This Fall, EMROC is delighted to be partnering once again with Wellcome Collection and the Royal College of Physicians for its annual transcribathon, set for November 17. Come join us to explore early modern recipes of all kinds. Everyone is welcome — no experience necessary!
Beauty By the Books will be our theme this year. We’ll be paying special attention to the cosmetic recipes in two manuscripts, exploring what they can tell us about early modern ideas of how skin care and hair dressing overlapped with ideas of health. There will be plenty of culinary recipes along the way as well!
Manuscripts: This year, we’ll be transcribing two books without known owners: MS.4054, a Wellcome Collection manuscript dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and an eighteenth century collection MS.504, from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) in London. The Folger will be providing support via the FromthePage transcription interface. More details on how to transcribe will be available at our Transcribathon Central page are here!
Events:
Friday, 17 November: Transcribing events all day, including:
- 1pm GMT/ 8am EST/ 5am PST: Live transcribing, with conversations and questions in our live Zoom Room
- 3pm GMT/10am EST/ 7am PST: Zoom discussion facilitated by Gail Chapman from the Royal College of Physicians. The speakers will include:
- Professor Jill Burke, author of ‘How to be a Renaissance Woman’
- Julia Nurse, a collections research specialist at Wellcome Collection
- Pamela Forde, archive manager at the Royal College of Physicians.
- 5pm-8 pm GMT/ 12-3 pm EST/ 9 am-noon PST: Conversations and questions in our live North American Teams Room.
AVAILABLE ONLINE: Talks from Tuesday, 14 November:
A recording of the online discussion, Recipes for Early Modern Beauty, hosted by Wellcome Collection can be accessed here.
Patricia Akhimie, Director of the Folger Institute at the Folger Shakespeare Library, will facilitate a discussion featuring three scholars:
- Professor Jill Burke, author of ‘How to be a Renaissance Woman’
- Hayley O’Kell will talk about Iberian women’s addiction to eating fired clay, a beauty fad that captured the attention of some of the period’s most famous artists and writers.
- Dr Romana Sammern will discuss the connections between early modern beauty, art and artefacts – reflecting on what objects like toilet boxes and ointment jars can tell us about beauty cultures.