Elaine Treharne of English Department is elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries

Professor Elaine Treharne of the Department of English has been elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (of London), one of the oldest and most prestigious Royal Societies in the world.

The fellows are an international body whose charter dates from 1751, and to be elected a person must be “excelling in the knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other nations.” The society maintains one of the leading archaeological libraries in the United Kingdom, publishes books and learned journals, conducts a weekly lecture series in London, and operates numerous annual grant programs.

A faculty member hired as part of the interdisciplinary History of Text Technologies (HOTT) cluster program, Treharne specializes in Anglo-Saxon and later medieval manuscripts and texts, investigating “the archaeology of the book and the ways in which texts were received and used,” according to the HOTT website. Since her arrival at FSU in 2007, Treharne has found previously undiscovered manuscripts in Strozier Library’s Special Collections.

“In our Special Collections, we have probably one of the earliest manuscripts in Florida (an 11th Century sermon), and certainly one of only two or three early examples in the whole of North America of a very famous medieval grammar written by Priscian,” Treharne said. “My research suggests that only Harvard has other original versions of this text.” Until the discovery, both fragments were completely unknown to scholars worldwide, she said. To read more about HOTT, go to http://hott.fsu.edu/index.html