Critical Bibliography and Premodern Materiality (A Roundtable)

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Rare Book School Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in Critical Bibliography

Organizer Name

Megan Cook

Organizer Affiliation

Colby College

Presider Name

Megan Cook

Paper Title 1

Woodblock Printing in Early Japanese Commercial Publishing: The Survival of Scribal Culture as a Medieval Technology

Presenter 1 Name

Saeko Suzuki

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Univ. of British Columbia

Paper Title 2

Codicology as Imaginative Practice

Presenter 2 Name

Bernardo S. Hinojosa

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Univ. of California-Berkeley

Paper Title 3

Blogs and Early Books

Presenter 3 Name

S. C. Kaplan

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Rice Univ.

Paper Title 4

How a Medieval French Manuscript Traveled to Taiwan: Japanese Colonial History and National Taiwan University Otori MS 299

Presenter 4 Name

Ruen-chuan Ma

Presenter 4 Affiliation

Utah Valley Univ.

Paper Title 5

Respondent

Presenter 5 Name

Damian Fleming

Presenter 5 Affiliation

Purdue Univ.-Fort Wayne

Start Date

12-5-2019 10:30 AM

Session Location

Fetzer 1010

Description

To many, critical bibliographers are found in English and history departments and study pre-industrial European and Euro-American books as unique manufactured objects. Of late, the field has evolved to include scholars in other disciplines, including art historians and classicists, musicologists and digital archivists. It has recognized that Asian, Latinx, Indigenous, and Africana studies also have long histories of engaging in critical bibliography. It has enfolded theories and techniques for considering textual objects that are not books as defined by Euro-centric traditions. Today's critical bibliographers concern themselves with the materiality of texts, rather than books, because the objects by which the world's cultures have documented, expressed, and narrated their histories and imaginations have been multifold. Megan Cook