When
Where
The Early Books Lecture Series was established at the University of Arizona by Dr. Albrecht Classen, University Distinguished Professor of German Studies, in partnership with University Libraries Special Collections. For 20 years, University of Arizona scholars and Special Collections have invited the community to explore rare books, held by Special Collections, that provide primary resource materials for research, and are open for students, faculty, staff, and visitors to access.
The lectures are free, open to the public, from 6pm to 8pm, and held in the Special Collections Reading Room and online via Zoom.
Albrecht Classen, University Distinguished Professor, German Studies, College of Humanities
Presentation: Craftsmen as Masterbuilders in the Middle Ages: The Mendel Housebooks (Nuremberg)
Medieval craftsmen (and craftswomen at time) were mostly highly skilled and amazing artists in their field. This explains why we have such stunning architecture, weapons, tools, sculptures, or armor from the Middle Ages built by them. This talk will present the most famous collection of images of craftsmen, the Mendel Hausbücher (Housebooks) which is particularly impressive considering the details and range of information.
Dr. Classen received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1986. He has a broad range of research interests covering the history of German and European literature from about 800 to 1600. To date, Classen has published 132 books, 802 scholarly articles, 402 lexicon and encyclopedia entries, and ca. 2,920 book reviews. He also has published two CD-ROMs with readings of Middle High German and Early Modern German poetry (Chaucer-Studio).
Classen has won several prestigious teaching awards including the Five Star Faculty Award (2009) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Arizona Professor of the Year Award (2012). In 2017, he received the rank of Grand Knight Commander of the Most Noble Order of the Three Lions. In 2022, he had a Fulbright Grant for Cairo, Egypt. Additionally, he is the editor of several journals including Mediaevistik, Humanities, and Current Research Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities; and is a poet and author of short prose narratives.
Additional lectures
Early Books Lecture Series XX: Fabian Alfie (hybrid), April 8
Early Books Lecture Series XX: Faith S. Harden (hybrid), April 15