Christina Mergel
PhD candidate - 1st cohort
Medieval German Literature
Research project
“Refracting the Jewel – The Implementation of Fable Material in the Textual Witness Cod. Bodmer 42 (15th century)” (working title)
The project focuses on the manuscript Cod. Bodmer 42 (1455–1460, Bibliotheca Bodmeriana, Cologny/Geneva), in order to start from there to negotiate questions of heteronomous dependencies and autonomous textual realizations on a concrete object. The codex contains Ulrich Boner’s The Jewel (German: Der Edelstein) and was produced in the context of the so-called ‘Lauber workshop’. In this respect, Cod. Bodmer 42 belongs to these two corpora and appears to be the only extant text that is part of both. To what extent the codex depends on the conventions of these two corpora and to what extent its realization follows its own criteria is to be clarified.
The concentration on this particular manuscript is justified by its singularity, which is reflected in both the material and the contents. Cod. Bodmer 42, for example, shows peculiarities in text inventory and sequence, in the bilingualism of Latin and German, in the layout, in the inter- and paratextual references, and in its imageless state.
The manuscript is to be located in its cultural-historical contexts, such as the change of media and the increasing vernacular writing. One thesis of the project is that this textual witness manifests reactions to the innovations and changes of its time (e.g., book printing, rationalization and economization processes) as well as to established traditions (e.g., the European fable tradition, especially Boner’s The Jewel, the production of the ‘Lauber workshop’). In this way, mutual conclusions are to be drawn from contemporary changes and the tradition to the particularities of the manuscript and vice versa.
The aim of the research project is to order, evaluate and interpret these particularities of the concrete object. For this purpose, methods of codicology, paleography, and stemmatology will be used, as well as literary approaches to textual immanence, intertextuality, reception aesthetics, and edition philology. A transcription of the manuscript is made according to the guidelines of the TEI.
Curriculum Vitae
since 03/2024 – Research Fellow, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (KU), Edition: “Boners Edelstein – digital“
since 01/2023 – Research Fellow, Friedrich Schiller University Jena
10/2022–05/2023 – Research Assistant, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Project: Cataloguing of medieval manuscripts (EAB Paderborn)
07/2022–09/2022 – Research Fellow, Leipzig University
04/2022–07/2022 – Fellow, Herzog August Bibliothek zu Wolfenbüttel (Doctoral fellowship of the Rolf und Ursula Schneider-Stiftung)
10/2021–03/2022 – Fellow, University of Geneva / Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cologny-Genf (Doctoral Exchange Grant of the Zeno Karl Schindler Foundation)
10/2019–09/2021 – Research Fellow, Leipzig University
04/2018–07/2018 – Scholar, Herzog August Bibliothek zu Wolfenbüttel (Scholarship “Digital Humanities” of the Marbach Weimar Wolfenbüttel Research Association)
12/2017–09/2019 – Editor, le-tex publishing services GmbH (Leipzig)
04/2017–11/2017 – Practical Trainee, Nagel & Kimche (Literary publishing house, Zürich)
08/2014–12/2015 – Research Assistant, Leipzig University, Project: “Diebold Lauber – digital“
10/2012–09/2015 – M.A. German Studies, Leipzig University
10/2012–03/2013 – Student Assistant, Leipzig University
10/2009–09/2012 – B.A. German Studies, Leipzig University / University of Oslo (ERASMUS, 08/2011–04/2012)
Presentations
„Olle Ochsenköpfe? Deutungsversuch zur Erstellung des Rubrikenverzeichnisses der späten ‚Lauber‘-Handschrift Ms. 304 (Colmar) anhand ihres Materials“ – Tagung „Registerkulturen“, Wolfenbüttel (15.11.2024)
„Nothing to see...? How the Crisis in Manuscript Production Displaced the Images“ – Leeds International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds (03.07.2024)
„Bilderhandschriften ohne Bilder. Die Modifizierung etablierter Arbeitsschritte in der späten ‚Lauber-Werkstatt‘“ – Kolloquium des Graduiertenkollegs, Jena (22.04.2024)
„Cod. Bodmer 42 – ein ‚Halbfertigprodukt‘?“ – Sommerkurs „Inschrift – Handschrift – Buchdruck. Medien der Schriftkultur im späten Mittelalter“, Greifswald (21.06.2023)
„Gang hin du arme creatur. Zur Inszenierung der Tierfiguren in Ulrich Boners Edelstein“ – Tagung „Zwischen Allegorese und Agency. Zur Narratologie mittelalterlicher Tierfiguren“, München (15.06.2023)
„Boners Werk und Laubers Beitrag? Die Edelstein-Handschrift Cod. Bodmer 42 im Gefüge zweier Korpora“ – Kolloquium des Graduiertenkollegs, Jena (08.05.2023)
„Mehr als nur Material. Zu Entstehungskontexten von Cod. Bodmer 42 in seinen Werkstoffen“ – Graduiertentagung „Überlieferungs- und Provenienzgeschichte als Kulturgeschichte. Der Zeugniswert mittelalterlicher Handschriften“, Freiburg i. Üe./Schweiz (06.09.2022)
„Edelsteine im Umbruch. Cod. Bodmer 42 als ein (Halbfertig-)Produkt des 15. Jahrhunderts?“ – 18. OFFG, Freiburg i. Br. (28.04.2022)
„Überlegungen zur Singularität von Cod. Bodmer 42“ – Westschweizer mediävistisch-germanistisches Forschungscolloquium, Genf/Schweiz (11.03.2022)
„Ein Blick ins Material. Zur Kodikologie von Cod. Bodmer 42“ – 16. Freiburg-Leipzig-Forum, Leipzig (16.02.2022)
„Eine TEI-Transkription von Cod. Bodmer 42. Möglichkeiten einer digitalen Edition“ – 15. Freiburg-Leipzig-Forum, Freiburg i. Br. (15.08.2021)
„Boners Werk und Laubers Beitrag? Zu den Gliederungselementen in Cod. Bodmer 42“ – 14. Freiburg-Leipzig-Forum, Leipzig (14.03.2020)