Holy Digital Grail

Reviews / Votes

"Deeply learned, self-reflective and ethical, and a really good read, Holy Digital Grail represents a lifetime's worth of thinking deeply."-Sian Echard, University of British Columbia "Book history built around the precarious adventures of a single-and singularly embattled-Arthurian manuscript. Michelle Warren is among the most original, creative, and technologically alert medieval scholars of our time."-Paul Strohm, Columbia University "This is the kind of book history scholarship we need in the twenty-first century: connective, imaginative, and unafraid to follow the histories of books wherever they lead. Michelle Warren's fascinating account of a single manuscript and its many afterlives connects our digital present and the medieval past with insight and verve, deftly combining the study of manuscripts, digitization, and media history in a remarkable synthesis."-Alan Galey, University of Toronto "Warren's book is praiseworthy not just for her knowledge about MS 80, but also for her detailed understanding of the work involved in creating digital editions and the clarity with which she explains (what may be) unfamiliar technical terminology and processes to the reader. Warren's focus on the paratextual features of the manuscript, along with the attention she pays to processes of editing, collating, and preservation, make a thoughtful contribution to publishing studies in highlighting much of the unseen (and frequently unacknowledged) work that shapes audience interactions with medieval manuscripts."-Martha Claire Baldon, The Medieval Review "Warren's personal approach presents a tangible expression of how new digital platforms have allowed and even prompted new avenues in manuscript studies."-C. E. M. Henderson, Modern Philology "As with the search for the Holy Grail, the goal is not always entirely tangible, but the journey itself is very enlightening-and, in this case, also entertaining.... [Holy Digital Grail] is about much more than merely tracing the history of the records of one manuscript. The book addresses key questions about interactions between digital infrastructure and book history as well as the making and remaking of books. Ultimately, one could also see behind this a reflection of research data in the humanities, which results from the source, its digitization, and the multilayered enrichment over time."-Luise Borek, H-Sci-Med-Tech "Holy Digital Grail is a carefully constructed and refreshing account of the history of a medieval book, from the origins of its text to its digital existence. Warren's interdisciplinary and reflective approach allows her to successfully disentangle the intricate connections between text, matter, technology, politics, and people."-Renske Annelize Hoff, Jarbuch fuer Kommunikationsgeschichte "Warren's full title, Holy Digital Grail: A Medieval Book on the Internet, already hints at some of her book's qualities: it is original, witty, iconoclastic, and historically inclusive of everything from the Middle Ages to today."-Sarah Kay, Exemplaria "Holy Digital Grail is invaluable reading for anyone who works with digitized medieval manuscripts. Yet while medievalists will benefit from reading it, the book's appeal is larger than this. Holy Digital Grail speaks to medieval studies, literary studies, material texts, digital humanities, library sciences, and the history of information. It is an indispensable account of how new technologies change old books; it transforms not only how we understand texts but also how we understand our work."-Daniel Davies, Modern Language Quarterly "Holy Digital Grail succeeds on many levels. For literary scholars, Warren offers an incisive interpretation of Lovelich's texts that illuminates how the legend of Arthur was adapted and appropriated in fifteenth-c. London. Scholars of mss will value her deft reading of the codex, particularly her analysis of how content and form collude to produce meaning. Social historians will appreciate Warren's learned analysis of a London mercantile community, its politics, and its books. Editors, cataloguers, and coders will appreciate her reflections on how they remake a work through their choices. All readers, I suspect, will be challenged to think outside their comfort zones."-K. Winstead, Scriptorium