Critical Social Inquiry 0283 - Books Have Their Destinies

As students and teachers, we spend our lives immersed in the world of books, yet we focus mainly on the final product: the "content." We are often told that we are in the midst of a technological and cultural revolution. The "death of the book" (and sometimes, of reading and literature themselves) is proclaimed with increasing frequency. How can we possibly judge such claims? For that matter, just what is a "book"? Are the changes taking place today unique, or have similar upheavals occurred in the past? Ironically, the rise of the computer and digital media has reawakened interest in the history and physicality of written and printed texts. This course, which provides an overview of developments from the medieval through the contemporary eras, brings together the intellectual, the aesthetic, the technological, and the material. As we will see, the book as object and the agents in the circuit of communication--author, publisher, and reader--each have their histories.

Writing and Research Students are expected to spend at least six to eight hours a week of preparation and work outside of class time.