Instructors: Robert Desjardins (Faculty of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies), François Pageau (Campus Saint-Jean), and Linda Quirk (Bruce Peel Special Collections). Description: Explore very early ideas about witchcraft by learning about an especially rare fifteenth-century manuscript. The book itself is a beautiful—if tattered and damaged—example of the luxury volumes produced for the wealthiest princes in late medieval Europe. The book’s contents, by contrast, are vile. They testify to the ways that intellectuals, fired by good intentions and emboldened by institutional power, have sometimes arrived at truly inhumane conclusions. An opportunity to learn about the manuscript materials housed in Bruce Peel Special Collections and to get a closer look at one of the best known and most studied. This online workshop is open only to the University of Alberta community and is capped at 30 participants. Halloween costumes optional

The website for Bruce Peel Special Collections offers detailed information about this series of workshops as well as information about research and exhibitions.