All courses numbered 500 and above are graduate courses.
Undergraduates need to submit a course permit to enroll.
HIST 620 What is a Book? Written Culture, Texts and Books in Early Modern Europe
Taught as schedule allows (consult the Course Directory)
This seminar will be taught in the Van Pelt Library, and will make substantial use of the library's superb collections for analyzing the different historical forms of the "book". The seminar will focus on the double identity, material and textual, of any book and it will cross different approaches: textual criticism, analytical bibliography and cultural history. The first series of six classes will discuss both the invention of the codex and the printing revolution to measure their impact on reading and writing practices from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the XIXth century. A second series of six classes will examine different textual genres and their bookish embodiments: the Bible, Humanist books of knowledge, playtexts, chapbooks, novels, and the Encyclopedia. The last two classes will be dedicated to the concepts of copyright and literary property, as defined in the Eighteenth century and challenged by electronic textuality.
