English

How does the material dimension of literature affect the reading experience? In this seminar, we will be confronting some book-historical concerns and peek between the covers, as it were, be they decorated vellum or modest paperback. Our primary focus will remain on reading texts, but with an eye towards contesting an early polemic in the study of material culture, that words and things are somehow at odds. To that end, we will be looking at examples of images illustrating a text, and vice versa, as in Blake’s etchings and engravings; read a serially published novel in the original instalments; pit our palaeography skills against a first draft manuscript or fair copy and compare it to the print version(s); ask whether paper holds our attention differently than a screen; visit Special Collections to examine archival material; and, in “Street Haunting,” meditate with Virgina Woolf on the tools of the trade.

How does the material dimension of literature affect the reading experience? In this seminar, we will be confronting some book-historical concerns and peek between the covers, as it were, be they decorated vellum or modest paperback. Our primary focus will remain on reading texts, but with an eye towards contesting an early polemic in the study of material culture, that words and things are somehow at odds. To that end, we will be looking at examples of images illustrating a text, and vice versa, as in Blake’s etchings and engravings; read a serially published novel in the original instalments; pit our palaeography skills against a first draft manuscript or fair copy and compare it to the print version(s); ask whether paper holds our attention differently than a screen; visit Special Collections to examine archival material; and, in “Street Haunting,” meditate with Virgina Woolf on the tools of the trade.