Rare Book School sponsors a number of free, open-to-the-public evening lectures each year at the University of Virginia on a wide variety of bibliographical topics; please browse our list of past lectures for a sampling. RBS lectures are usually held Mondays and Wednesdays while RBS is in session, at 5:30 p.m. in the Dome Room of the Rotunda or in the Auditorium of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. A reception follows each lecture.

• Aug
  1

  2022
  Ideologies of the Codex in Richard Hakluyt and John Smith – NEH-RBS Living American History in Primary Documents Lecture

  Lecturer: Joseph Rezek - Associate Professor of English and Director of the American & New England Studies Program, Boston University
  Dome Room, UVA Rotunda • 5:30 p.m.
  
• Jul
  27

  2022
  The Long Life in Print and Manuscript: Characterizing the Elderly across Genres and Formats in Early Modern Italy

  Lecturer: Hannah Marcus - John and Ruth Hazel Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University
  UVA Special Collections • 5:30 p.m.
  
• Jul
  25

  2022
  A Wrinkle in Time: The Structural Significance of a Concertina-Fold Almanac – The Kress Foundation Art of the Book in Europe Lecture

  Lecturer: Megan C. McNamee - Lecturer of Premodern Art, University of Edinburgh
  Dome Room, UVA Rotunda • 5:30 p.m.
  

Rare Book School sponsors and co-sponsors a range of programming at various times throughout the year, including activities at book fairs, symposia at UVA and other locations, and more. These include events organized by members of the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography at their home institutions.

• Apr
  21

  2023
  Preserving and Analyzing Digital Texts

  Presented by: The Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography
  Zoom • 3:00-4:30 p.m. ET
  
• Mar
  29

  2023
  Continental England: Author Elizaveta Strakhov in Conversation with Zachary Hines on Form, Translation, and Chaucer in the Hundred Years’ War

  Presented by: The Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography
  Zoom • 12:00-1:00 p.m. ET
  
• Mar 23
  /
  Mar 24
  

  
  2023
  New Directions in Indigenous Book History

  Presented by: The Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography
  Zoom • 8:30 a.m.–3:45 p.m. ET
  

Since 1992, Rare Book School has been responsible for a rotating series of exhibitions in the Dome Room of the Rotunda at the University of Virginia, many curated by UVA undergraduate and graduate students. The books and other materials shown in these exhibitions are drawn both from the RBS collections and from the UVA Library, supplemented by occasional loans by other institutions and individuals.

• Sep 28
  /
  Dec 23
  

  
  2022
  Building the Book from the Ancient World to the Present Day: Five Decades of Rare Book School & the Book Arts Press

  Curated by: Barbara Heritage & Ruth-Ellen St. Onge
  The Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street, New York
• Jun 6
  /
  May 1
  

  
  2019
  Comics in Circuit

  Curated by: Ruth-Ellen St. Onge, Jennifer Camp, Elizabeth Dorton, Devon Shannahan, Katherine Smith, and Zach Tauscher
  Dome Room, UVA Rotunda
• Jun 13
  /
  Apr 30
  

  
  2018
  An Archipelago of Readers: Forming a Literary Culture in Digital Media

  Curated by: Katherine McNamara, with the assistance of Will Norton
  Dome Room, UVA Rotunda