Understanding how information is created, preserved and communicated in different historical periods

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1 Syllabus for the Course 17:610:586 THE HISTORY OF BOOKS, DOCUMENTS, AND RECORDS IN PRINT AND ELECTRONIC ENVIRONMENTS (3) (also: 16:194:675 TOPICS IN LIBRARY & INFORMATION SCIENCE) Professor Marija Dalbello SCILS - Rutgers University I. Catalog Description The course will examine the production and circulation of knowledge in light of changing technologies, institutions and textual forms. An overview and comparison of textual transmission in oral, manuscript, print and electronic communication environments will include regulatory frameworks and the history of intellectual property (from attribution, authorship, to participatory ownership of creation). It will examine the current scholarship relevant for understanding books, documents and record manifestations comparatively. The focus on the book trades, web spheres, and socio-technical systems such as digital libraries will prompt questions about the nature of texts (print, non-print, and digital), their reception, associated literacy practices, communities and institutional contexts. The course will present a critique of the technological revolution perspective. II. Pre- and/or Co-requisite None III. Course Objectives Understanding how information is created, preserved and communicated in different historical periods Comparison and contrasting of textual transmission processes in print and electronic environments and communication shifts Understanding the structure of texts and protocols for their reception in a historical framework Examination of theoretical issues and selected in-depth study of significant case studies in the current multidisciplinary scholarship of electronic and print culture Examination of methods and sources for the study of print and electronic texts and application of these methods for in-depth study of such texts, their production, circulation or use IV. Organization of the Course Module I - Technology & Chronology 1. Innovation 2. Transformation: Technologies & Documentary Practices

2 Module II Genre, Discourse, Representations, Structured Spaces 1. Structure of the Text (Typography, Punctuation, Paratext, Hypertext) 2. Transformation: From Codex to Electronic Publishing 3. The Order of Texts (Digital Libraries, Web spheres, Blogospheres) Module III Contexts of Distribution, Regulatory Frameworks 1. Use, Appropriation 2. Networks, Communities 3. Metacultures, Institutionalization, Standardization 4. Authors, Publishers and the Public 5. Regulation and Legitimacy 6. Circulation of Value (Canon, Bestsellers) V. Major Assignments REQUIRED TEXT: Finkelstein, David, and Alistair McCleery An Introduction to Book History. (Routledge) VI. Methods of Assessment Methods Paper Critical Assessment of Readings Term Paper Class participation and discussion 20% of final grade 20% of final grade 40 % of final grade 20% of final grade VII. Course Readings Anderson, Benedict "Old Languages, New Models." In Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, pp (Verso) Bettley, James, Ed The Art of the Book: From Medieval Manuscript to Graphic Novel. (V&A Publications) Blair, Ann Reading Strategies for Coping with Information Overload, ca , Journal of the History of Ideas 64: Bolter, David Jay, and Richard Grusin Remediation: Understanding New Media. (MIT) (Introduction: The Double Logic of Remediation, pp. 1-50). Burke, Peter A Social History of Knowledge: From Gutenberg to Diderot. (Polity) Buzzetti, Dino Digital Representation and the Text Model, New Literary History:

3 Carter, John & Percy H. Muir, Eds Printing and the Mind of Man. 2 nd ed. (K. Pressler) Cavallo, Guglielmo, and Roger Chartier, Eds A History of Reading in the West. (U of Massachusetts P) Chandler, James, Arnold I. Davidson, and Adrian Johns Arts of Transmission: An Introduction, Critical Inquiry (Autumn): 1-6. Charvat, William Literary Publishing in America, (U of Massachusetts P) Colclough, Stephen Consuming Texts: Readers and Reading Communities, (Palgrave) Darnton, Robert The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie, (Harvard U P) Darnton, Robert The Literary Underground of the Old Regime. (Harvard U P) Darnton, Robert "What is the History of Books." In The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in Cultural History, pp (Norton) Davidson, Cathy Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America. (Oxford U P) Dillon, Andrew, and Barbara Gushrowski Genres and the Web is the Home Page the First Digital Genre? Journal of the American Society for Information Science 51 (2): Eisenstein, Elizabeth Defining the Initial Shift. In The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, pp (Cambridge U P) Febvre, Lucien, and Henri-Jean Martin The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, (Verso) Flint, Kate The Woman Reader, (Clarendon Press) Frankel, Oz States of Inquiry: Social Investigations and Print Culture in Nineteenth Century Britain and the United States. (Johns Hopkins U P) (selections) Gaskell, Philip A New Introduction to Bibliography. (St. Paul s Bibliographies & Oak Knoll Press) Ginzburg, Carlo Cheese and Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller. Tr. John and Anne Tedeschi. (Johns Hopkins U P) Glaister, Geoffrey A Encyclopedia of the Book. 2 nd ed. (Oak Knoll Press) Jardine, Lisa The Triumph of the Book. In Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance, pp (Norton)

4 Johns, Adrian The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making. (U of Chicago P) Landow, George, and Paul Delany Hypertext, Hypermedia and Literary Studies: The State of the Art. In Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality. (Norton) (selections) Lightman, Bernard Victorian Popularizers of Science: Designing Nature for New Audiences. (U of Chicago P) Liu, Alan Transcendental Data: Toward a Cultural History and Aesthetics of the New Encoded Discourse, Critical Inquiry 31 (Autumn): Loewenstein, Joseph The Author's Due: Printing and the Prehistory of Copyright. (U of Chicago P) Lupton, Ellen Thinking with Type. (Princeton Architectural Press) Manguel, Alberto A History of Reading. (Penguin) Martin, Henri-Jean The History and Power of Writing. (U of Chicago P) McKenzie, D.F Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (Cambridge U P) McMurtrie, Douglas C The Book: The Story of Printing & Bookmaking. (Dorset Press) Monteyne, Joseph The Printed Image in Early Modern London: Urban Space, Visual Representation, and Social Exchange. (Ashgate) Mott, Frank Golden Multitudes: The Story of Best Sellers in the United States. (Bowker) O Connor, Ralph The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, (U of Chicago P) O Sullivan, Catherine Diaries, On-line Diaries, and the Future Loss to Archives; or, Blogs and the Blogging Bloggers Who Blog Them, The American Archivist 68 (Summer 2005): Parkes, Malcolm Their Hands Before Our Eyes: A Closer Look at Scribes. (Ashgate) Petrucci, Armando From the Unitary Book to the Miscellany, pp In Writers and Readers in Medieval Italy: Studies in the History of Written Culture. (Yale U P) Price, Leah Reading: The State of the Discipline, Book History 7 (2004): Radway, Janice A A Feeling for Books: The Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire. (U of North Carolina P)

5 Raven, James The Business of Books: Booksellers and the English Book Trade, (Yale U P) Rose, Jonathan The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes. (Yale U P) Rubin, Joan Shelley The Making of Middlebrow Culture. (U of North Carolina P) Saenger, Paul Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading, pp (Stanford U P) Shackelford, Laura Narrative Subjects Meet Their Limits: John Barth s Click and the Remediation of Hypertext, Contemporary Literature 66 (2): Squires, Claire Marketing Literature: The Making of Contemporary Writing in Britain. (Palgrave) St. Clair The Political Economy of Reading. The John Coffin Memorial Lecture in the History of the Book, University of London. Steinberg, S.H Five Hundred Years of Printing. 4 th ed., revised by John Trevitt. (British Library & Oak Knoll Press) Urban, Greg Metaculture: How Culture Moves Through the World. (U of Minnesota P), pp Vaidhyanathan, Siva The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash Between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System. (Basic Books) [various authors] The Blogosphere, Communications of the ACM 47 (12): Webspace entry points (metaindexes mostly): HoBo (formerly: The History of the Oxford) at: Literary Resources: Bibliography and History of the Book (Jack Lynch, Rutgers) at: The Media History Project Timeline at: Rutgers Seminar in the History of the Book at: SHARP Web (Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing) at:

6 Voice of the Shuttle (VoS) Media Studies Portal (Alan Liu, UC-Santa Barbara) at:

A HISTORY READING IN THE WEST

A HISTORY READING IN THE WEST A HISTORY ^ OF READING IN THE WEST EDITED BY GUGLIELMO CAVALLO AND ROGER CHARTIER Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane Polity Press Contents Publisher's Note ix Introduction 1 Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier