The Winterthur Museum, Garden, & Library and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media have unveiled an exciting new collaborative digital humanities project, titled The Denig Manuscript, which explores the fascinating history of a rare and spectacular artifact of Pennsylvania’s German Pietistic heritage. I am exceedingly honored to have an essay featured in the project. Titled “Ludwig Denig, Cobbler of the Cosmos: Penmanship, Calligraphy, and Pietistic Spirituality in Early Lancaster, Pennsylvania,” the essay takes readers on a voyage through time, space, and religious conviction, to view the world through the pious lens of an early Pennsylvanian. Check out the essay here:

https://denigmanuscript.org/essays/scholarship/ludwig-denig-cobbler-of-the-cosmos-penmanship-calligraphy-and-pietistic-spirituality-in-early-lancaster-pennsylvania/  

Ludwig Denig’s manuscript emblem book is an artifact of American religious history that may seem as mysterious as it is beautiful.  Why would a prosperous craftsman devote hours of his life and labor to creation of a devotional manuscript, in a town that abounded with printed books for sale?  And isn’t the making of illuminated manuscripts a task that occupied monks during the European Middle Ages--not a pastime for innovative craftsmen in an American frontier town on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution?  The seeming oddity of Denig’s enterprise to our modern eyes makes the manuscript he created ripe for analysis as an artifact of the religious, literary, intellectual, and material history of the early modern Atlantic world.

This essay serves as a beginner’s introduction for users of the Denig manuscript website, providing tips for how to engage with a Pennsylvania German manuscript for the first time.  It offers useful insights on what to look for when viewing Denig’s document. Drawing on theories and methods developed by Claude Lévi-Strauss in La Pensée Sauvage (1962), Clifford Geertz in The Interpretation of Cultures (1973) and Carlo Ginzburg in The Cheese and the Worms (1976), Ludwig Denig, Cobbler of the Cosmos explores why, and how, a Pennsylvania German-Protestant craftsman embraced manuscript art as a tool for spiritual exploration—and liberation—at the end of the eighteenth century.  In an effort to unlock the textual and visual inspirations for his distinctive cosmology, the essay isolates and analyzes key elements of the material and aesthetic qualities of Denig’s manuscript, ranging from the document’s gothic scripts to the devotional images that fill the book’s pages, situating the artifact within the wider world of devotional manuscript production among eighteenth-century Pennsylvania Germans.  It argues that Denig inhabited a transatlantic German-Protestant culture in which manuscripts nourished individual and collective spiritual expression. 
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I am honored to see my work featured alongside the contributions of distinguished scholars, and to have partnered with Winterthur (forever my scholarly home!) and other organizations to see this project to fruition. Check out the site today!

When I published The Word in the Wilderness: Popular Piety and the Manuscript Arts in Early Pennsylvania in 2020, I knew I eventually wanted to write a theoretical and methodological piece, to lay out in explicit terms my approach to Pennsylvania German manuscript studies. More than four years later, it has finally happened!

I am so pleased to see my new article “A Labyrinth in the Wilderness: New Pathways for the Study of Pennsylvania German Illuminated Manuscripts” in The Journal of Lancaster County’s Historical Society (vol 124, no. 3: September 2024). The research is based on an NEH Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship completed at LancasterHistory in 2022, work undertaken at the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan via a Jacob M. Price Digital Fellowship in 2022-2023, plus research at many other institutions.

Learn more about the Journal here: https://www.lancasterhistory.org/research/the-journal/.

New cover art for Cloister Talk: The Pennsylvania German Material Texts Podcast has been unveiled, and it reflects the upcoming season’s slight shift of tone and content. 

The new season, titled “Pathways in Pennsylvania German Studies,” will broaden the scope of the podcast and provide a fulsome exploration of the state of Pennsylvania German studies today, while exploring possible directions for the Pennsylvania German Studies of tomorrow.  The new cover art captures visually both the mystery and spiritual depth inherent in early Pennsylvania's German Protestant traditions.

Season 4 of Cloister Talk is scheduled to debut in winter, 2022/2023.  Check back soon for more updates!  In the meanwhile, catch up on previous episodes at https://anchor.fm/cloistertalk.  Research and production of Season 4 of Cloister Talk was supported by the Jacob M. Price Digital Fellowship at the William L. Clements Library, a rare book and manuscript library at the University of Michigan, that specializes in print and manuscript materials on the history of North America and the Caribbean, with particular strengths in 18th and 19th century American history.  Learn more at https://clements.umich.edu/.  

 
I’m thrilled to share that my latest publication has made its appearance. 

My essay “‘Inscribe, Lord, Your Will in My Stone Heart’: Finding Religious History in German American Illuminated Manuscripts” is essentially a theoretical and methodological treatise that considers what it means to study Pennsylvania German religious manuscripts as multifaceted, spiritual objects that both delivered text and performed a certain ritual function in lived religious experience among Pennsylvania Germans.

The essay appears in the volume Elusive Archives: Material Culture Studies in Formation, edited by Professors Martin Brückner and Sandy Isenstadt of the University of Delaware, and published by the University of Delaware Press.  All contributions in the book are organized around a central task: “to consider a thing, especially an elusive thing, as being itself a type of archive.”  I argue that bringing the findings of material culture methods to texts--perhaps the most traditional kind of archive one can imagine--can prove very beneficial and open new avenues for analysis and interpretation.

I am always proud to be a University of Delaware alum, but especially in moments like this, when I realize just how fortunate I was to find myself immersed in an interdisciplinary scholarly community that values all sorts of "archives"!

To learn more about the book, visit the website of the University of Delaware Press: https://udpress.udel.edu/book-title/elusive-archives/. 
 

At the close of Season 3 of Cloister Talk, sit back and relax with a hot cup of tea to reflect on Pennsylvania German manuscript culture and popular piety in early America, and future directions for the study of early American cultural and intellectual history.  Reader and listener-submitted questions considered in this episode include the implications of The Word in the Wilderness for our understanding of the changing place of cursive handwriting instruction in American schools today, shifting approaches to the scholarly study of Pennsylvania German calligraphy and manuscript illumination advocated in The Word in the Wilderness, and possible reasons for the long decline of traditional illuminated manuscript culture in German Pennsylvania.  The episode closes with some personal reflections on next steps forward for the field of Pennsylvania German material texts within the context of closely-aligned scholarly disciplines.  Make a hot cup of tea, get cozy, and settle in for an enjoyable conversation as the paperback version of The Word in the Wilderness makes its debut!

Listen to “A Second Cup of Afternoon Tea with Alexander Lawrence Ames: Answering Questions about The Word in the Wilderness, and Some Closing Reflections on the Book” here:

https://anchor.fm/cloistertalk/episodes/A-Second-Cup-of-Afternoon-Tea-with-Alexander-Lawrence-Ames-Answering-Questions-about-The-Word-in-the-Wilderness--and-Some-Closing-Reflections-on-the-Book-e13s4op

Founded by Benjamin Franklin, the Library Company of Philadelphia is the thriving epicenter of early American book history, and the inspiration of librarianship in America. James N. Green, Librarian Emeritus of the Library Company and a scholar of early American book history, introduces us to the history of the Library Company, the contours of its Pennsylvania German collections, and possible futures for the fields of material texts, Pennsylvania German studies, and cultural heritage preservation broadly conceived. 

Sharing personal memories of his long and distinguished career in librarianship and the scholarly study of the history of material texts, in this Cloister Talk interview Green also reflects on the unique library ecosystem that defines the Philadelphia region, the foundation of the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL), and the evolving civic role of libraries.

Listen to “Cloister Talk Live! Dr. Franklin’s Library: A Conversation with James N. Green, Librarian Emeritus of the Library Company of Philadelphia” here:

https://anchor.fm/cloistertalk/episodes/Cloister-Talk-Live--Dr--Franklins-Library-A-Conversation-with-James-N--Green--Librarian-Emeritus-of-the-Library-Company-of-Philadelphia-e13fjvu

Mysticism is a central (if complex, debated, and often misconstrued) part of the religious DNA of early German Pennsylvania.  The theology and devotional practice of the Schwenkfelders—a German-speaking sectarian group present in the colony—connected to early modern European mystical tradition in important ways, and the religious community practiced a rich manuscript tradition.  This episode of Cloister Talk Live! takes us to the Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center to dive into the Library’s astounding rare book, manuscript, and decorative-art collections.  Curators and scholars Candace Perry and Allen Viehmeyer introduce us to the institution’s holdings, consider how they relate to the material culture of other Pennsylvania German groups, summarize the state of Schwenkfelder studies today, and suggest new directions for the field.

Listen to “Cloister Talk Live! A Mystical Heritage: A Conversation with Allen Viehmeyer and Candace Perry of the Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center” here:

https://anchor.fm/cloistertalk/episodes/Cloister-Talk-Live--A-Mystical-Heritage-A-Conversation-with-Allen-Viehmeyer-and-Candace-Perry-of-the-Schwenkfelder-Library--Heritage-Center-e1335dq

Few landmarks of early Pennsylvania history inspire awe and capture the imagination quite like Historic Ephrata Cloister in Lancaster County—a place of architectural beauty, spiritual devotion, mystical exploration, musical accomplishment, and tremendous historical significance to early-American book production and the manuscript arts.  My trips to Ephrata over the years have been pivotal in shaping my perspectives on the research questions I explore in The Word in the Wilderness: Popular Piety and the Manuscript Arts in Early Pennsylvania, so I am delighted to have been able to make this thought-provoking conversation a part of Cloister Talk Live!

In this episode, Ephrata Curator Kerry Mohn and Museum Educator Michael Showalter guide us through the history and significance of Ephrata and help us place the site within the wider context of early American religion and material culture, with a particular focus on Ephrata’s musical culture.

Listen to “Cloister Talk Live! Incense Hill:  A Conversation with Kerry Mohn and Michael Showalter of Historic Ephrata Cloister” here:

https://anchor.fm/cloistertalk/episodes/Cloister-Talk-Live--Incense-Hill-A-Conversation-with-Kerry-Mohn-and-Michael-Showalter-of-Historic-Ephrata-Cloister-e12mano

Nestled amid the rolling hills and verdant landscape of the Brandywine River Valley in Delaware, The Winterthur Library brims with rare books and manuscripts documenting material life in America, including early German Pennsylvania.  Join Emily Guthrie, who until recently served as Director and NEH Librarian at The Winterthur Library, for a conversation about this remarkable repository of American history and culture, and how The Winterthur Library fits into the work of the Winterthur Museum and its surrounding 1,000-acre country estate.  Ms. Guthrie, who recently took over as Librarian at the Library Company of Philadelphia, introduces us to the rich collections of Pennsylvania German rare books and manuscripts that reside in The Winterthur Library and tells us about her old side-gig as a shepherd and goatherd on the Winterthur estate. 

Well-known as one of the most prominent cultural institutions specializing in American history, the Winterthur Museum, Garden, & Library comes to life in dynamic new ways in this special episode of Cloister Talk Live!  Listen to the episode here:
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https://anchor.fm/cloistertalk/episodes/Cloister-Talk-Live--Books-Along-the-Brandywine-A-Conversation-with-Emily-Guthrie--Formerly-of-The-Winterthur-Library-e1281hk