11:00am-4:00pm on Saturday 10 September
St John's College, The Old Library, St John's Street, CB2 1TP
In the story of the Tower of Babel, human ambition is thwarted by the fragmentation of speech into different languages. Yet if language is a barrier, it is surmountable; and people have long striven, across tongues and cultures, to communicate with one another and to reach new understandings.
This exhibition, situated in the 17th-century Old Library of St John’s College, explores how some classic inventions – writing; paper; print; books – have contributed over the centuries to the spread of ideas and the forging of connections. Polyglot Bibles, fictional alphabets, poetry, pedagogy, propaganda, cant, code, calligraphy, and more: this is a tale of language delving into the past, defining the present and divining the future.
An online version of the exhibition will appear on the St John's College website (www.joh.cam.ac.uk/online-exhibitions) shortly after the in-person event.