Why the RUTTER Training School is an Experience Worth Having

One-week training schools hardly turn participants into experts in a particular field, no matter how intensive they are. Reasonably, the more diverse and multidisciplinary they are, the less they can deepen into a single specific aspect. That was the case of the RUTTER training school “The long life of manuscripts: from material to immaterial texts”, in which international experts provided a multifaceted overview of the study of manuscripts.

While it’s not possible to think that an evening of paleography enables someone to read any 16th-century manuscript, the theoretical-practical lesson showed the difficulties and the kind of work necessary to embark on such a task. Similarly, the aim of the talks on digital humanities presented some of the possibilities offered by the technological advances in the field and a taste of the practical work rather than a specific training.

So, what are the reasons to attend the training school? The survey that we prepared to evaluate the success of the event can give some clues about it.

All participants registered an improvement of their current knowledge ranging between good and excellent, whit the majority considering it very good. The quality of the lectures was rated very good by 64% of participants and excellent by 34%. These are very good evaluations, but what we find important is that the training school was considered helpful in future research by all participants, with 46% rating if excellent and 54% rating it very good.

Networking, visits to beautiful places like the Biblioteca da Ajuda and the Academia das Ciências and moments of fun were also present, as shown here.

Silvana Munzi and Luana Giurgevich, organizers of the training school, before one of the sessions. Photo by José Carvalho

The main goal of the course was to show how the study of ancient manuscripts is still crucial in the fields of history, history of science and beyond. We think that we fully accomplished our mission, and we hope that this experience will inspire the future path of the participants. In the meantime, we are planning the second edition of the RUTTER training school, stay tuned! [Silvana Munzi]