Ethiopic Manuscripts Illuminated: A Symposium on the Gerald and Barbara Weiner Collection

Thursday, May 24, 2012
1-5 p.m.
Charles E. Young Research Library Conference Center
RSVP by May 21 to 310.206.8526 or rsvp@library.ucla.edu.

Speakers:

Wendy Belcher, Princeton University
Steve Delamarter, George Fox Evangelical Seminary
Marilyn Heldman, Independent Scholar
Raymond Silverman, University of Michigan
Kesis Melaku Terefe, Virgin Mary Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Los Angeles

In a small religious community in Ethiopia, two scribes take up handmade pens. One transcribes a sacred text onto sheets of animal skin parchment, decorating the pages with ornaments and figural paintings. Another inks prayers and drawings onto a lengthy scroll. Days turn to weeks as the scribes complete their tasks. Finally, the first creates an arresting frontispiece and binds the sheets between boards, while the second fills the narrow scroll, rolls it up, and places it in a custom-made leather carrying case.

The making of books and scrolls is a living tradition that continues to this day in Ethiopia. Thanks to a magnificent gift from Gerald and Barbara Weiner, the UCLA Library has now become the leading repository for Ethiopic manuscripts in North America.

"Ethiopic Manuscripts Illuminated: A Symposium on the Gerald and Barbara Weiner Collection," the first symposium devoted to the synthetic study of works in the Weiner Collection, celebrates this historic gift by bringing together experts in the field to investigate the tradition of book-making in Ethiopia, from the earliest hand-painted manuscripts to the most recent use of sacred manuscripts and practices of illumination.

Co-sponsored by the UCLA Library | UCLA Center for African Studies | UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies | UCLA Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-century Studies | UCLA Center for the Study of Religion | UCLA Dean of Humanities | UCLA Department of Art History | UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures | UCLA Graduate Division

Program

1 p.m.: Opening Remarks
Gary E. Strong, UCLA University Librarian
Steven Nelson, Associate Professor of African and African American Art History, UCLA Department of Art History

1:15 p.m.: Kesis Melaku Terefe, Virgin Mary Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Los Angeles

1:30 p.m.: "The Gerald Weiner Collection and the Study of the Book Culture of Christian Ethiopia"
Steve Delamarter, Professor of Old Testament, George Fox Evangelical Seminary

2:15 p.m.: "The Art of Illumination in Ethiopia"
Marilyn Heldman, Independent Scholar

3 p.m.: Break and refreshments

3:15 p.m.: Mary (Polly) Nooter Roberts, Professor, UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures

3:25 p.m.: "Ink, Paint and Parchment: Making Manuscripts in Aksum (Ethiopia) Today"
Raymond Silverman, Professor, Department of the History of Art, University of Michigan

4:10 p.m.: "Manuscripts, Monks, and Monasteries: Ethiopian Texts in Cultural Context"
Wendy Belcher, Assistant Professor, Comparative Literature Department / Center for African American Studies, Princeton University

4:50-5 p.m.: Closing Remarks
Sharon E. J. Gerstel, Professor of Byzantine Art History and Archaeology, UCLA Department of Art History
Gerald Weiner, Donor, Gerald and Barbara Weiner collection of Ethiopic Manuscripts

5-6 p.m.: Reception