Program Overview

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Program Overview

The Scholarly Editing course provides a comprehensive overview of the key concepts of the philological method, including text, error, edition, and apparatus. The course aims to provide participants with an understanding of the main concepts and ideas of textual criticism applied to literary texts, focusing on their linguistic status, transmission, and manuscript and print tradition.

Course Structure

The course is organized into four weeks, offering a journey through the creation, transmission, publication, and amendment of texts. Each week consists of several modules, comprising videos, written texts, infographics, and assessment quizzes.

Week 1 – Text

Week 2 – Error

Week 3 – Edition

Week 4 – Apparatus

Target Audience

The course is designed as a preparatory course for students of Scholarly Editing and Digital Textuality in the Master's Degree Programme in Digital Humanities and Digital Knowledge (LM43). The course aims to accompany participants by providing them with the necessary foundations for analyzing, studying, and producing printed and digital editions.

Learning Outcomes

Participants will be able to:

• understand the mechanisms of text transmission in relation to different material supports
• understand the main copying errors, recognize guiding errors, and distinguish between errors and variants
• distinguish between the main types of editions: diplomatic, critical, and genetic
• read an apparatus and distinguish between positive and negative, genetic, and evolutionary types of apparatus

Requirements

No prerequisite knowledge is required from the participants.

Activities

Each week includes an introductory video on the general topic, and each module features slides, images, and three videos. At the end of each week, there will be a quiz to summarize and test knowledge. Finally, each week will be accompanied by further reading on the topics covered.

Open Badge

Participants who complete the course will be awarded an Open Badge from BESTR. Participants who log in to the platform with University of Bologna, EDUGAIN, CIE, or Spid authentication and answer correctly at least 60% of the questions in total will receive an email with instructions to download their Open Badge from the BESTR website.

Subtitles

English subtitles are available for each video and can be activated or not.

EQF Level

LEVEL 7

ISCED-F

0232 Literature and linguistics - Philology

Categories

• Arts and humanities

SDGS

• SDG 4 - Quality Education

Course Professors

Paola Italia

Paola Italia teaches Italian Philology and Digital Scholarly Editing at the University of Bologna. She has worked on various nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors and topics, with a particular focus on philological and linguistic issues related to editions of paper and digital texts.

Cecilia Salerno

Cecilia Salerno holds a Master’s degree in Italian Studies from the University of Bologna. Her work focuses on authorial philology, digital philology, and Italian theatrical literature.

Beatrice Nava

Beatrice Nava is University Assistant Postdoc at the University of Vienna (Digital Philology), where she teaches Introduction to DH tools and methods (Python), Digital Edition, and Semantic Web, and Data Structures and Data Modelling.

Collaborators

Ilaria Burattini

Ilaria Burattini is a research fellow at the University of Pavia and conducts her studies in the field of Italian literature, author philology, and digital philology.

Roberta Priore

Roberta Priore earned a PhD in Literary and Philological Cultures at the University of Bologna; her dissertation investigated the origins and early pages (1817–1819) of Giacomo Leopardi’s Zibaldone, based on manuscript research at the National Library of Naples. She currently serves as a research fellow at the University of Bologna (ADlab) and has coordinated and contributed to digital-editing projects such as Zibaldone100 and VaSto.

Course Details

1. Course Number: DEH16
2. Start Date: 10 November 2025
3. End Date: 31 March 2026
4. Time Commitment: 6 hours
5. Language: English