Syllabus
SYLABUS: 1. Introduction & Content & structure & assessment & resources & key traditions
Independent study for next session:
Prepare PP presentation of the first draft of your essay (10 mins)
Life and Work of …: Conceptual Legacy for Book Studies
Donald F. McKenzie (the sociology of a text)
Robert Darnton (book communication circuit)
Elizabeth L. Eisenstein (agency of print)
Roger Chartier (textual appropriation)
Walter Ong (orality and literacy)
Marshall McLuhan (Gutenberg Gallaxy)
Jonathan Rose (working class reading)
Support Reading for next session/s:
Darnton, Robert. 2007. "What is the History of Books?" (1982): http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:3403038 2. What is the History of Books and Reading? Origins & traditions
· Student’s presentation of projects:
Walter Ong, Donald F. McKenzie, Marshall McLuhan, Robert Darnton
· What is the history of books?
· UK RED – Reading experience database
“Book communication circuit”
Book and reading as a subject of interdisciplinary study
Key topics and representatives of Book Studies
Support Research and Presentation topic/s for next session:
Read through ‘ALMANAC’ in: https://newmaterialism.eu/ 3. Centrally controlled ’communication circuit’ - Cold War book culture; New materialism in book studies
Student’s presentation:
Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, Roger Chartier, Jonathan Rose
Cold war books and what came after?
Impulses of ‘new materialism
Media archaeology in analysing book history: paper/work studies
Assignments:
Essay (7-10 pp.) on selected topic “Life and Work of …: “Conceptual Legacy for Book Studies”
James Raven, What is the History of the Book? Polity, 2018: summary of key points (3-5 pp.) https://www.wiley.com/en-ae/What+is+the+History+of+the+Book%3F-p-9780745641614 https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-history-of-the-book-9780192886897?cc=de&lang=en&#
Date of submission tba:
Course evaluation 1) Active Participation in the class & presentation 20 % 2) Final Essay 60 % - 7-10 pages to be submitted by - 3) Book Summary 20% - 3 pages to be submitted by -
COURSE ETIQUETTE GUIDE
Learning and working at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University is challenging and it should be rewarding. Students for this course will come from a variety of academic fields as well as cultural and national backgrounds. While some may be already familiar with many of the themes discussed in this course, for others they may represent a major challenge. The international and interdisciplinary nature of the student’s body will enrich your learning experience. The purpose of this brief Etiquette Guide is to suggest ways of improving that experience for everyone.
-Recognise that we will not always share the same points of view.
-Treat people fairly, with courtesy and respect. Any ethnic, racial or sexual discrimination is considered immoral and is prohibited.
-Acknowledge that our personal behaviour has an impact on others.
In lectures:
Late arrivals to the class and talking in lectures is distracting for everyone.
Laptops, Tablets and Phones: It is strongly advised to turn these off in all lectures, unless they are required for note taking. They should always be switched off when the lecturer requests this.
Preparation for the class. The reading and other preparation that you are asked to undertake before a session is vital to your benefit from the course as well as for facilitating student discussion. While given the size of the class an in-depth control of the reading week by week cannot be secured, it is your responsibility to apply the independent learning principles.
Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the passing off of another person’s thoughts, ideas, writings or images as one’s own. A student commits plagiarism when he or she incorporates in his or her own work substantial unacknowledged portions of another person’s material, or attempts to pass off such work as original through its inclusion. Plagiarism is an act of fraud.
Annotation
The aim of the course is to introduce the concepts, traditions and methods of the history and historiography of book publishing and reading. Drawing on references to the nineteenth century and with a specific focus on the twentieth century we shall ask the following key question: how do the relatively traditional institutions of media production and reception (print, publishing house, distribution, sale and reading) adapt to the contemporary multimedia communication context of the twenty first century?
This course will also look at how particular “book communication circuits” (Darnton) were related to wider socio-political contexts of social movements (nationalism) and wars (including the Cold one). Inspired by current theoretical developments in “media archaeology” (Parikka) and “new materialism” (Barad) the course also addresses the new and emerging digital forms of publishing and reading practices through critical inspection of traditional narratives of print and readers as vehicles of "social progress" and "intellectual advancement".