Aislinn Kelly to attend London Rare Book School

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Aislinn Kelly

The Digital Humanities Initiative is pleased to announce that Aislinn Kelly—a student representative of the DHI and leader of affiliate project “The Diary of a Soldier on Wheels”—has been accepted to the London Rare Books School and will attend two of its series of five-day courses, “History of Book Illustration” and “The Queer Book.” She will be in London from June 25 to July 11, 2017.

While she is in London on this study abroad trip that she planned herself, she will also visit the Imperial War Museum and the British National Archives to research the writings of Great War cyclist-soldiers. She is especially eager to return to the Imperial War Museum because its archive holds many relevant documents that she was not able to read on her brief visit to London on her way to present “The Diary of a Soldier on Wheels” at the 13th International Robert Graves Society Conference, St. John’s College, Oxford. She was awarded a COAS Dean’s Leadership Council TLO Scholarship to attend the courses and continue her research. She also received an Antiquarian Book Association bursary from the London Rare Books School that partially covers the course tuition.

Kelly believes that her affiliation with the DHI helped her secure a place in these courses. In her program biography for the Robert Graves conference, she mentioned that she is a student representative of the DHI, and other presenters and the conference organizers were interested in the work she had done as a student in Dr. Clayton McCarl and Dr. Aisha Johnson-Jones’ experimental summer course “Editing the Eartha M. M. White Archives.” Likewise, Kelly emphasized her involvement with the DHI in her application to the London Rare Books School. In that summer class held in UNF’s Special Collections, she learned about archival methods and gained invaluable hands-on experience working with documents. Her previous experience in archives no doubt positively influenced the London Rare Books School’s decision to accept her application.

The London Rare Books School accepts a maximum of twelve students to each course, and each of these seminars provides students with thirteen hours of instruction. While the courses are based at Senate House Library—the central library of the University of London—“History of Book Illustration” is partly conducted at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Students can observe demonstrations of printing and illustration technologies. “The Queer Book” also gives students the opportunity to examine the V&A collection and several activist archives, including the Feminist Library in Elephant and Castle. These courses provide access to archives that would be a privilege for anyone but especially for an undergraduate eager to know more about printed and illustrated materials. Kelly looks forward to sharing her study abroad and research experiences with other members of the DHI.

Congratulations to Aislinn!

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