The Centre for the History of the Book

ILoura Brooks is Philadelphian by birth and  Scottish by formation, having arrived to take an MA in Art History and English from St Andrews in the late 1980s, going on to teach art history in the 1990s at Open Studies University of Edinburgh and the Open University.  Particularly interested in text-image relations in the early age of print, she intends to write her MSc dissertation on the woodcut illustrations to Albrecht Durer's 1498 Apocalypse and the visual and print culture from which it sprang.

Shelley Dickerson is originally from Virginia, but for the past nine years she called Boston home. She holds a BSc in Journalism from Boston University and for the past eight years has worked in the publishing industry as a production editor, mainly at Houghton Mifflin Company. Her main interest is in nineteenth century literature and publishing practices.  Upon completion of her MSc, she is considering the prospect of returning to publishing as a development editor.

Freya Douglas grew up in Yorkshire and did her A-levels in Durham. She completed an undergraduate degree in English Literature at the University of Edinburgh. She is particularly interested in women's writing and manuscript culture in the Early Modern period. She hopes to go on to further study after completing her MSc in Material Cultures and the History of the Book.

Justin Goff is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and graduated from Yale University in 2006 with a BA in English. Before coming to Edinburgh, he worked for two years as a teacher at an international high school in South Korea. He has a specific interest in fiction, literacy, and the periodical press in the nineteenth century. After completing the MSc, he intends to pursue a PhD in English Literature.

Anne Marie Hagen is from Norway.  She has an undergraduate degree in English, History and Sociology from the University of Oslo and a postgraduate degree from University College Dublin and the University of Oslo (Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama/English) as well as a PG Cert. in Education.  She is interested in readership, editing and narrative theory.  After completing the MSc, Anne Marie aims to pursue a PhD in English.

Kali Merina is from Los Angeles and holds an MA in History from Beloit College. She has spent the past six years working in various libraries and archives and has an interest in conservation, preservation, and transcription. After obtaining her masters degree at the University of Edinburgh she hopes to pursue a career in archives.

Sarah Merz trained as publishing manager at the Munich publisher Carl Hanser Verlag and subsequently studied Book Sciences and Technology Management at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. She has a research interest in transnational publishing relations and comparative aspects of book history. After graduating, she will return to Germany to complete degrees in Book Sciences and Technology Management and intends to pursue a PhD in the field of Book or Publishing History.

Elisa Tersigni is from Toronto, and holds a BSc in Geography from York University and an MA in English Literature from the University of Toronto. She has a specific interest in Tudor Literature and, on completing the MSc in Material Cultures and the History of the Book, intends to embark on a PhD in English Literature.

Mariko Watanabe is from Tokyo, and holds a BA and an MA in Greek Classics from the International Christian University in Tokyo, having also studied bookbinding and book conservation. Her specific research interest is in the career of the Venetian scholar-printer, Aldus Manutius. After completing the MSc in Material Cultures and History of the Book, she intends to pursue a degree in Book Conservation.

Porter White is a native of Virginia and grew up borrowing books from the public library in Annandale.  She received her A.B. in English from Princeton in 2008 and wrote her senior thesis on Hazlitt's conversational style.  At the University of Edinburgh she will be investigating intersections of Book History and History of Science. Porter has a special interest in books that accompanied sailors on voyages; she also works as an archival researcher with teams searching for historic shipwrecks.