Books to purchase:
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies: The Complete Edition, in a New Translation. 2nd edition. Translated by Richard Howard and Annette Lavers. Hill and Wang, 2013. ISBN: 9780809071944.
McLuhan, Marshall and Quentin Fiore. The Medium is the Massage. 9th edition. Ginko Press, 2001. ISBN: 9781584230700.
Calvino, Italo. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982. ISBN: 9780156439619. [Preview with Google Books]
[CA] = Mitchell, David. Cloud Atlas. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2004. ISBN: 9780375507250.
Recommended books:
Dickinson, Emily. _The Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson’s Envelope Poems._1st edition. Edited by Jen Bervin and Marta Werner. New Directions / Christine Burgin, 2013. ISBN: 9780811221757.
Kirschenbaum, Matthew G. Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination. The MIT Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780262517409. [Preview with Google Books]
Malafouris, Lambros. How Things Shape the Mind: A Theory of Material Engagement. The MIT Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780262019194. [Preview with Google Books]
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Introduction by Lewis H. Lapham. Reprint edition. The MIT Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780262631594.
Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Fortieth Anniversary edition. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Foreward by Judith Butler. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016. ISBN: 9781421419954. [Preview with Google Books]
Suarez, Michael F. and H. R. Woudhuysen, eds. The Oxford Companion to the Book. 1st edition. Oxford University Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780198606536.
Shailor, Barbara. The Medieval Book. University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division, 1991. ISBN: 9780802068538. [Preview with Google Books]
| SES # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 0. Prologue | ||
| 1 | Introduction and preliminaries. What are media? What is a book? | No assigned readings |
| 1. How to Read a Book | ||
| 2 | In class: Introduction to book handling (half-class in Special Collecions) |
Jacobs, Alan. The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 3–33, 50–67. ISBN: 9780199747498. [Preview with Google Books] Adler, Mortimer J. and Charles Van Doren. Chapters 5 and 14 in How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading. Touchstone, 1972. ISBN: 9780671212094. [Preview with Google Books] Charles Atlas print advertisement “I Can Make You a New Man.” Popular Mechanics, 1938. [Preview with Google Books] National Endowment for the Arts. Reading on the Rise: A New Chapter in American Literacy (PDF). |
| 3 | Introduction to book handling cont. |
Carr, Nicholas. “Hal and Me.” Chapter 1 in The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. W. W. Norton & Company, 2011. ISBN: 9780393339758. Goody, Jack and Ian Watt. “The Consequences of Literacy.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 5, no. 3 (1963): 304–45. What assumptions do Jacobs, Carr, Goody, and Watt make about media? |
| 2. Mesopotamia – Cuneiform tablet – Malafouris (“Extended Cognition”) | ||
| 4 | In class: Cuneiform tablet |
Damrosch, David. Introduction and Chapter 1 in The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh. Henry Holt and Co., 2007. ISBN: 9780805080292. Schmandt-Besserat, Denise. “Decipherment of the Earliest Tablets.” Science 211, no. 4479 (1981): 283–85. ———. “How Writing Came About.” Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 47 (1982): 1–5. Michalowski, Piotr. “Tokenism.” American Anthropologist, New Series, 95, no. 4 (1993): 996–99. |
| 5 | Cuneiform tablet cont. |
Malafouris, Lambros. How Things Shape the Mind: A Theory of Material Engagement. The MIT Press, 2013, pp. 66–87. ISBN: 9780262019194.
|
| 3. Reading in the West – Gutenberg, Nuremberg Chronicle – Clanchy, Eisenstein | ||
| 6 | Reading in the West |
Kallendorf, Craig. “The Ancient Book.” In The Oxford Companion to the Book. 1st edition. Edited by Michael F. Suarez and H. R. Woudhuysen. Oxford University Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780198606536. Dondi, Cristina. “The European Printing Revloution.” In The Oxford Companion to the Book. 1st edition. Edited by Michael F. Suarez and H. R. Woudhuysen. Oxford University Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780198606536. Shailor, Barbara. The Medieval Book University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division, 1991. ISBN: 9780802068538. [Preview with Google Books] |
| 7 | In class: Gutenberg Bible leaves, Nuremberg Chronicle, Prof. Frampton’s linotype |
Clanchy, Michael T. Introduction in From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307. 3rd edition. Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. ISBN: 9781405157919. [Preview with Google Books] Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. Introduction in The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. 2nd edition. Cambridge University Press, 2012. ISBN: 9781107632752. [Preview with Google Books] |
| 4. Grammatology – Eliot Algonquin Bible | ||
| 8 | Grammatology |
Derrida, Jacques. “Exergue” and “The Violence of the Letter: From Levi-Strauss to Rousseau.” In Of Grammatology. Fortieth Anniversary edition. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Foreward by Judith Butler. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016. ISBN: 9781421419954. [Preview with Google Books] Levi-Strauss, Claude. Excerpt from “A Writing Lesson.” In Tristes Tropiques. Translated by John Russell. Criterion, 1961, pp. 290–93. |
| 9 | In class: Eliot Bible and other Bibles |
Mignolo, Walter D. “The Materiality of Reading and Writing Cultures: The Chain of Sounds, Graphic Signs, and Sign Carriers.” Chapter 2 in The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality, & Colonization. 2nd edition. University of Michigan Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780472089314. [Preview with Google Books] Rama, Angel. “The Ordered City.” Chapter 1 in The Lettered City. Translated and edited by John Charles Chasteen. Duke University Press Books, 1996. ISBN: 9780822317661. |
| 5. McLuhan Medium is the Message – Textual Ephemera | ||
| 10 | Medium is the Message |
McLuhan, Eric. “Understanding Media.” In The Essential McLuhan. Edited by Frank Zingrone and Marshall McLuhan. Basic Books, 1996, pp. 149–179. ISBN: 9780465019953. Watch: Woody Allen meets Marshall McLuhan. YouTube. |
| 11 |
In class: Letters from MIT Archives Discussion in class. Introduction to Mythologies and Gorgeous Nothings |
No assigned readings |
| 6. Mythologies – Emily Dickinson’s Gorgeous Nothings – Letterlocking | ||
| 12 | In class: Letterlocking workshop with Jana Dambrogio | Barthes, Roland. Mythologies: The Complete Edition, in a New Translation. 2nd edition. Translated by Richard Howard and Annette Lavers. Hill and Wang, 2013. ISBN: 9780809071944. |
| 13 | Gorgeous Nothings | Dickinson, Emily. The Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson’s Envelope Poems. 1st edition. Edited by Jen Bervin and Marta Werner. New Directions / Christine Burgin, 2013. ISBN: 9780811221757. |
| 7. Quixote – Print Shops – Diderot | ||
| 14 | Don Quixote |
de Cervantes, Miguel. First half of The Adventures of Don Quixote: Abridged from the Original Edition. Translated by W. M. Thackeray. Leopold Classic Library, 2015. ISBN: 9781115213271. Grafton, Anthony. “The Humanist as Reader.” Chapter 7 in A History of Reading in the West. Edited by Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Cartier. Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. University of Massachusetts Press, 2003. ISBN: 9781558494114. Recommended: Fuentes, Carlos. “Don Quixote or the Critique of Reading.” (PDF) The Wilson Quarterly, Autumn 1977. |
| 15 | In class: Diderot’s Encylopedia illustrations of printing |
de Cervantes, Miguel. Second half of The Adventures of Don Quixote: Abridged from the Original Edition. Translated by W. M. Thackeray. Leopold Classic Library, 2015. ISBN: 9781115213271. de Cervantes, Miguel. Chapter 62 in The History of Don Quixote, Volume II., Complete. Project Gutenberg, 2004. Borges, Jorge Luis. “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote.” (PDF) ———. “The Library of Babel.” (PDF) Collected Fictions. Translated by Andrew Hurley. Penguin, 1998. ———. “Borges and I.” (PDF) Labryinths. Translated by James E. Irby. New Directions Publishing Corp., 1964. Watch: Chancery Papermaking. YouTube. Recommended: Chartier, Roger. “The Press and Fonts: Don Quixote in the Print Shop.” Chapter 3 in Inscription & Erasure: Literature and Written Culture from the Eleventh to the Eighteenth Century. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780812220469. |
| 8. If on a winter’s night a traveler… | ||
| 16 | Calvino | Calvino, Italo. Chapters 1-6 in If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982. ISBN: 9780156439619. [Preview with Google Books] |
| 17 | Calvino cont. | ———. Finish reading If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982. ISBN: 9780156439619. [Preview with Google Books] |
| 9. Special Collections presentations | ||
| 18 | In class: Special Collections presentations of initial findings | No assigned readings |
| 10. Kirschenbaum – Cloud Atlas | ||
| 19 | In class: Digital literature and legacy computing workshop |
Kirschenbaum, Matthew G. Introduction in Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination. The MIT Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780262517409. [Preview with Google Books]
|
| 20 | Cloud Atlas |
[CA] Chapters 1–2. Mitchell, David. “Enter the maze.” The Guardian. May 22, 2004. |
| 11. Cloud Altas – Workshop | ||
| 21 | In class: Workshopping day | [CA] Chapters 3–4. |
| 12. Cloud Atlas cont. | ||
| 22 | Cloud Atlas | [CA] Chapters 5–6. |
| 23 | Cloud Atlas | [CA] Chapters 7–9. |
| 13. Epilogue | ||
| 24 |
In class: Informal presentations of projects in Special Collections library Discussion and wrap-up |
No assigned readings |
