Richard Rawlinson Center
The Richard Rawlinson Center for Anglo-Saxon Studies and Manuscript Research fosters teaching and research in the history and culture of Anglo-Saxon England and in the broader field of manuscript studies. Dedicated to the memory of the founder of the chair of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University and established through a gift from Georgian Rawlinson Tashjian and David Reitler Tashjian, the Center opened in May 1994. It houses a growing specialist library of books, microfiches, microfilms, and slides. Other resources are being actively developed. In the spring of 2005 the Rawlinson Center received the endowment established by the Tashjians. Endowed funds support the general purposes of the Center at the discretion of the Director of the Medieval Institute. A separate fund, also endowed by the Tashjian family, supports a study fellowship, for which MA candidates in Medieval Studies are eligible to apply.
With Volume 40, the Old English Newsletter moved to a new publishing home in the Department of English at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. By arrangement with the Executive Committee of the Old English Division of the Modern Language Association, OEN Subsidia will continue as a Richard Rawlinson Center publication through 2010.
The series Publications of the Richard Rawlinson Center will be publishing three volumes in 2008: Aedificia Nova: Studies in Honor of Rosemary Cramp, edited by Catherine E. Karkov and Helen Damico; Eye and Mind: Collected Essays in Anglo-Saxon and Early Medieval Art by Robert Deshman, edited by Adam S. Cohen; and Anglo-Saxon Books and Their Readers: Essays in Celebration of Helmut Gneuss’s “Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts,” edited by Thomas N. Hall and Donald Scragg.
The Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture (SASLC) project has published Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture: The Apocrypha as the first volume of Instrumenta Anglistica Mediaevalia, a forum for interim and subsidiary publications related to the SASLC project.
In May 2007 the Center sponsored three sessions at the 42nd International Congress on Medieval Studies. Donald G. Scragg organized “The Vikings in Late Anglo-Saxon England,” in which Ole Crumlin-Pedersen, the 2007 Richard Rawlinson Center Congress speaker, offered a paper entitled “Viking and Anglo-Saxon Longships.” Thomas N. Hall and Paul E. Szarmach organized “The Pembroke 25 Homiliary: An Electronic Edition in Progress,” and Timothy C. Graham organized “New Discoveries in Anglo-Saxon Studies,” which was co-sponsored with the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of New Mexico.
For the 2008 Congress, the Center will sponsor a session entitled “Anglo-Saxon Sculpture: Images and Interpretations.” Organized by Donald G. Scragg, it includes papers by Catherine E. Karkov and Richard N. Bailey (the 2008 Richard Rawlinson Center Congress speaker).
