Research Remco Sleiderink

Abstract

Jan van Boendale (c. 1280-1351?) was a highly influential Middle Dutch author in the 14th century, combining a job as city clerk in Antwerp with writing didactic literary works. Despite being the first Dutch author on whom we have substantial biographical information, few studies have systematically (1) assessed the influence of his historical positionality on his author function or (2) considered his oeuvre as a whole. This is due to the complex issue of authorship in the texts of the so-called 'Antwerp School', which makes the delineation of Boendale's oeuvre a notorious 'cold case' in Dutch literary history. This project will first delineate Boendale's oeuvre using computational authorship verification methods. Next, it will use those works to assess how Boendale's positionality influenced his author function. It will approach his positionality from three distinct angles: Boendale as a clerk, as a city dweller, and as a man. These angles feed directly into my research questions: how his positionality regarding the three aspects influenced his literary writings. Each research question will have a distinct methodology (computational text reuse detection, topic modeling and word field analysis respectively), advancing the application of computational research methods in medieval literature studies. Key to this project is the awareness that the historical Jan van Boendale need not always have been congruent to his narrators, an aspect that has been overlooked in the past.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Kestemont Mike
• Co-promoter: Sleiderink Remco
• Fellow: Vandyck Caroline

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Centre for Digital humanities and literary Criticism (ACDC)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

'Re-mediating the Early Book: Pasts and Futures' (REBPAF) is a European Commission-funded MSCA Doctoral Network that will support 13 PhD researchers undertaking projects on late medieval and early modern books. These PhD researchers will be spread across the following institutions: University of Galway (3 positions), University of Antwerp (2 positions), University of Alicante (2 positions), University of Zürich (2 positions), University of Vienna (2 positions), and University of Bristol (2 positions). All PhD researchers recruited to this network will join a vibrant and supportive international community of scholars; they will also benefit from bespoke, network-wide programming and will gain hands-on work experience in related cultural sectors as part of their training programme. REBPAF focuses on the ways in which 15th- and 16th-century book producers (scribes, printers, entrepreneurs) negotiated the dynamic relations between the manuscript book and the printed book and adapted to the evolving challenges of the market, and it demonstrates the continuing relevance of these cultural and economic negotiations to the modern world. To this end, REBPAF unites the interests of present-day organisations that re-mediate the early book – publishers, bookdealers, museums, and other stakeholders in the creative and heritage sectors – with those of academic scholarship. REBPAF has the double aim of: 1) engaging a new generation of medievalists and early modernists in an innovative and collaborative research programme that asks fundamental and interdisciplinary questions about the history of the book and the written word and its future in a digital environment; and 2) equipping the researchers recruited to this network with high-level transferable skills and competencies through internships and training workshops provided by a suite of nine non-academic partners that have a direct interest in and relevance to our research agenda. REBPAF's non-academic partners include Antiquariat Inlibris (Austria), Maggs Bros. Ltd. (UK), The National Print Museum (Ireland), Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Austria), Vlaamse Erfgoedbibliotheken (Belgium), Stiftsbibliothek Klosterneuburg (Austria), Boydell & Brewer (UK), Quaternio Verlag Luzern (Switzerland), and Cúirt International Festival of Literature (Ireland). The PhD projects in Antwerp are 'Karel ende Elegast in manuscript and print' (project 3) and 'Is it Worth It? Modelling the Perceived Value of the Medieval Book Using Predictive Machine-learning Methods' (project 11)

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Sleiderink Remco
• Co-promoter: Kestemont Mike
• Fellow: Fox Marika
• Fellow: Voorneveld Nicky

Research team(s)

• Institute for the Study of Literature in the Low Countries (ISLN)

Project website

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

In today's society, we can observe a growing societal problem with the emotion 'fear' and a tendency of increased attention to emotions in general. Within academia, the 1980's paradigm shift towards a view on emotions as culturally contingent has sparked the 'affective turn' across the humanities, including literary historical studies. This project turns to the literary imagination in the medieval period, and seeks to examine how the emotion of fear is shaped within Middle Dutch chivalric romance (1250-1350). For this purpose, it will draw on the recently developed concept of 'emotive scripts.' This theoretical framework suggests that texts have an underlying script which functions as a literary blueprint for shaping emotionality, and which prescribes certain rules for emotional behaviour. To decipher the 'scripting' of fear, this project will focus on three aspects: (1) emotive staging and representations, (2) character-specific patterns, and (3) intra-textual social conceptions. Via cross-cultural comparisons, this project will investigate how the script of the Middle Dutch romances relates to that of other medieval literary traditions, but it will also investigate whether an overarching script emerges within the Middle Dutch tradition, or whether traces of divergence can be observed.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Sleiderink Remco
• Fellow: Breeus-Loos Laurent

Research team(s)

• Institute for the Study of Literature in the Low Countries (ISLN)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Recent international research increasingly focuses on the spread and survival of medieval literature. During the Middle Ages, the material transmission of texts depended entirely on the manual transcription of literature, granting texts a fluid character. This project will investigate which coping mechanisms helped to guarantee the sustainable exchange of information in textual cultures that are characterized by unstable transmission modes. An important aspect of the survival of literature that deserves further empirical research is the text form. To examine whether formal aspects can be labelled as 'constraints' that limit changes, the complete transmission of two short 13th-century Middle Dutch texts will be compared in a digitally supported way, namely: the Martijn trilogy of the Flemish poet Jacob van Maerlant, and Dietsche Catoen, a translation of the Latin Distichs of Cato. The results will be controlled with a control corpus, namely Maerlant's voluminous Scolastica (1271). Because the texts differ significantly in terms of formal characteristics, this project wants to examine whether and which formal aspects of a text (such as rhyme and text structure) can be considered as 'coping mechanisms' in the transmission. It can be expected, for instance, that the Martijn trilogy, which is built according to complex rhyme schemes, shows less variation in the transmission than Dietsche Catoen, in which the only formal requirements are the four-line stanzas and the paired rhyme.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Sleiderink Remco
• Co-promoter: Kestemont Mike
• Fellow: Moors Sofie

Research team(s)

• Institute for the Study of Literature in the Low Countries (ISLN)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Fixed forms. The material transmission of the strophic poems by Jacob van Maerlant In the middle ages the material transmission of texts depended completely on the copying by hand of manuscripts (copies of copies). This gave the texts a fluid character. In this project we want to research how the use of fixed forms influenced the stability of the text transmission. We focus on all text witnesses of the ten strophic poems by the Flemish poet Jacob van Maerlant (active in the 2nd half of the 13th century).

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Sleiderink Remco
• Fellow: Moors Sofie

Research team(s)

• Institute for the Study of Literature in the Low Countries (ISLN)

Project type(s)

• Research Project