Dr. Shef Rogers, co-director of the Centre for the Book, will present two 20-min conference papers back-to-back as part of English and Linguistics Departmental research seminar series.  The presentation will take place at 4 pm on Friday, 28 April, in Burns 4.

The first paper focuses on the textual history of Alexander Pope’s Rape of the Lock within the context of Pope’s coming of age and coming to grips with the realities of his physical handicaps.  Entitled “Profound Learning or Puerile Puns? Pope’s Use of Petronius via Rochester,” the talk examines an allusion to Rochester not previously noted by Pope scholars.  The implicit parallels between Pope and Petronius’s Encolpius further illuminate the highly sexual nature of Pope’s best-known poem.

The second paper also concerns Pope and his contemporaries, looking at how they used mock-scholarly indexes to satirise an increasingly professionalised world of scholarship and academia.  Entitled “The Satiric Literary Index as a Measure of Cultural Authority,” this talk considers satiric indexes from William King’s 1698 ‘index’ to Charles Boyle’s second edition of Dr. Bentley’s Dissertations … Examin’d through Alexander Pope’s Dunciad in Four Books (1743).  These experiments with form and arrangement show authors striving to enrich their satire even as they objected to the reduction of literature to taxonomic analysis.

Photo by Teagan Glenane

We regret that due to a family bereavement, Richard Overell will not be able to deliver his talk as scheduled, but we hope to hear from him on this topic next time he is in Dunedin.

Join us on Wednesday 26 April at 5:30 in Archway 2 for an engaging illustrated public lecture on

The John Emmerson Collection at the State Library of Victoria

Nicolas Barker, editor of The Book Collector, described the late John Emmerson as ‘one of the great book collectors of our time’. In 2015, the John Emmerson collection, comprising over 5,000 books and pamphlets on 17th-century English literature and history, was donated to the State Library of Victoria. This session will look at some of the highlights from the Emmerson Collection.

Richard Overell was until the end of 2014 the Rare Books Librarian at Monash University Library. He now works at State Library Victoria helping to catalogue the John Emmerson Collection.

Recently opened in honour of the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s 95 theses, the current exhibition at the University of Otago Special Collections runs through to 9 June 2017.  The display provides good historical insights into the events and significance of the reformation, while also allowing the Library to show off some very attractive items.  The exhibition includes Hartmann Schedel’s famed Nuremberg Chronicle, printed in 1493; a late 15^th century medieval Book of Hours; a sheet of the German Bible, printed in 1483, an early guidebook to Rome (1515), and most notably, a rare Latin Bible (1481) that contains fragments of indulgences printed by William Caxton, England’s first printer. Luther’s own work features, including his Deuteronomy (1525), his Works (1550), and a facsimile of his Bible, Die Propheten Alle Deutsch [1534]. Works by Johannes Cochlaeus, Erasmus, and Philip Melancthon, Luther’s friend and colleague, also feature. Also on display are colourful facsimile leaflets (flugblatt) from the period. They include Weiditz’s ‘Käsebauer und Käsefrau’ [Cheesemaker and his wife] (1521) and Erhard Schön’s ‘Der Teufel mit der Sackpfeife’ [The Devil playing the Bagpipe], 1535.

TV 39’s story on the Exhibition–https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTgT42mwUXI

Luke Chapman has done a lovely job of capturing the story of how Dunedin became a City of Literature.  These two segments not only reveal the wide range of people engaged with City of Literature, but also show how the idea has further enriched Dunedin’s sense of community.  Many thanks to Luke for these segments of viewing pleasure.

Dunedin – A City of Literature – In the Beginning

Dunedin – A City of Literature – Potential