Previous Events
Uncovering Scotland's Bookish Histories: The Books and Borrowing, 1750-1830 Database
09/04/25
A short talk on 'Books and Borrowing, 1750-1830', a project which uses previously unexplored library borrowing records to create a new resource that reveals hidden histories of book use, knowledge dissemination and participation in literate culture.
Looking for Love in the Archive...
08/10/25
As part of Black History Month, the University of Glasgow Library presents, "Looking for Love in the Archives...", a talk by transdisciplinary artist Ashanti Harris. Ashanti will share some insights from her recent residency working with Theatre Studies and the University of Glasgow’s Archives & Special Collections to seek out the Black Histories held in the Scottish Theatre Archive.
Explosive history: fireworks and how-to books in the seventeenth century
05/11/25
Before and after the 1605 Gunpowder Plot, fireworks were an important part of celebrations and festivals in Britain. But who knew how to make them? This talk introduces some of the books that instructed readers in the art of pyrotechnics, and discusses the wider phenomenon of the how-to book in early modern Europe through examples found in the Ferguson Collection at University of Glasgow Library.
The Tlaxcala Codex: Bridging Indigenous worlds and colonial transformations
10/12/25
University of Glasgow Archives & Special Collections' MS Hunter 242, the Descripción de la ciudad y provincia de Tlaxcala de las Indias y del Mar Océano para el buen gobierno y ennoblecimiento dellas, widely known as the Tlaxcala Codex, an Indigenous account of the history of Tlaxcala and the first years of the colonisation of the Americas. The Tlaxcala Codex has a long history as a diplomatic object, bridging worlds, fostering transatlantic conversations, and increasing understandings of the histories of Indigenous peoples and environments and Indigenous perspectives on empire and resistance.
