Freshman Seminar 42w. The Book: From Gutenberg to the Internet
Instructor: Robert Darnton
Semester: Spring 2008
Blogger: kurquoise
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Freshman Seminar 42w. The Book: From Gutenberg to the Internet
This blog was inspired by Freshman Seminar 42w. The Book: From Gutenberg to the Internet by Robert Darnton

Week 1:What is a Book?
February 6th, 2008
Reading: A New Introduction to Bibliography by Philip Gaskell Appropriately for a class on this subject, the freshman seminar The Book: From Gutenberg to the Internet is held in Houghton, Harvard’s rare books library. I set out well-prepared for my first day of class, armed with a backpack of...
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Week 2: What is Book History?
February 13th, 2008
Reading: From The Book History Reader “What is the History of Books?” by Robert Darnton “Bibliography, Pure Bibliography, and Literary Studies” by Fredson Bowers “The Book as an Expressive Form” by D. F. McKenzie One of the privileges or drawback (depending on how you see it) of looking...
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Week 2: Hot Off the Presses
February 13th, 2008
The course is structured in a way so that the first hour and a half is devoted to a seminar discussion. The second half is devoted to a workshop – hands-on experiences with history. In the basement of Lamont Library, buried amidst stacks of microfilms, there is a nook devoted to historical documents...
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Week 3: The Gutenberg Bible in History
February 20th, 2008
Reading: Johann Gutenberg and his Bible by Janet Ing When it comes to history, we have a need to create cultural heroes. Individuals are pinpointed as “movers and shakers” and celebrated as heroes in of Western culture. Christopher Columbus is a good example--and the reason I bring this up--Johann...
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Week 3: The Gutenberg Bible Up Close and Personal
February 20th, 2008
For anyone who hasn’t had a chance to look at a Gutenberg Bible in person or simply prefers to do in the comfort of his or her own home, the University of Texas has scanned the entire Bible and uploaded the images online. During our workshop this week, William Stoneman, head of the Houghton Library,...
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Week 4: Bibles Galore
February 27th, 2008
Having spent the first half of the class discussing the English Bible, we were knee deep looking at historical Bibles during workshop. No longer restricted to only English Bibles, Susan Halpert of the Houghton Library brought out Greek, Latin, Hebrew, German, French, polyglot (multiple language) and...
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Week 4: The English Bible
February 27th, 2008
Reading: Let it Go Among Our People: An Illustrated History of the English Bible from John Wycliff to the King James Version David Price, Charles C. Ryrie We focus on the English Bible not because it is in the language we are most familiar with but because it has the most convoluted history of...
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Week 5: When a Picture is Worth More Than 1000 Words
March 6th, 2008
Reading Printmaking and Visual Communication by William Ivins Is the book a verbal or a visual medium? I think the “right” answer would include both, but the modern conception of the book certainly focuses on words rather than images. William Ivins argues the opposite in his book Printing and...
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Week 5: Printmaking Workshop
March 6th, 2008
For our workshop this week, a whole room of prints was laid out for our perusal, from 15th century woodcuts to 19th century lithographs. But in true Ivins-fashion, I’ve realized that describing these prints in words to you dear readers is completely futile. Unfortunately, none of Harvard's print collection...
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Week 6: Shakespeare’s First Folio
March 13th, 2008
Reading: The First Folio of Shakespeare (pdf), Peter Blayney If I haven’t quite made it obvious, the format of my seminar is as follows: a student makes an individual presentation on the readings, the class uses the presentation as a jumping off point for discussion, Prof Darnton makes some brilliant...
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Week 6: The Importance of a Shakespeare Play You Probably Haven’t Heard Of
March 13th, 2008
I’d like to take this entry to discuss some of the copyright issues of the First Folio and how they affected the finished product that we saw in the workshop. Most specifically, I want to look at the controversy that surrounded the play Troilus and Cressida, which almost did not make it into the First...
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Week 7: The Evolution of Copyright
March 20th, 2008
Reading Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright, Mark Rose As I promised last week, there is a lot more about copyright to be discussed, so let’s delve right in. Mark Rose’s book purports to address the “invention” of copyright, but I find the word choice to be a little misleading...
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Week 7: Book Binding and Preservation
March 20th, 2008
Today’s workshop actually had little direct correlation with the class discussion. We took field trip to the Harvard Library Preservation Center for a very hands-on lesson on book binding. As we've discussed before, early books were sold as loose sheets of paper, and owners would have them bound...
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Week 8: The Books of Prerevolutionary France
April 6th, 2008
Week 8: The book trade, diffusion of ideas, and Enlightenment. Readings: -“Reading, Writing, and Publishing” from The Literary Underground of the Old Regime, Robert Darnton -“The Encyclopédie Wars of Prerevolutionary France,” Robert Darnton -“Readers Respond to Rousseau,” from The...
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Week 8: L’Encyclopedie and Other Clandestine Books Workshop
April 6th, 2008
The discussion of today's class was a complete departure from earlier discussions about bibliography. The physical appearance of these books merited very little discussion. When it came time for workshop, however, a closer look at the books showed what one can page books buy their cover pages, if not...
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Week 9: Samuel Johnson
April 15th, 2008
Reading: Printing, Technology, Letters, and Samuel Johnson by Alvin Kernan Let’s start out with an honest question: How many of you know who Samuel Johnson is? Now, how many of you have read something written by him? Do not worry if you answered “no” to one or both of the above questions...
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Week 10: Reading in America
April 20th, 2008
Readings from Reading in America: Literature & Social History edited by Cathy N. Davidson “The Life and Times of Charlotte Temple: The Biography of a Book” by Cathy Davidson “Antebellum Reading and the Ironies of Technological Innovation” by Ronald J. Zboray “Sense and Sensibility: A...
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Week 11: Into the Future
April 28th, 2008
Reading: Book Business: Past, Present, and Future by Jason Epstein Starting with Gutenberg and his printing press, this course has proceeded in roughly chronological order. We’ve covered the historical highlights--Shakespeare, copyright, the Enlightenment, Samuel Johnson, etc—and now we have arrived...
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Final Thoughts
May 25th, 2008
It’s the end of the year and ‘tis the season for evaluations galore. Between various surveys, the freshman evaluation and the CUE (Course Evaluation), I’ve spent the past week seriously reflecting on my freshman year. Academically, this year has been a whirlwind of challenges, frustrations, and...
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