The University of Rochester is one of the nation's leading private research universities, renowned for its commitment to innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and academic excellence. Guided by its motto, "Meliora"—Ever Better—the University fosters groundbreaking research and transformative education across its schools and centers.

University of Rochester

New Row

Contact expert @[Full Name](fullname), @[Job Title](job_title) at @[Organization](organization) for media, speaking, professional opportunities and more.

@[Full Name](fullname) at @[Organization](organization) | Contact Form

Expert Inquiry

Open Sans

Ineloquent  Ends:  Simplicitas,  Proctolalia,  and the  Profane  Vernacular  in  the  Miller's  Tale

Rediscovering text in the Yale Martellus map

“Initial inspection of reagent damage to the Vercelli Book,”

Dictatorship and Politics presents the first major study of General Juan Vicente Gómez’s regime in Venezuela from 1908 to 1935 and the efforts of Gómez’s enemies to overthrow him during his twenty-seven years in power. In this reappraisal of the Gómez regime, Brian S. McBeth demonstrates that Gómez’s success in withstanding opponents’ attacks was not only the result of his political acumen and ruthless methods of oppression. The political disagreements, personal rivalries, financial difficulties, occasional harassment by foreign powers, and at times plain bad luck of his opponents, usually in exile, were important contributing factors in the failure of their plots to overthrow him. In examining the opposition to the Gómez dictatorship, McBeth also intentionally removes the politics of oil from the center stage of the regime’s foreign relations and instead focuses on the tolerance and intolerance by foreign governments of the exiles’ activities. This monumental work of scholarship encompasses political correspondence, personal memoirs, newspapers, British and U.S. sources, and various public and private archives in Venezuela. Historians, as well as political scientists working on themes related to dictatorships and opposition, will find the book of interest. “Dictatorship and Politics is a fascinating revisionist study of the long regime of legendary Venezuelan dictator Juan Vicente Gómez. Brian McBeth provides a fresh analysis of a twenty-seven year autocracy that challenges the conventional depiction of a largely stable and uneventful era. To the contrary, he demonstrates that it was a period that bubbled over with revolutionary turmoil and family conflict. This exhaustively researched monograph is a valuable contribution to the fields of Latin American authoritarianism, Venezuelan political history, and oil politics in the era of gunboat diplomacy. Readers will quickly be drawn in to this shadowy world of power, revolt, and intrigue.” ―Winfield Burggraaff, University of Missouri “This book makes an original and important contribution to the study of Venezuela’s politics and international relations during the period when Juan Vicente Gómez ruled the nation (1908–1935). The massive research underlying this work is without parallel in the existing scholarly literature for this period of Venezuelan history. It will be the standard work on its subject for years to come.” ―Douglas Yarrington, Colorado State University

Desiring Bodies: Ovidian Romance and the Cult of Form

Les Eschéz d’Amours may be the last great medieval allegory to find its way into a modern edition. In the tradition of the Roman de la Rose, the Eschéz surveys matters of love, politics, economics, music, medicine, and chess through the lens of classical and scholastic learning.

Les Eschéz d'Amours: A Critical Edition of the Poem and its Latin Glosses

Gregory Heyworth is a medievalist and founder of the discipline of textual science, a combination of the traditional scholarly skills of paleography, codicology and bibliography, with material-, imaging-, and data-science. With secondary appointments in History and Computer Science, Heyworth's research lies primarily in the recovery of damaged manuscripts and cultural heritage objects using spectral imaging and machine learning, as well as in the editing of texts, the history of the book and of cartography, and classical influence upon insular and continental romance and satire of the Middle Ages. More colloquially, he is interested in finding ways to read books no one has read before, and in teaching others to do the same.

As director of the Lazarus Project, he and his students have worked to recover manuscripts, maps, and paintings in collections around the world and to make them available to scholars and the public. Current initiatives include the Vercelli Schoolroom Project, the Dresden Baroque Music Project, the 1492 Martin Behaim Globe in Nuremberg, the Laja Alta Bronze Age Cave Paintings in Jimena de la Frontera, Spain, and the Icons of Svanetia in Mestia, Georgia.

spectral imaging

Textual science

Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Humanities

Ancient Maps

Ancient Manuscripts

Codicology

Lazarus Project

How imaging technology is recovering damaged texts and rewriting history

First Known Star Map Found Hidden in Ancient Parchment in Egypt

U of R Researchers Study Lost Text in Centuries-old Manuscript

New Ways to Use Old Maps

Multispectral Imaging Brings Lost Torah Text to Light

Saving the lost text of a Torah scroll

Turning the gears of an early modern search engine

Buried by the Ash of Vesuvius, These Scrolls Are Being Read for the First Time in Millennia

The Future of the Past

Connections: Trying to solve one of the world's great mysteries -- and read ancient books

Treasured 16th-Century 'Lenox Globe' Gets a Digital Makeover

Is this scribbled signature the work of Shakespeare?

New imaging system captures text from barely open books

New Imaging Methods Shine Light on Hidden Texts

Columbus Sailed Here! Multi-Spectral Imaging of an Important 15th Century World Map

TED Talk: How I'm Discovering the Secrets of Ancient Texts

How to read an invisible classic | Gregory Heyworth | TEDxUM

Associate Professor of English and Computer Science; Director, Lazarus Project

Gregory Heyworth is a textual scientist; he and his lab work on new ways to read ancient manuscripts and maps using spectral imaging technology. In this fascinating talk, watch as Heyworth shines a light on lost history, deciphering texts that haven't been read in thousands of years. How could these lost classics rewrite what we know about the past?

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.
Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages at http://www.ted.com/translate

Follow TED news on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tednews
Like TED on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TED

Subscribe to our channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TEDtalksD...

TED Talk: How I'm discovering the secrets of ancient texts | Gregory Heyworth

What if there were a technology to recover these lost and unknown texts? Imagine worldwide how a trove of hundreds of thousands of previously unreadable and unknown works could change our knowledge of the past! What new classics would we discover that could rewrite the canons of literature, history, music, mathematics, philosophy, political science? Or more provocatively, how could they rewrite our cultural identities, building new bridges between cultures and people?


Gregory Heyworth is associate professor of English at the University of Mississippi. He is a medievalist and founder of the discipline of textual science. Professor Heyworth directs the Lazarus Project, a not-for-profit initiative to restore damaged and illegible cultural heritage objects, especially manuscripts and maps, using spectral imaging technology.  He has helped recover numerous important objects including the Vercelli Book and the 1491 Martellus Map. Currently he is working on a project to recover the manuscript fragments of the lost Cathedral Library of Chartres, France, bombed in WWII.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

 TEDxUM: How to read an invisible classic | Gregory Heyworth |

Lying in archives and libraries around the world, there are manuscripts, works of art, cultural objects of all kinds, many of them of enormous significance, sitting and waiting to be studied. Often, these items, which may range from just a few hundred to thousands of years old, are either damaged or obscured in some way.

For Gregory Heyworth, an associate professor of English and director of the Lazarus Project, the process of uncovering the hidden aspects of these objects is his passion, and he brings a unique set of expertise and innovation. Using techniques like multispectral imaging, the Lazarus Project has resurrected previously undiscovered works, often from a palimpsest, which is a manuscript that has been erased and covered over.

Through this work, Professor Heyworth has mentored both undergraduate and graduate students in the field of textual science, bringing traditional humanities disciplines and modern technology together, exploring how this knowledge can be applied everything from archeological sites to video game design.

Boundless Possibility: Gregory Heyworth on Unlocking Ancient Texts Using Digital Technology

Select Inquiry Type