Neil Weijer (PhD Johns Hopkins ’17) is Curator of the Harold & Mary Jean Hanson Rare Book Collection at the University of Florida. His research and teaching focuses on the history of early books and manuscripts, and he has published on the intersections between legendary history, forgery, and scholarly practice in medieval and early modern England. As curator, he works to help faculty and graduate students incorporate the holdings of the Rare Book Collection in their teaching and research.
He is interested in how the lives of old books cross (or don’t) into digital spaces, and the use of digital tools in premodern studies. Before coming to UF, Neil worked as a postdoctoral fellow on the Archaeology of Reading in Early Modern Europe, which looks at the annotations of early modern English thinkers. His ongoing work on Re-Imagining History (a collaboration with librarians and faculty at Dartmouth College) examines the digital legacy of the manuscripts that contain Britan’s most popular medieval history.
Neil serves as co-chair of the Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities, and directs the project Storied Books at the University of Florida, which showcases student research and experimentation around the collections in Gainesville, and is produced in collaboration with the undergraduate student fellows he mentors.