The History of Writing: From Mesopotamian Origins to the Greek Alphabet

3 credits · Undergraduate

This seminar introduces upper level students to both the history of writing and some classic problems of social theory. It will tell the story of the origins of writing in juxtaposition to the story of the state. What does the rise of writing have to do with the state? What does the rise of the state have to do with writing? Where did publics, in the sense of communities based around the circulation of texts, first appear? If the state is, as Max Weber argued, the monopoly of legitimate violence, how do people know whose violence is legitimate? If violence always raises questions of communication, should we begin to think about monopolies of legitimate communication as well? In the end, is it really true that, “more than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness,” or is it impossible to understand media by itself? FORMATS: Lecture