Jill Unkel
Words are not Enough is the sub-project of Paratexts Seeking Understanding run from the Chester Beatty. This project unites museum and academic experts in the fields of philology and experimental sciences. Each of the other sub-projects will explore the paratextuality of a particular manuscript culture represented in the Chester Beatty collections (Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Buddhist). These teams of experts in religious manuscripts will work with the scientific team at the University of Glasgow to craft empirical/experimental studies that test the assumptions of aesthetic cognitivism and the functions of paratexts.
The project will culminate in the transformation of the museum’s special exhibition gallery into a curated experimental space: Words are not Enough. The gallery will act as both a space to highlight the project findings to date and to host a series of quantitative experiments in a public context, addressing the questions and hypotheses posed by each sub-grantee working with their chosen manuscript culture.
Chester Beatty Paratexts website: