at home: Art in Context | Commonplace Books

"at home: Art in Context"
Presented by faculty, staff, visiting scholars, and student guides, these lectures are held on the last Tuesday of each month during the academic year. Each talk focuses on a particular work of art in the Center's collections, or a special exhibition, and takes an in-depth look at its style, subject matter, technique, or time period.
About this program
Yoonha Hwang discusses commonplace books-compilations of excerpts and passages copied into a notebook-using examples from the Center’s collections that were compiled by women in nineteenth-century England. While the act of commonplacing has been around since antiquity, it was only loosely defined as a practice in the early modern era. Hwang explores how the fluid categorization of these materials has allowed more inclusivity of women’s works in manuscript collections that historically privileged male reading and writing practices.
About Yoonha Hwang
Hwang is the Nadia Sophie Seiler Rare Materials Resident in the Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Center, where she has gained hands-on experience working with and cataloguing rare materials. She received her MLIS from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), with a specialization in Rare Books/Print and Visual Culture, and her BA in English literature and language with a concentration in book studies from Smith College.
Image: Commonplace book, ca.1830, pen and ink with watercolor and gouache over graphite, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund

[@greatedges]

Thanks so much for this enlightening talk. I am particularly pleased that it’s topic related to women’s efforts of keeping commonplace books and/or miscellanies. But let me add that the entire talk was of interest, including the issues and nuances related to cataloging such items.

[@NickyLindolls]

This was really interesting. I’ve only recently discovered commonplace books and I’m really curious about their use throughout history. This helped give me a better idea how they were used and how rare they are. Thank you for this interview.