February 2: Discussion
Guest: Avery Blankenship, Texas A&M English
Core
- Amaranth Borsuk, “The Book as Object” from The Book (2018), resource via library
- Brian Cummings, “What Is a Book?” from The Unfinished Book (2021), resource via library
- Avery Blankenship, “Literary Forensics as Method: Chemical Analysis, Food Stains, and Readerly Encounters with Nineteenth-Century Cookbooks” (2025), external website
Penumbra
- Donald F. McKenzie, “The Book as an Expressive Form” from Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (orig. 1986), resource via library
- Robert Darnton, “What is the History of Books? Revisited” (2007), resource via library
- Leah Price, “Introduction” from How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain (2012), resource via library
- Andrew Kraebel, “Ordinatio: The Arrangement of Parts in a Book” from The Unfinished Book (2021), resource via library
- Alex Hidalgo, “The Book as Archive” (2022), resource via library
February 6: Forms of the Book Lab
☞ On Location: Meet at Rare Books and Manuscripts in the Main Library for a session with Cait Coker. If you’ve never visited RBML before, you’ll need to register for a reader account beforehand. You will only be able to bring in your phone, paper (such as your commonplace book), and pencils.
Lab Preparation: The optional readings below offer some useful practical orientation to analyzing books in the Rare Book Room context.
- Hannah Alpert-Abrams, “Archaeology of a Book: An Experimental Approach to Reading Rare books in Archival Contexts” (2016), external website
- Sarah Werner, “Part 4: Looking at Books,” from Studying Early Printed Books, 1450-1800 : A Practical Guide (2019), resource via library