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

Terry Belanger, 'Preface'
Ann R Hawkins, 'Introduction: Towards a Pedagogy of Bibliography'

Part I: Rationales

Martin Antonetti, 'Exploring the Archaeology of the Book in the Liberal Arts
Curriculum'
Mirjam M Foot, 'Historical Bibliography for Rare-Book Librarians'
Steven Escar Smith, ‘A Clear and Lively Comprehension: The History and Influence
of the Bibliographical Laboratory'
Sydney J Shep, 'Bookends: Towards a Poetics of Material Form'

Part II: Creating and Using Resources

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

Part III: Methodologies

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

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

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

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

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