On Thursdays in Weeks 2, 5, and 8, from 5:00 to 7:00 pm
Memorial Room, The Queen’s College, Oxford

The Global Manuscript and Text Cultures Seminar is a new initiative supported by the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures (CMTC). Its purpose is to create a regular, collaborative space in which graduate students (Master’s and DPhil) and early-career researchers (Post-docs, Junior Research Fellows, Career Development Fellows) are invited to present their work-in-progress, share methodological challenges, and engage in conversations that bridge disciplinary and cultural boundaries in the field. This seminar forms part of the CMTC’s broader mission to encourage meaningful dialogue across manuscript and text traditions, to foster a strong interdisciplinary community, and to support the training and intellectual development of students working on any aspect of manuscript culture. It particularly welcomes presentations that, while grounded in a particular manuscript tradition, raise analytical, methodological, and/or conceptual questions that speak across manuscript and text cultures.

The programme for Trinity Term 2026 is as follows:

Week 2 (7 May)
– Shaahin Pishbin (JRF, The Queen’s College) & Thomas Newbold (Chittagong): “Muhajir manuscripts: Field notes from the Alia Madrasa Library in Dhaka”
– Jaimee Comstock-Skipp (JRF, New College): “What’s in a nisba? Manuscript makers and migrations in 16th-century Central Asia”

Week 5 (28 May)
– Lauren Dogaer (JRF, University College): “How the Greek Text Culture Has Shaped Modern Views of Ptolemaic Egyptian Priests”
– Fergus Bovill (DPhil, History/Merton College): “Rebuilding the Medieval, Preserving the 19th Century: Littifredi Corbizzi, Johann Anton Ramboux, and the Making and Breaking of a Choirbook in Gubbio”

Week 8 (18 June)
– Jessica Rahardjo (Research Associate, Khalili Research Centre): “A Critical Edition and Translation of Sirāt al-Mustaqīm: A 17th-Century Malay Shāfi’ī Legal Text”
– Shane Patrick (MPhil AMES/Wolfson College): “The Debate of Abu Qurrah and its Manuscript Circulation”