2025 Malkin Lecture: "What is Computational Bibliography?"

Rare Book School invites you to the 2025 Sol M. and Mary Ann O’Brian Malkin Lecture!

Christopher N. Warren will give a free public talk on “What is Computational Bibliography?” at 5:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday 30 July, in UVA’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library Auditorium. A reception will follow at Rare Book School (Shannon Library, Room 230). RSVPs to attend in person are not required.

This year, for the first time, RBS also will offer an option to attend a livestream of the in-person lecture via Zoom. Register for the link at tinyurl.com/RBS-Warren.

𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸:
Book historians have long faced a methodological dilemma. Do we want to study particular material objects in granular detail, or are we primarily concerned with more general patterns connected to larger questions about politics, economics, censorship regimes, or ideology? While not strictly mutually exclusive, these two approaches nevertheless exist in tension, and scholars frequently orient themselves toward one side or the other. In this talk, Christopher N. Warren will explore how the new field of computational bibliography is helping to resolve this dilemma through its ability to connect granular, material details to larger, more consequential patterns. Computational bibliography, Warren argues, makes it newly possible to move fluidly between scales—bringing into focus material features like individual type sorts and paper stocks while also uncovering large-scale clandestine printing campaigns and historical print networks. Warren’s talk will show how such dynamic scaling is not merely a technical convenience but a methodological breakthrough—one that enables book historians to ask and answer fascinating new questions.

𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿:
Christopher N. Warren is Professor of English and History and incoming Head of English at Carnegie Mellon University. Warren is the author of 𝘓𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘢𝘸 𝘰𝘧 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴, 1580–1680 (2015), which was awarded the 2016 Roland H. Bainton Prize for Literature. A former member of the Modern Language Association’s executive committee for 17th-Century English, Warren co-founded 𝘚𝘪𝘹 𝘋𝘦𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘍𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘴 𝘉𝘢𝘤𝘰𝘯 and directed the National Endowment for the Humanities-funded digital humanities project “Freedom and the Press before Freedom of the Press,” which used machine learning and artificial intelligence to discover and center the anonymous craftsmen and -women responsible for printing controversial clandestine materials.

For further details about this and other events in Rare Book School's 2025 Lecture Series, visit rarebookschool.org/programs/lectures/.

#DH #DigitalHumanities

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