow Emblem Group. In time we changed our name to Stirling Maxwell Centre Seminar Series to reflect the interdisciplinary nature of our work.The seminar series is a learned group of regular public seminars and workshops. We host speakers and world renowned experts on subjects pertinent to the Centre’s remit, from the Medieval period to the twenty-first century. Subjects range from emblems, comics, cinema, cartoons, History of the Book, History of Art, Philology, Cultural History, History of Architecture, Shakespearean theatre, Early Modern Festivals, 3D architectural reconstruction, and many more. Our programme of events and activities reflects our research culture and our international reach.Our seminars and workshops are open to scholars, students, and (unless specified) to general public alike. Attendance is free to all, though attendees from the general public should inform the venue (usually the Main Library Admissions desk) or the Deputy Director of the Centre of their intention of attending the seminar in question.

Stirling Maxwell Centre

Take Me and Make It Happen! How-to-Books from the Ferguson Collection and Corresponding Holdings at the Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel

University of Glasgow Library, Level 12 Seminar Room

<h3>Take Me and Make It Happen! How-to-Books from the Ferguson Collection and Corresponding Holdings at the Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel</h3> Do old books have the potential to speak directly to the reader and inspire them to take action in the real world? What is conveyed in YouTube videos today was recorded in mostly inconspicuous books in the 16th and 17th centuries: instructions and explanations in concrete steps, for imitation, to make it easier to cope with everyday life (with the help of life hacks). The Ferguson Collection, which brings together books from a wide range of fields, is teeming with such How-to books. Acquired by the University of Glasgow Library in 1921 and made available for research a short time later, it has yet truly to awaken from its slumber. A team working on a German-Scottish cooperation project has set out to change this. The first international workshop will bring together scholars from a range of different disciplines (Romance studies, Spanish studies, linguistics, English studies, Jewish studies, education, art history, book studies and cultural studies) to examine the practicality of the How-to idea from different perspectives. <h4>How-to Workshop 1</h4>Thursday, 3 October 202414:00 – 14:45 Laurence Grove, Stefan Laube, Robert Maclean, Hartmut Beyer, Alina Lange: Welcome and Project Introduction: ‘Take Me and Make It Happen!’14:45 – 15:15 Thomas Gloning (Gießen): The ‘How-to’ Component in 16th-century German Knowledge Texts: Georgius Agricola’s Vom Bergwerck XII: Bücher and Other Examples15:15 – 15:45 Break15:45 – 16:15 Andrea van Leerdam (Utrecht): Books of Secrets in Children´s Hands?16:15 – 16:45 Joe Sutliff Sanders (Cambridge): Designing the Perfect Book for the New Reader: How-to Read on Your Own.16:45 – 17:15 Break17:15 – 18:00 Book Launch Tracts of Action (Brill) and Pop-up Exhibition Friday, 4 October 202410:00 – 10:30 Agata Paluch (Berlin): How-to Books from Jewish Tradition: Practical Knowledge vs Religious Knowledge.10:30 – 11:00 Sergei Zotov (Warwick): Does the How-to Idea Disenchant the Magic? Images and Tables in Grimoires as Agents of ‘Scientification’ and ‘Aestheticization’11:00 – 11:30 Break11:30 – 12:00 Vicente Pérez de León (Glasgow): How (not) to Read Cervantes’s Don Quichote12:00 – 12:30 Sabine Wieber (Glasgow): Embroidery How-to: Samplers as Pedagogical Tools, 1600-1900.12.30 – 13:00 Final Discussion Futher details of project in <a href="https://www.hab.de/en/take-me-and-make-it-happen/" title="https://www.hab.de/en/take-me-and-make-it-happen/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.hab.de/en/take-me-and-make-it-happen/</a>.Project funded by <a href="https://www.ukri.org/councils/ahrc/" title="https://www.ukri.org/councils/ahrc/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Arts and Humanities Reserach Council</a> and the <a href="https://www.dfg.de/en" title="https://www.dfg.de/en" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft</a>.

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