Lists, Numeracy, and the Culture of Reckoning in Late-Medieval England

Martha Rust works in the literary-historical period of the Middle Ages, focusing on late-medieval manuscript culture: that network of beliefs and practices-- devotional, pedagogical, economic, technological, agricultural, among others--that constituted the milieu of medieval book production and use. The broader interests she brings to her study of this field include the phenomenology of reading, picture theory, and the history of writing.

Her first book, Imaginary Worlds in Medieval Books: Exploring the Manuscript Matrix, demonstrates the interpretive power of conceptualizing the medieval manuscript as a virtual realm, one that is called forth by a reader’s engagement with a book’s play of picture and text.

In her current book project, Item: Lists and the Poetics of Reckoning in Late Medieval England, Rust seeks to develop a theory of a written list as a device that functions within three signifying domains: the domains of words, of pictures, and of things.