Course organiser:
Bill Bell b.bell@ed.ac.uk
Course
Description
This is the
Semester 1 core course for the MSc in Material Cultures
and the History of the Book. The aim of this course
is to provide an introduction to Book History as a concept
and to provide a general overview of the key developments
in the field, tracing the movement from scribal culture
to hand printing, from industrialisation to new technologies.
The course begins in week 2
of Autumn semester, before which students are recommended
to acquaint themselves with some of the texts on the
course bibliography.
Seminars will run for 2 hours a week and will draw on
a wide range of material from the University's Special
Collections. There will also be a field trip to Robert
Smail's Printing Works during the semester. Assessment
will be based on a course essay of 4000 words, selected
from a range of prescribed topics, to be submitted by
the end of Semester 1.
Learning
Outcomes
This foundational
course will provide students with an understanding of
the way in which the material form of texts has related
to a number of larger issues in cultural history over
several centuries. As a consequence of having taken
this course, students will have gained an understanding
of the means by which texts have been produced, circulated,
and received, from earliest times to the present. They
will also have been exposed to the major issues surrounding
a range of periods in the history of the book.
Course
schedule
All seminars
take place on the 5 th floor of the University Library
between 10-12am.
Session 1 Course
Introduction
Session 2 Resources
in the History of the Book (Garside)
Session 3 From
Scroll to Codex (Hurtado)
Session 4 Early
Manuscript Culture (Poleg)
Session 5 The
Coming of Print (Poleg)
Session 6 The
Early Hand Press Period (Bevan)
Session 7 The
Later Hand Press Period (Garside/Zachs)
Session 8 The
Industrial Age (Garside)
Session 9 The
Modernist Book
Session 10 The
Contemporary Scene
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