Latin American Library offers Rare Book School course

The Latin American Library (LAL) offered a satellite summer course with Rare Book School (RBS), a leading educational institute for topics concerning old and rare books, manuscripts, and special collections, housed at the University of Virginia.

LAL librarians Hortensia Calvo, Christine Hernández, and Rachel Stein co-designed and taught the course, titled "Spanish American Textualities to c. 1820." It explored the history of textualities in the region now referred to as Spanish America from the pre-colonial to colonial period (c. 300 BC to c. 1820 AD). The framework of “textualities”—as opposed to “the book”—encompasses the variety of material modes of writing and recording employed before and after 1492. The course covered a broad range of topics, from stone inscriptions and painted texts on artifacts of a variety of materials to knot-tying, writing with ink on linen paper, and manual printing on the moveable-type press.

The 30-hour course was offered in person at The Latin American Library from June 12-17, 2022. 

Read the full course description.

Image: Rubbing of Lintel 15 from the site of Yaxchilán, Chiapas, Mexico. From the Merle Greene Robertson Collection 133, Manuscripts Collection.