Teaching Bibliography, Textual Criticism, and Book History

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Editor: Ann R Hawkins

Read additional pedagogical essays and teaching materials (web only)

Book history has developed in recent years as an increasingly dynamic, cross-disciplinary endeavour. Building on the widespread interest in material culture, visual culture, and media studies, a new vitality has been brought to this area of research.

Teaching Bibliography, Textual Criticism, and Book History, an exciting and original new monograph, offers a variety of approaches to incorporating discussions of book history or print culture into graduate and undergraduate classrooms. Through twenty-five collected essays, it considers the book as a literary, historical, cultural, and aesthetic object.

Offering discussions on book history pedagogy by a variety of scholars who teach bibliography, textual criticism, or book history in a range of courses, departments, and settings, the volume considers the following questions:

• What strategies (and materials) do teachers use to bring book history or textual criticism into the classroom?
• How do teachers define book history in their classrooms?
• How do teachers incorporate issues of authorship, reading, and publishing into the curriculum?
• What values does teaching book history bring to the classroom?
• What purposes do teachers hope to fulfil by raising such issues in their curriculum?
• Does teaching book history require teachers to reconceptualize existing courses or can it be added into existing classes effectively?
• What issues and questions do such courses raise for bibliography in particular and for the curriculum in general?
• What purpose does teaching book history in the undergraduate curriculum serve?
• What purpose does teaching book history in the graduate curriculum serve?

Given the growing popularity of book history across numerous fields, this collection represents many viewpoints and diverse backgrounds. The essays will therefore appeal to university teachers incorporating textual studies and research methods into their courses, either as a component or as a central focus.

Readership

History of the Book and Material Culture

Contents

Preface – Terry Belanger
Introduction: Towards a Pedagogy of Bibliography

Part I: Rationales
1 Exploring the Archaeology of the Book in the Liberal Arts Curriculum – Martin Antonetti
2 Historical Bibliography for Rare-Book Librarians – Mirjam M Foot
3 A Clear and Lively Comprehension: The History and Influence of the Bibliographical Laboratory – Steven Escar Smith
4 Bookends: Towards a Poetics of Material Form – Sydney J Shep

Part II: Creating and Using Resources
5 Book History on the Road: Finding and Organizing Resources Outside the Classroom – Lisa Berglund
6 Jane Eyre on eBay: Building a Teaching Collection – John A Buchtel
7 History of the Book in the American Literature Classroom: On the Fly and on the Cheap – Jean Lee Cole
8 From Printing Type to BlackboardTM: Teaching the History of the Early Modern Book to Literary Undergraduates in a ‘New’ UK University – Ian Gadd

Part III: Methodologies

Teaching 'History of the Book'
9 Preparing library school graduate students for Rare Book and Special Collections jobs: Assignments and Exercises that Work – Deirdre Stam
10 Book History and Library Education in the Twenty-first Century – Erik Delfino
11 Making the Medicine Go Down: Baggy Monsters and Book History – Sean C Grass
12 They are Not Just Big, Dusty Novels: Teaching Hard Times within the Context of Household Words – Jennifer Phegley
13 In Bibleistic a Way: Teaching Nineteenth-Century American Poetry Through Book and Periodical Studies – Susanna Ashton

Teaching Bibliography and Research Methods
14 The Bibliography and Research Course – John T Shawcross
15 Integrating ‘Bibliography’ with ‘Literary Research’: A Comprehensive Approach – Maura Ives
16 The Hidden Lives of Books – D W Krummel
17 Learning from Binders: Investigating the Bookbinding Trade in Colonial Philadelphia – Thomas Kinsella and Willman Spawn
18 Papermaking, History and Practice – Timothy Barrett
19 The Bibliographical Analysis of Antique Laid Paper: A Method – R Carter Hailey

Teaching Textual Criticism
20 How Things Work: Teaching the Technologies of Literature – Matthew G Kirschenbaum
21 Not to Pick Bad from Bad, But By Bad Mend: What Undergraduates Learn from Bad Editions – Erick Kelemen
22 Book History and Reader-Response Theory: Teaching Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and King Lear – Tatjana Takseva Chorney
23 Textual Criticism: Students as Book Detectives and Scholarly Editors – Ann R Hawkins

Afterword – Daniel Traister

Reviews

'Required reading'
– Helen Vincent, The Rare Books Newsletter

'This book deserves to be on the shelves of anyone who faces the need to engage students with understanding of how the past has come down to us.'
– David McKitterick, The Times Literary Supplement

‘The collection of twenty-three articles … serves not so much as a comprehensive pedagogical guide as an eclectic and thought-provoking conversation’ ‘Scholars and librarians going forward must find ways to incorporate book-historical concepts and skills more democratically. Teaching Bibliography sets us on that road.’
– Barbara A Brannon, SHARP News

Related titles

• Reading in History: New Methodologies from the Anglo-American Tradition
• Readings on Audience and Textual Materiality
• Wordsworth's Poetic Collections, Supplementary Writing and Parodic Reception

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