“Exotic Ecdotics and Semiotics: The Purpose and Usefulness of Textual Criticism for Hardly Editable Manuscripts”

Even though they are situated at very different ends of the ecdotic spectrum (philology vs. genetic editing, neo Lachmannian, or sociocultural standpoints), with dissimilar stakes in the textual criticism debate, the three projects organising this conference share the same preoccupation with the almost impossible task of preparing a convenient edition for several types of manuscripts or texts, on account of their heavily illustrated character, plurilingual nature, or shapeshifting layout. As a result, instead of addressing the issue from within, a decision was taken to gather a large and diverse corpus of problematic situations (with or without connection to digital humanities), in order to stake out the complexity of the conundrum. This led to a debate about the manner(s) in which philologists, historians, or linguists can or should deal with complex manuscripts and texts, specifically in case studies ranging from the first uses of vernacular languages in the translations and adaptations of sacred texts in Western Europe until the late uses of similar vernacular rewritings in the Eastern Mediterranean and Southern Europe at the beginning of the Early Modern Era.