Studies in the History of the Book and the Culture of the Written Word

Graduate

This course will provide an introduction to the historical problems encountered and interpretive possibilities revealed when books (both artefacts and texts) become the focus of inquiry. Ranging broadly through a variety of disciplinary approaches to manuscript and print cultures on both sides of the Atlantic, we will consider such questions as the complex uses of literacy, and the extent to which technological transformations such as the printing press or the computer have determined literary and cultural change. Studies of the book trades (printing, bookselling, journalism, publishing of all kinds) will be used to illuminate changes in religious, scientific, scholarly, literary and other aspects of the cultures (from medieval to postmodern) in which they flourish.