UM scholar to be visiting professor in York, England

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ORONO – University of Maine English professor Linne Mooney’s reputation as a leading international scholar of medieval English manuscript studies has been affirmed by her selection by the Leverhulme Trust as a visiting professor at the University of York, England.

Mooney was notified of the success of York’s application to the trust this fall and will begin a yearlong position at the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, at the start of the spring semester.

The London-based Leverhulme Trust offers a limited number of visiting professorships each year to allow distinguished academics from overseas universities to take up posts in the United Kingdom.

The criteria for selection are the academic standing and achievements of the visitors in research and/or teaching; their potential for making a significant contribution to the skills in the host university; and the specific and systematic nature of their proposed programs while in the UK.

UMaine English Department Chairman Tony Brinkley said Mooney’s selection confirmed the value of her achievements.

“The position recognizes the significance of the way Professor Mooney’s scholarship is helping to shape our understanding of medieval texts,” Brinkley said.

“It’s one more indication that the people of Maine have an English department at their land-grant institution of international distinction,” he said.

Mooney is a specialist in late-medieval English palaeography -the study of handwriting – and codicology – the study of books.

Her skills will be a welcome addition to York’s interdisciplinary Centre for Medieval Studies.

The center unites faculty from disciplines such as English, history, art, archeology and art history.

It serves 40 master’s students in medieval studies, medieval history and medieval English literature, and 25 doctoral students researching medieval topics.

Mooney said she was looking forward to the appointment as a chance to contribute to the research at York, to further her own research, to teach doctoral students and to develop new materials for undergraduate courses at UMaine.

“I always submit my students to my enthusiasm for medieval manuscripts. Now I’ll be able to do that a lot more,” Mooney said.

Mooney’s duties at York will include formalized advice and collaboration, presenting lectures and teaching seminars.

Her ability to identify the handwriting of medieval scribes and her data on early ownership of more than 1,000 manuscripts will contribute to the development of York’s database of privately owned English urban manuscripts.

She also will deliver three Leverhulme Lectures on aspects of late-medieval scribal activity and manuscript culture in association with York’s Centre for Medieval Studies and the Department of English and Related Literature.

Mooney will give a fourth Leverhulme Lecture at the English department’s national medieval postgraduate conference in June 2002.

Her fifth Leverhulme Lecture will open the Ninth International York Manuscripts Conference on Urban Manuscripts in July 2002.

Mooney also will continue her research for a book she is writing on professional scribes in medieval England.

In 1999 she received a yearlong fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to begin research on this work. She is also collaborating with Christopher Howe of Cambridge, Peter Robinson of De Montfort and Adrian Barbrook of Cambridge on the Leverhulme Trust-funded Studies on Textual Evolution of Manuscripts by Mathematical Analysis.

In addition, Mooney is developing a Web site that will feature digital images of medieval manuscripts. She undertook this project last spring with a scholarly materials grant from UMaine.

Mooney said it was her hope that she could compile a few pages of writing from each of 150 known scribes and post them on the Web site. She envisions the Web site as a tool that could be used world-wide to identify the individuals who wrote the manuscripts.

“People sitting in a library could get online and compare the materials with what they might be looking at in the library at that very moment,” she said.

But because each digital image of a manuscript has up to a $200 price tag, plus permission fees, it is a costly endeavor.

Mooney will use her time at York to develop a prototype of the Web site to show to funding agencies and potential corporate sponsors, and to write grant applications.

Her teaching responsibilities will include four advanced seminars on codicology, palaeography and textual criticism for students in the master’s programs of Medieval English Literatures and Late Medieval Studies.

She will present two seminars on information technologies, including databases, and research methods for all master’s and doctoral students.

Mooney also will prepare materials for an undergraduate honors course that she hopes to teach after she returns to UMaine. The course will examine the processes involved in the transition from manuscript-writing to print, and draw parallels between that era and the current transition from print to electronic media.

“They faced some of the same issues of copyright, author control, distribution and larger readership that we are facing today. The more I learn about the transition to print, the better prepared I’ll be to teach such a course,” Mooney said.

Mooney has also been a visiting scholar at King’s College Cambridge, Oriel College Oxford, Wolfson College Cambridge, and Corpus Christi College Cambridge.

She has taught at the University of Maine since 1982.