Hosted by
the Centre for the History of the Book at the University
of Edinburgh, the Material Cultures conference was
the largest event of its kind in the UK, attracting
nearly 300 delegates from 15 countries. Since hosting
the SHARP Conference in
1995, the Centre has organized a major international
conference every five years. In 2000 the theme was
'Material Cultures: The
Book, the Text, and the Archive'.
In July 2005, the theme was 'Material
Cultures and the Creation of Knowledge'. The conference
ran from the 22nd to the 24th of July, and took place
in the University's Old College and was generously
sponsored by the Bibliographical Society, Blackwell's
Book Shops, and The British Academy.
The Playfair Library provided a splendid backdrop
to the plenary lectures which were delivered by Peter
Burke, Roger Chartier, and Robert Darnton respectively.
Chartier's lecture, Crossing Borders: Books, Literature
and Written Culture in Early Modern Europe, brought
insight into the changing dynamics between text and
reader over the centuries, while Burke explored the
topic of the library as an idea seen through not only
its books but also its spaces and furnishings. In
'Mlle Bonafon and the Private Life of Louis XV: Communication
Networks in 18th-Century Paris', Darnton gave an entertaining
account of how an illegal work of libel about the
King by a Versailles chambermaid was circulated and
eventually censored.
Over the two days more than 180 papers were delivered,
arranged around a wide range of topics such as marketing
and circulation, typography and meaning, authorship,
illustration, censorship and regulation, the paratext,
manuscript production, writing and intertextuality,
selling the avant-garde, and geographies of the book,
to name only a selection. Much attention was also
given to readers and reading practices over a diverse
set of geographical, cultural, and historical circumstances.
The latter included Elizabeth Webby's 'Reading Ibsen
in Australia', Holger Schott Syme's 'Judicial Digest:
Edward Coke reads the Earl of Essex', Stephanie Kirk's
'Gendering Knowledge and Trespassing on Power in Sor
Juana's Library', and a resulting volume on reading
is expected.
The last day of the conference began with a stimulating
roundtable discussion chaired by Bill Bell entitled
'What was the History of the Book?' during which the
keynote speakers revisited some of their most influential
works. Peter Burke examined the origins and impact
of The Social History of Knowledge, Robert
Darnton explored the way in which the 'Communications
Circuit' had been interpreted since its first appearance,
and Roger Chartier elaborated on The Order of
Books. There was a dinner followed by a ceilidh
with Scottish country dancing on Saturday night and
the conference concluded with a Scotch whisky tasting.
