Dr Mark Towsey explores McGill University’s Rare Books and Special Collections
Mark Towsey spent the first week of the Easter Vacation last month at McGill University, Montreal, as a Visiting Professor funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Connections Grants programme.
Dr Towsey was invited to McGill as a world-leading expert in Book History and the History of the Enlightenment to explore the University’s Rare Books and Special Collections, writing a brief report describing how McGill collections can animate research in these fields.
While at McGill, Dr Towsey led a masterclass for undergraduate students on methodological approaches to book history and the history of reading, and also gave a public lecture to an audience of over 80 people.
Dr Towsey’s lecture featured research from his current monograph project, and discussed some of the ways in which the works of Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume were received and talked about by eighteenth-century readers.