Thursday 14 November 2013

Artifacts in Context

My proposal topic for the class is somewhat on the edge of a study of texts and artifacts, as it looks at how a certain group of people interact with a class of texts (Medieval manuscripts). I suppose I framed my research largely from the perspective of studying a text or object because my background in English was so focused on that practice. In fact, my research proposal feels like a major departure from the study of texts to me, since the main focus of the research is on how specific users perceive the text.

When I think about the study texts and artifacts and what they can reveal I remember the major study I worked on for my Chaucer course as an undergraduate, which I didn't have nearly enough time or resources to complete. My original goal was to study "translations" of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales into Modern English, and understand what the choices made by the translators and publishers revealed about the context of their creation, and perceptions of the potential reader of the translation. It was a very ambitious topic, and I eventually scaled it down to look only at the framing of the texts, through prefaces, forewords, and textual organization.

Even with the changes I made, I found that the project was a bit outside the scope of my capabilities at the time, and it's always felt like a bit of an unfinished topic to me. I think that's why I chose an adaption on the theme for my topic in this course. For me, the most interesting thing to study about a text or artifact is how it is perceived and received, how it is produced and presented based on assumptions about the audience, and the possible discord between the two realities. It's probably a major influence from my English training, but studying context and production seem to be the most interesting possibility for me.

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