Forthcoming Events
Edinburgh Bibliographical Seminar and Workshop
Catalogues and Registers as Evidence in the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
20-24 July 2026
University of Edinburgh
EDITION is supporting an interdisciplinary seminar that aims to investigate the significant potential of historical registers of commodities, books, and borrowing as sources for the study of the history of mathematics, science, and technology, as well as intellectual history. Beyond their practical applications, catalogues and registers of books can reveal the intellectual landscape of a particular time and place. They can show which books were available, what was considered important, and how knowledge was organised and categorised. By examining these registers, catalogues, and records, we can track the circulation of ideas across disciplines and regions. This examination can provide context for understanding the development of scientific and mathematical thought. As the Books and Borrowings, 1750-1830, project has demonstrated, careful attention to the social context of registers of borrowing can thicken our descriptions and enrich our understanding of how knowledge has been used. Linked to the vision of the great or universal library, the concept of secular universalism has long been thought to spread its legitimisation through the globalisation of modern mathematics. Building on Kant, universalist logicians and philosophers lay claim to a secular universal mode of reasoning that is common to all minds, displacing previous evangelical universalist modes such as those associated with Leibniz, and non-universal epistemes. Becoming widespread from the globalisation of curricular reforms like William Whewell’s or the Madras system, this secular universal conception demanded a way to address the accumulated knowledge and traditions of the past to clear space for its own epistemic break. That is, modern, global mathematics is a site where ideas must somehow contend with the past before secular universalism can become universal.
Past Events
Spring Lecture 2026
Emily Wingfield (Professor of English and Older Scots Literature, University of Birmingham): 'Initial Steps Towards an Edition of the Poetry and Related Writings of Mary, Queen of Scots'
Friday 27 March, 4.00-5.30
Chair: Dr Kate Ash-Irisarri
Venue: Project Room, 50 George Square
Abstract: In this lecture I reflect on the initial steps I have taken to produce a new critical edition, and English translation, of the literary works of Mary, Queen of Scots. In addition to considering the need for, and opportunities of, such an edition, I also evaluate the challenges it poses, focusing here in particular on difficulties of authorship and attribution, and of capturing Mary's notable word play in translation. I concentrate especially on the notorious Casket Sonnets, thinking about: what place these texts might play in the canon of Mary's writings, how best to present and translate them, and how/why we might make a new case (or cases) for Marian authorship.
Spring Workshop 2026
Prof. Emily Wingfield: 'Reading and Writing Mary, Queen of Scots'
Friday 27 March, 2.00-3.00
Centre for Research Collections, Edinburgh University Library
Abstract: In this workshop, we examine a range of items from Edinburgh University Library's Heritage Collections relating to writings by and about Mary, Queen of Scots, including copies of George Buchanan's 'De Maria Scotorum Regina' and 'Ane Detectioun of the duinges of Marie Quene of Scottes', and the latter's publication of the Casket Sonnets (discussed in the later lecture). We set these volumes alongside additional Marian material, including copies of Mary's 1566 will, and letters sent to Elizabeth I, and alongside material relating to Scotland's royal women and/or their European counterparts (including a copy of Virgil's 'Aeneid' associated variously with James III of Scotland, and James I's daughter, Eleanor, and a Book of Hours belonging to Anne of Brittany).
Autumn Lecture 2025
Helen Williams (Associate Professor of English Literature, Northumbria University): 'From Newcastle to the Middle East: The Work of Sarah Hodgson, Printer'
Friday 10 October 2025, 4.00-5.30
Chair: Dr Robert Irvine
Venue: Centre for Research Collections, Edinburgh University Library
Abstract: 'The Bible Sarah Hodgson printed in the Arabic language in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1811 was the first to emerge in England since the seventeenth century. That it should be produced in the North East, rather than in one of the two university towns, seemed unthinkable, and for a time, was under question. This talk examines the Bible as a transnational commodity that provides insights into the challenges and ingenuity of a woman’s work in a global book trade during the early years of the nineteenth century.'
Autumn Workshop 2025
Helen Williams (Northumbria): ‘Identifying Women’s Work in the Newcastle Book Trades’
Friday 10 October 2025
Venue: Centre for Research Collections, Edinburgh University Library
Autumn's EDITION workshop, led by Dr Helen Williams, explored women's work in the early nineteenth-century Newcastle book trades and engaged with rare books in the Centre for Research Collections at the University of Edinburgh. The books included a Bible in the Arabic language printed by Sarah Hodgson, which Dr Williams discussed in her lecture later in the afternoon.
Spring Lecture 2025
Katherine Halsey (Professor of English Studies, University of Stirling) and Matthew Sangster (Professor of Romantic Studies, Fantasy and Cultural History, University of Glasgow): ‘Towards a True History of Reading Lives: Borrowing in Scotland, 1747-1837’
Friday 21 March 2025
Chair: Professor Penny Fielding
Abstract: ‘Histories of reading have often relied by necessity on anecdotal accounts by relatively elite readers. However, the affordances of digital technologies allow us to interpret previously intractable institutional manuscripts to provide a far richer evidentiary basis. Structuring their lecture around two key reading concepts from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, ‘instruction’ and ‘amusement’, Professors Halsey and Sangster will explore how readers in Scotland engaged with library books as pupils, students, professionals, members of communities and leisure readers. They will demonstrate how library borrowing records reveal rich, complex, idiosyncratic readers, liberated rather than bound by the libraries with which they interacted, ranging far beyond the ostensible purposes of their institutions in their diverse engagements with print.’