Books Before Printing in East Asia: Manuscript Culture Up to 1200

5 credits

Examines books and readers in East Asia from fourth century BCE to the onset of the printing era around 1000 CE and cross-cultural literary life in early China, Japan, and Korea. Explores how knowledge and information were composed, practiced, circulated, and forgotten via pre-printing materials such as bamboo, wood, and paper, and how readers and writers before the advent of printing employed their learning tools and informational devices.