| 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
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...
Read more...
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...
Read more...
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In the basement of Lamont Library, buried amidst stacks of microfilms, there is a nook devoted to historical documents...
Read more...
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...
Read more...
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,...
Read more...
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...
Read more...
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...
Read more...
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...
Read more...
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...
Read more...
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...
Read more...
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...
Read more...
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...
Read more...
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...
Read more...
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...
Read more...
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...
Read more...
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...
Read more...
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...
Read more...
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...
Read more...
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...
Read more...