CLASS MEETINGS AND READING ASSIGNMENTS
 
Reading Assignments
WEEK 1
 9/3. NO CLASS (Reg Day)
WEEK 2

9/10. Introduction

  1. Discussion: The Promises and Failures of the Digital Revolution
WEEK 3
 9/17. Theorizing Orality and Literacy
  1. Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, 1-138, 156-79.
  2. Homework Assignment #1
WEEK 4

9/24. Was There a "Printing Revolution"?

  1. Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, 3-90
  2. *Anthony T. Grafton, "The Importance of Being Printed", Journal of Interdisciplinary History 11 (Autumn 1980): 265-86
  3. Philip Tan, Little Leadings. ( Student cyber-fiction set in a sixteenth-century printshop.)
  4. Homework Assignment #2
WEEK 5

10/1. A Visit to the Burndy Library

  1. Lynn Thorndike, ed. The Sphere of Sacrobosco and Its Commentators (Chicago, 1949), 118-23
  2. *Michael T. Clancy, "Looking Back From the Invention of Printing", in Literacy in Historical Perspective, ed. Daniel P. Resnick, 7-22.
  3. *Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making, 1-57
  4. Optional: Eisenstein, Printing Revolution, 185-252
  5. Homework Assignment #3
WEEK 6

10/8. Erasmus and Identity

  2. *Lisa Jardine, Erasmus, Man of Letters, 3-53
  3. *Erasmus, On Good Manners For Boys
  4. *Erasmus, The Paraclesis (Introduction to his edition of the New Testament)
  5. Joey Rozier, Modern Adages. (Student Project Inspired by Erasmus.)
  6. Optional : Eisenstein, Printing Revolution, 109-84
  7. Homework Assignment #4

 
WEEK 7

10/15. NO CLASS (Columbus Day)

  1. Select a chapbook for your first paper project.
  2. Nicholas Hausman, Chapbook Analysis. (Student analysis of Guy of Warwick.)
WEEK 8

10/22. English Chapbooks

  1. *Margaret Spufford, Small Books and Pleasant Histories: Popular Fiction and Its Readership in Seventeenth-Century England, 1-82, 156-93
  2. *Roger Thompson, ed. Samuel Pepys' Penny Merriments, 102-13, 247-63
  3. Homework Assignment #5
WEEK 9

10/29. Visit to the Bow and Arrow Press

  1. Harvard Gazette article on the Bow and Arrow Press
  2. Ten-page paper due
WEEK 10

11/5. The Stage and the Page: The Case of the Early Modern Theater in Print

  1. *Julie Stone Peters, Theatre of the Book, 1480-1880: Print, Text, and Performance in Europe, 15-40
  2. *Donald McKenzie, "Typography and Meaning: The Case of William Congreve", in Buch und Buchhandel in Europa im achtzehten Jahrhundert, 81-125
  3. William Congreve, The Way of the World
  4. Homework Assignment #6
WEEK 11

11/12. Rousseau and His Readers in the Eighteenth Century

  1. Online Biography of Rousseau
  2. *Robert Darnton, "Readers Respond to Rousseau: The Fabrication of Romantic Sensibility", in Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History, 215-56.
  3. *Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Julie, or La Nouvelle Héloise, translated and abridged by Judith H. McDowell (Penn State University Press, 1968), Letters 1-14, pp. 25-53.
  4. *Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Confessions, Book I
  5. Homework Assignment #7
WEEK 12

11/19. Readers and Publishing Today

  1. Jason Epstein, Book Business : Publishing Past, Present, and Future, all
  2. Homework Assignment #8
WEEK 13

11/26. Consultations With Instructor

  1. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
WEEK 14

12/3. The Future of Print and Media Online

  1. A Conversation with Ann Wolpert, Director of the MIT Libraries, and Frank Urbanowski, Director of the MIT Press
  2. Browse the MIT Press web site. Be sure to click on the link "About the Press", which contains a brief history of the Press.
  3. Read the 2000-2001 Annual Report by the Director of the MIT libraries.
WEEK 15

12/10. The Politics and Perils of Online Communities

  1. Cass Sunstein, Republic.com, all
  2. Five-Page Paper due on 12/11

 

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