BHPC Event | J. R. de J. Jackson Memorial Lecture with Professor Kristina Richardson
When and Where
Speakers
Description
Sponsored by the Collaborative Specialization in Book History & Print Culture (BHPC).
"Woodblocks and Worlds: Egypt’s Medieval Printing Legacy and the Birth of European Print"
You are cordially invited to attend the Thirteenth Annual J. R. de J. Jackson Lecture, presented by the Collaborative Specialization in Book History and Print Culture, University of Toronto, in association with the Book and Media Studies Program at St Michael’s College. This year's lecture, by Dr. Kristina Richardson (University of Virginia), will be held in the Charbonnel Lounge, St Michael’s College, 81 St Mary Street, on Thursday October 23rd 2025 at 4:00 p.m., with a reception to follow.
Kristina Richardson is John L. Nau III Professor of History and Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Virginia. She specializes in histories of non-elite groups in the Middle East. She is the author of two monographs: Difference and Disability in the Medieval Islamic World (2012) and Roma in the Medieval Islamic World: Literacy, Culture, and Migration (2022). She is currently writing Black Basra: Race, Science, and Slavery in Early Islamic History on free and unfree South Asian and East African agricultural laborers in medieval Iraq.
In the Jackson Lecture, she will consider the blockprinting tradition that flourished in Egypt from the 800s to ca. 1420 and its relationship to the emergence of blockprinting in southern Germany in the 1410s.
Professor Richardson will also lead a student seminar in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, 120 St George Street, on Friday October 24th 2025 at 10:00 a.m., drawing on materials from the Fisher collection and developing themes from her talk. The seminar is open to graduate students in BHPC’s participating units, including those not enrolled in BHPC, and to upper-year undergraduates in the BMS program. Registration is required as space is limited. To register, please email bookhistory@masseycollege.ca by Friday, October 17th.