(05-10-2023, 11:54 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I hope that if any of the students contact any Voynich researcher, this is at least as part of their research process, and the actual interviews with experts will be with professional art historians.
As stated in the description of the course, the topics of the expert survey may well overlap. Thus, experts with a different expertise than art history are also asked.
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Students are encouraged to intensify their own research through interviews with experts. This applies to the art-historical focus as well as methodological overlapping areas such as palaeography, in which help "from outside" is necessary.
That is a good point, if they need to involve other disciplines or aspects of the manuscript, there are certainly some people here they could contact. But when it comes to art history specifically, I would certainly hope for the involvement of trained art historians :)
Hmm, yes, the question of who counts as an expert is a tricky one and highly subjective. I myself would not be so ready to dismiss the hours, days, weeks, months and years of research completed by at least several members of this site solely based on them not having a scholarly paper or book published. Scholarly publication doesn't always confer expert status either, especially if it is only one or a handful of publications and/or after limited research as opposed to a lifetime of dedication. And while one person's contributions to VM research (e.g. linguistics or cryptography) may not be the same as another's of a different discipline (e.g. art history or medieval or manuscript studies), there is still much insight that can be gained from cross-disciplinary research.
For 20 years, I volunteered as a staff member, most of those at a director level, for a local convention. We had literally hundreds of guest speakers over the course of the 3-4 day event annually, most of whom weren't paid to appear or only had their hotel room and/or airfare paid for by the convention. None received speaker fees. I've always felt the convention had a very apt point of view for distinguishing between different levels of expertise. They considered those who were paid to do work on which they were guest speaking to be guests, with all guests receiving 2 badges, one for themselves and one for a person of their choosing, plus a few other on-site perks (like green room access). A small percentage of those guests were also eligible for the travel cost coverage. But the convention also recognized the significant contributions by others who weren't paid for the work they did about which they were also guest speaking, calling them program participants and giving them one badge and not much else by way of perks. Quite a few online journalists were part of this latter category. So too were the bloggers. The most important criteria for the convention was the value each would add to the program, how much of a draw they would be for paid attendees. And believe me when I say that some of the guests and many of the attendees could get quite geeky about meeting some of their favorites amongst the program participants, considering them no less an expert than themselves.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Ask two people about a list of people with expertise in a single discipline, about whom they both have knowledge, as to whether and to what degree each considers each on the list to be an expert and you will likely get a difference of opinion. With this particular course, the beholder is the teacher and it will be up to her to judge who counts as an expert. What exact criteria she will use we can't know without a copy of her syllabus and maybe not even then. But at least she has been offered this site a potential source of experts, in case it would be helpful to her. Though I too would hope that at least some of the experts interviewed will be art historians.
(05-10-2023, 11:54 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Even someone like Rene, who is without a doubt one of the foremost experts on the manuscript, does not have a background in art history. He could give them some pointers maybe and point out things that have been said before, but he cannot speak authoritatively about the art history aspect of the manuscript. I myself have published a peer-reviewed paper about the manuscript's images and have written some things on my blog that are kind of well regarded, but still I am by no means a qualified art historian.
I know nothing of value, for the purposes of such a course, about art history or palaeography, and it is always good to be aware of it oneself.
Lots of footnotes though
A good place for these people to start looking would be the review board of last year's conference.
Some of the names are also well known here.