Author: Kathryn M. Rudy
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1783745193
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 254
Book Description
In this ingenious study, Kathryn Rudy takes the reader on a journey to trace the birth, life and afterlife of a Netherlandish book of hours made in 1500. Image, Knife, and Gluepot painstakingly reconstructs the process by which this manuscript was created and discusses its significance as a text at the forefront of fifteenth-century book production, when the invention of mechanically-produced images led to the creation of new multimedia objects. Rudy then travels to the nineteenth century to examine the phenomenon of manuscript books being pillaged for their prints and drawings: she has diligently tracked down the dismembered parts of this book of hours for the first time. Image, Knife, and Gluepot also documents Rudy’s twenty-first-century research process, as she hunts through archives while grappling with the logistics and occasionally the limits of academic research. This is a timely volume, focusing on questions of materiality at the forefront of medieval and literary studies. Beautifully illustrated throughout, its use of original material and its striking interdisciplinary approach, combining book and art history, make it a significant academic achievement. Image, Knife, and Gluepot is a valuable text for any scholar in the fields of medieval studies, the history of early books and publishing, cultural history or material culture. Written in Rudy’s inimitable style, it will also be rewarding for any student enrolled in a course on manuscript production, as well as non-specialists interested in the afterlives of manuscripts and prints. The Royal Society of Edinburgh has generously contributed to this Open Access publication. Due to the number and quality of the images in this book, we have provided the option of a more expensive hardback edition, printed on the best quality paper available, in order to present the images as clearly and beautifully as possible. We hope this range of options — the freely available PDF, HTML and XML editions; the economically priced EPUB, MOBI and paperback editions; and the more expensively printed hardback — will satisfy everyone. Furthermore the HTML edition allows readers to magnify the images of the manuscripts displayed in the book.
Image, Knife, and Gluepot: Early Assemblage in Manuscript and Print
Author: Kathryn M. Rudy
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1783745193
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 254
Book Description
In this ingenious study, Kathryn Rudy takes the reader on a journey to trace the birth, life and afterlife of a Netherlandish book of hours made in 1500. Image, Knife, and Gluepot painstakingly reconstructs the process by which this manuscript was created and discusses its significance as a text at the forefront of fifteenth-century book production, when the invention of mechanically-produced images led to the creation of new multimedia objects. Rudy then travels to the nineteenth century to examine the phenomenon of manuscript books being pillaged for their prints and drawings: she has diligently tracked down the dismembered parts of this book of hours for the first time. Image, Knife, and Gluepot also documents Rudy’s twenty-first-century research process, as she hunts through archives while grappling with the logistics and occasionally the limits of academic research. This is a timely volume, focusing on questions of materiality at the forefront of medieval and literary studies. Beautifully illustrated throughout, its use of original material and its striking interdisciplinary approach, combining book and art history, make it a significant academic achievement. Image, Knife, and Gluepot is a valuable text for any scholar in the fields of medieval studies, the history of early books and publishing, cultural history or material culture. Written in Rudy’s inimitable style, it will also be rewarding for any student enrolled in a course on manuscript production, as well as non-specialists interested in the afterlives of manuscripts and prints. The Royal Society of Edinburgh has generously contributed to this Open Access publication. Due to the number and quality of the images in this book, we have provided the option of a more expensive hardback edition, printed on the best quality paper available, in order to present the images as clearly and beautifully as possible. We hope this range of options — the freely available PDF, HTML and XML editions; the economically priced EPUB, MOBI and paperback editions; and the more expensively printed hardback — will satisfy everyone. Furthermore the HTML edition allows readers to magnify the images of the manuscripts displayed in the book.
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1783745193
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 254
Book Description
In this ingenious study, Kathryn Rudy takes the reader on a journey to trace the birth, life and afterlife of a Netherlandish book of hours made in 1500. Image, Knife, and Gluepot painstakingly reconstructs the process by which this manuscript was created and discusses its significance as a text at the forefront of fifteenth-century book production, when the invention of mechanically-produced images led to the creation of new multimedia objects. Rudy then travels to the nineteenth century to examine the phenomenon of manuscript books being pillaged for their prints and drawings: she has diligently tracked down the dismembered parts of this book of hours for the first time. Image, Knife, and Gluepot also documents Rudy’s twenty-first-century research process, as she hunts through archives while grappling with the logistics and occasionally the limits of academic research. This is a timely volume, focusing on questions of materiality at the forefront of medieval and literary studies. Beautifully illustrated throughout, its use of original material and its striking interdisciplinary approach, combining book and art history, make it a significant academic achievement. Image, Knife, and Gluepot is a valuable text for any scholar in the fields of medieval studies, the history of early books and publishing, cultural history or material culture. Written in Rudy’s inimitable style, it will also be rewarding for any student enrolled in a course on manuscript production, as well as non-specialists interested in the afterlives of manuscripts and prints. The Royal Society of Edinburgh has generously contributed to this Open Access publication. Due to the number and quality of the images in this book, we have provided the option of a more expensive hardback edition, printed on the best quality paper available, in order to present the images as clearly and beautifully as possible. We hope this range of options — the freely available PDF, HTML and XML editions; the economically priced EPUB, MOBI and paperback editions; and the more expensively printed hardback — will satisfy everyone. Furthermore the HTML edition allows readers to magnify the images of the manuscripts displayed in the book.
Piety in Pieces
Author: Kathryn M. Rudy
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1783742364
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Book Description
Medieval manuscripts resisted obsolescence. Made by highly specialised craftspeople (scribes, illuminators, book binders) with labour-intensive processes using exclusive and sometimes exotic materials (parchment made from dozens or hundreds of skins, inks and paints made from prized minerals, animals and plants), books were expensive and built to last. They usually outlived their owners. Rather than discard them when they were superseded, book owners found ways to update, amend and upcycle books or book parts. These activities accelerated in the fifteenth century. Most manuscripts made before 1390 were bespoke and made for a particular client, but those made after 1390 (especially books of hours) were increasingly made for an open market, in which the producer was not in direct contact with the buyer. Increased efficiency led to more generic products, which owners were motivated to personalise. It also led to more blank parchment in the book, for example, the backs of inserted miniatures and the blanks ends of textual components. Book buyers of the late fourteenth and throughout the fifteenth century still held onto the old connotations of manuscripts—that they were custom-made luxury items—even when the production had become impersonal. Owners consequently purchased books made for an open market and then personalised them, filling in the blank spaces, and even adding more components later. This would give them an affordable product, but one that still smacked of luxury and met their individual needs. They kept older books in circulation by amending them, attached items to generic books to make them more relevant and valuable, and added new prayers with escalating indulgences as the culture of salvation shifted. Rudy considers ways in which book owners adjusted the contents of their books from the simplest (add a marginal note, sew in a curtain) to the most complex (take the book apart, embellish the components with painted decoration, add more quires of parchment). By making sometimes extreme adjustments, book owners kept their books fashionable and emotionally relevant. This study explores the intersection of codicology and human desire. Rudy shows how increased modularisation of book making led to more standardisation but also to more opportunities for personalisation. She asks: What properties did parchment manuscripts have that printed books lacked? What are the interrelationships among technology, efficiency, skill loss and standardisation?
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1783742364
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Book Description
Medieval manuscripts resisted obsolescence. Made by highly specialised craftspeople (scribes, illuminators, book binders) with labour-intensive processes using exclusive and sometimes exotic materials (parchment made from dozens or hundreds of skins, inks and paints made from prized minerals, animals and plants), books were expensive and built to last. They usually outlived their owners. Rather than discard them when they were superseded, book owners found ways to update, amend and upcycle books or book parts. These activities accelerated in the fifteenth century. Most manuscripts made before 1390 were bespoke and made for a particular client, but those made after 1390 (especially books of hours) were increasingly made for an open market, in which the producer was not in direct contact with the buyer. Increased efficiency led to more generic products, which owners were motivated to personalise. It also led to more blank parchment in the book, for example, the backs of inserted miniatures and the blanks ends of textual components. Book buyers of the late fourteenth and throughout the fifteenth century still held onto the old connotations of manuscripts—that they were custom-made luxury items—even when the production had become impersonal. Owners consequently purchased books made for an open market and then personalised them, filling in the blank spaces, and even adding more components later. This would give them an affordable product, but one that still smacked of luxury and met their individual needs. They kept older books in circulation by amending them, attached items to generic books to make them more relevant and valuable, and added new prayers with escalating indulgences as the culture of salvation shifted. Rudy considers ways in which book owners adjusted the contents of their books from the simplest (add a marginal note, sew in a curtain) to the most complex (take the book apart, embellish the components with painted decoration, add more quires of parchment). By making sometimes extreme adjustments, book owners kept their books fashionable and emotionally relevant. This study explores the intersection of codicology and human desire. Rudy shows how increased modularisation of book making led to more standardisation but also to more opportunities for personalisation. She asks: What properties did parchment manuscripts have that printed books lacked? What are the interrelationships among technology, efficiency, skill loss and standardisation?
Customised Books in Early Modern Europe and the Americas, 1400–1700
Author: Christopher D. Fletcher
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900468056X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 817
Book Description
Customised Books in Early Modern Europe and the Americas, 1400‒1700 examines the form, function, and meaning of alterations made by users to the physical structure of their book, through insertion or interpolation, subtraction or deletion, adjustments in the ordering of folios or quires, amendments of image or text. Although our primary interest is in printed books and print series bound like books, we also consider selected manuscripts since meaningful alterations made to incunabula and early printed books often followed the patterns such changes took in late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century codices. Throughout Customised Books the emphasis falls on the hermeneutic functions of the modifications made by makers and users to their manuscripts and books. Contributors: B. Boler Hunter, T. Cummins, A. Dlabačova, K.A.E. Enenkel, C.D. Fletcher, P.F. Gehl, P. Germano Leal, J. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, J. Koguciuk, A. van Leerdam, S. Leitch, S. McKeown, W.S. Melion, K. Michael, S. Midanik, B. Purkaple, J. Rosenholtz-Witt, B.L. Rothstein, M.R. Wade, and G. Warnar.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900468056X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 817
Book Description
Customised Books in Early Modern Europe and the Americas, 1400‒1700 examines the form, function, and meaning of alterations made by users to the physical structure of their book, through insertion or interpolation, subtraction or deletion, adjustments in the ordering of folios or quires, amendments of image or text. Although our primary interest is in printed books and print series bound like books, we also consider selected manuscripts since meaningful alterations made to incunabula and early printed books often followed the patterns such changes took in late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century codices. Throughout Customised Books the emphasis falls on the hermeneutic functions of the modifications made by makers and users to their manuscripts and books. Contributors: B. Boler Hunter, T. Cummins, A. Dlabačova, K.A.E. Enenkel, C.D. Fletcher, P.F. Gehl, P. Germano Leal, J. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, J. Koguciuk, A. van Leerdam, S. Leitch, S. McKeown, W.S. Melion, K. Michael, S. Midanik, B. Purkaple, J. Rosenholtz-Witt, B.L. Rothstein, M.R. Wade, and G. Warnar.
The Reception of the Printed Image in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
Author: Grażyna Jurkowlaniec
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000173127
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
This book examines the early development of the graphic arts from the perspectives of material things, human actors and immaterial representations while broadening the geographic field of inquiry to Central Europe and the British Isles and considering the reception of the prints on other continents. The role of human actors proves particularly prominent, i.e. the circumstances that informed creators’, producers’, owners’ and beholders’ motivations and responses. Certainly, such a complex relationship between things, people and images is not an exclusive feature of the pre-modern period’s print cultures. However, the rise of printmaking challenged some established rules in the arts and visual realms and thus provides a fruitful point of departure for further study of the development of the various functions and responses to printed images in the sixteenth century. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, print history, book history and European studies. The introduction of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003029199-1/introduction-gra%C5%BCyna-jurkowlaniec-magdalena-herman?context=ubx&refId=b6a86646-c9f3-490d-8a06-2946acd75fda
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000173127
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
This book examines the early development of the graphic arts from the perspectives of material things, human actors and immaterial representations while broadening the geographic field of inquiry to Central Europe and the British Isles and considering the reception of the prints on other continents. The role of human actors proves particularly prominent, i.e. the circumstances that informed creators’, producers’, owners’ and beholders’ motivations and responses. Certainly, such a complex relationship between things, people and images is not an exclusive feature of the pre-modern period’s print cultures. However, the rise of printmaking challenged some established rules in the arts and visual realms and thus provides a fruitful point of departure for further study of the development of the various functions and responses to printed images in the sixteenth century. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, print history, book history and European studies. The introduction of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003029199-1/introduction-gra%C5%BCyna-jurkowlaniec-magdalena-herman?context=ubx&refId=b6a86646-c9f3-490d-8a06-2946acd75fda
One Good Turn
Author: Witold Rybczynski
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684867303
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
The Best Tool of the Millennium The seeds of Rybczynski's elegant and illuminating new book were sown by The New York Times, whose editors asked him to write an essay identifying "the best tool of the millennium." The award-winning author of Home, A Clearing in the Distance, and Now I Sit Me Down, Rybczynski once built a house using only hand tools. His intimate knowledge of the toolbox -- both its contents and its history -- serves him beautifully on his quest. One Good Turn is a story starring Archimedes, who invented the water screw and introduced the helix, and Leonardo, who sketched a machine for carving wood screws. It is a story of mechanical discovery and genius that takes readers from ancient Greece to car design in the age of American industry. Rybczynski writes an ode to the screw, without which there would be no telescope, no microscope -- in short, no enlightenment science. One of our finest cultural and architectural historians, Rybczynski renders a graceful, original, and engaging portrait of the tool that changed the course of civilization.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684867303
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
The Best Tool of the Millennium The seeds of Rybczynski's elegant and illuminating new book were sown by The New York Times, whose editors asked him to write an essay identifying "the best tool of the millennium." The award-winning author of Home, A Clearing in the Distance, and Now I Sit Me Down, Rybczynski once built a house using only hand tools. His intimate knowledge of the toolbox -- both its contents and its history -- serves him beautifully on his quest. One Good Turn is a story starring Archimedes, who invented the water screw and introduced the helix, and Leonardo, who sketched a machine for carving wood screws. It is a story of mechanical discovery and genius that takes readers from ancient Greece to car design in the age of American industry. Rybczynski writes an ode to the screw, without which there would be no telescope, no microscope -- in short, no enlightenment science. One of our finest cultural and architectural historians, Rybczynski renders a graceful, original, and engaging portrait of the tool that changed the course of civilization.
Passion Relics and the Medieval Imagination
Author: Cynthia Hahn
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520305264
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 175
Book Description
Although objects associated with the Passion and suffering of Christ are among the most important and sacred relics venerated by the Catholic Church, this is the first study that considers how they were presented to the faithful. Cynthia Hahn adopts an accessible, informative, and holistic approach to the important history of Passion relics—first the True Cross, and then the collective group of Passion relics—examining their display in reliquaries, their presentation in church environments, their purposeful collection as centerpieces in royal and imperial collections, and finally their veneration in pictorial form as Arma Christi. Tracing the ways that Passion relics appear and disappear in response to Christian devotion and to historical phenomena, ranging from pilgrimage and the Crusades to the promotion of imperial power, this groundbreaking investigation presents a compelling picture of a very important aspect of late medieval and early modern devotion.
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520305264
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 175
Book Description
Although objects associated with the Passion and suffering of Christ are among the most important and sacred relics venerated by the Catholic Church, this is the first study that considers how they were presented to the faithful. Cynthia Hahn adopts an accessible, informative, and holistic approach to the important history of Passion relics—first the True Cross, and then the collective group of Passion relics—examining their display in reliquaries, their presentation in church environments, their purposeful collection as centerpieces in royal and imperial collections, and finally their veneration in pictorial form as Arma Christi. Tracing the ways that Passion relics appear and disappear in response to Christian devotion and to historical phenomena, ranging from pilgrimage and the Crusades to the promotion of imperial power, this groundbreaking investigation presents a compelling picture of a very important aspect of late medieval and early modern devotion.
Netsuke
Author: Rikki Ducornet
Publisher: Coffee House Press
ISBN: 1566892716
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 115
Book Description
Ruled by his hunger for erotic encounters, a deeply wounded psychoanalyst seduces both patients and strangers with equal heat. Driven to compartmentalize his life, the doctor attempts to order and contain his lovers as he does his collection of rare netsuke, the precious miniature sculptures gifted to him by his wife. This riveting exploration of one psychoanalyst’s abuse of power unearths the startling introspection present within even the darkest heart.
Publisher: Coffee House Press
ISBN: 1566892716
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 115
Book Description
Ruled by his hunger for erotic encounters, a deeply wounded psychoanalyst seduces both patients and strangers with equal heat. Driven to compartmentalize his life, the doctor attempts to order and contain his lovers as he does his collection of rare netsuke, the precious miniature sculptures gifted to him by his wife. This riveting exploration of one psychoanalyst’s abuse of power unearths the startling introspection present within even the darkest heart.
The Restoration of Engravings, Drawings, Books, and Other Works on Paper
Author: Max Schweidler
Publisher: Getty Publications
ISBN: 9780892368358
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
Ever since its original publication in Germany in 1938, Max Schweidler's Die Instandetzung von Kupferstichen, Zeichnungen, Buchern usw has been recognized as a seminal modern text on the conservation and restoration of works on paper. To address what he saw as a woeful dearth of relevant literature and in order to assist those who have 'set themselves the goal of preserving cultural treasures, ' the noted German restorer composed a thorough technical manual covering a wide range of specific techniques, including detailed instructions on how to execute structural repairs and alterations that, if skilfully done, can be virtually undetectable. By the mid-twentieth century, curators and conservators of graphic arts, discovering a nearly invisible repair in an old master print or drawing, might comment that the object had been 'Schweidlerized.' This volume, based on the authoritative revised German edition of 1949, makes Schweidler's work available in English for the first time, in a meticulously edited and annotated critical edition. The editor's introduction places the work in its historical context and probes the philosophical issues the book raises, while some two hundred annotati
Publisher: Getty Publications
ISBN: 9780892368358
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
Ever since its original publication in Germany in 1938, Max Schweidler's Die Instandetzung von Kupferstichen, Zeichnungen, Buchern usw has been recognized as a seminal modern text on the conservation and restoration of works on paper. To address what he saw as a woeful dearth of relevant literature and in order to assist those who have 'set themselves the goal of preserving cultural treasures, ' the noted German restorer composed a thorough technical manual covering a wide range of specific techniques, including detailed instructions on how to execute structural repairs and alterations that, if skilfully done, can be virtually undetectable. By the mid-twentieth century, curators and conservators of graphic arts, discovering a nearly invisible repair in an old master print or drawing, might comment that the object had been 'Schweidlerized.' This volume, based on the authoritative revised German edition of 1949, makes Schweidler's work available in English for the first time, in a meticulously edited and annotated critical edition. The editor's introduction places the work in its historical context and probes the philosophical issues the book raises, while some two hundred annotati
Touching Parchment: How Medieval Users Rubbed, Handled, and Kissed Their Manuscripts
Author: Kathryn M. Rudy
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1805111671
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
In the late middle ages (ca. 1200-1520), both religious and secular people used manuscripts, was regarded as a most precious item. The traces of their use through touching and handling during different rituals such as oath-taking, public reading, and memorializing the dead, is the subject of Kathryn Rudy’s research in Touching Parchment. This second volume, Social Encounters with the Book, delves into the physical interaction with books in various social settings, including education, courtly assemblies, and confraternal gatherings. Looking at acts such as pointing, scratching, and ‘wet-touching’, the author zooms in on smudges and abrasions on medieval manuscripts as testimonials of readers’ interaction with the book and its contents. In so doing, she dissects the function of books in oaths, confraternal groups, education, and courtly settings, illuminating how books were used as teaching aids and tools for conveying political messages. The narrative paints a vivid picture of medieval reading, emphasizing bodily engagement, from page-turning to the intimate act of kissing pages. Overall, this text offers a captivating exploration of the tactile and social dimensions of book use in late medieval Europe broadening our perspective on the role of objects in rituals during the middle ages. Social Encounters with the Book provides a fundamental resource to anybody interested in medieval history and book materiality more widely.
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1805111671
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
In the late middle ages (ca. 1200-1520), both religious and secular people used manuscripts, was regarded as a most precious item. The traces of their use through touching and handling during different rituals such as oath-taking, public reading, and memorializing the dead, is the subject of Kathryn Rudy’s research in Touching Parchment. This second volume, Social Encounters with the Book, delves into the physical interaction with books in various social settings, including education, courtly assemblies, and confraternal gatherings. Looking at acts such as pointing, scratching, and ‘wet-touching’, the author zooms in on smudges and abrasions on medieval manuscripts as testimonials of readers’ interaction with the book and its contents. In so doing, she dissects the function of books in oaths, confraternal groups, education, and courtly settings, illuminating how books were used as teaching aids and tools for conveying political messages. The narrative paints a vivid picture of medieval reading, emphasizing bodily engagement, from page-turning to the intimate act of kissing pages. Overall, this text offers a captivating exploration of the tactile and social dimensions of book use in late medieval Europe broadening our perspective on the role of objects in rituals during the middle ages. Social Encounters with the Book provides a fundamental resource to anybody interested in medieval history and book materiality more widely.
Cut/Copy/Paste
Author: Whitney Trettien
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452966311
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
How do early modern media underlie today’s digital creativity? In Cut/Copy/Paste, Whitney Trettien journeys to the fringes of the London print trade to uncover makerspaces and collaboratories where paper media were cut up and reassembled into radical, bespoke publications. Bringing these long-forgotten objects back to life through hand-curated digital resources, Trettien shows how early experimental book hacks speak to the contemporary conditions of digital scholarship and publishing. As a mixed-media artifact itself, Cut/Copy/Paste enacts for readers what Trettien argues: that digital forms have the potential to decenter patriarchal histories of print. From the religious household of Little Gidding—whose biblical concordances and manuscripts exemplify protofeminist media innovation—to the queer poetic assemblages of Edward Benlowes and the fragment albums of former shoemaker John Bagford, Cut/Copy/Paste demonstrates history’s relevance to our understanding of current media. Tracing the lives and afterlives of amateur “bookwork,” Trettien creates a method for identifying and comprehending hybrid objects that resist familiar bibliographic and literary categories. In the process, she bears witness to the deep history of radical publishing with fragments and found materials. With many of Cut/Copy/Paste’s digital resources left thrillingly open for additions and revisions, this book reimagines our ideas of publication while fostering a spirit of generosity and inclusivity. An open invitation to cut, copy, and paste different histories, it is an inspiration for students of publishing or the digital humanities, as well as anyone interested in the past, present, and future of creativity.
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452966311
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
How do early modern media underlie today’s digital creativity? In Cut/Copy/Paste, Whitney Trettien journeys to the fringes of the London print trade to uncover makerspaces and collaboratories where paper media were cut up and reassembled into radical, bespoke publications. Bringing these long-forgotten objects back to life through hand-curated digital resources, Trettien shows how early experimental book hacks speak to the contemporary conditions of digital scholarship and publishing. As a mixed-media artifact itself, Cut/Copy/Paste enacts for readers what Trettien argues: that digital forms have the potential to decenter patriarchal histories of print. From the religious household of Little Gidding—whose biblical concordances and manuscripts exemplify protofeminist media innovation—to the queer poetic assemblages of Edward Benlowes and the fragment albums of former shoemaker John Bagford, Cut/Copy/Paste demonstrates history’s relevance to our understanding of current media. Tracing the lives and afterlives of amateur “bookwork,” Trettien creates a method for identifying and comprehending hybrid objects that resist familiar bibliographic and literary categories. In the process, she bears witness to the deep history of radical publishing with fragments and found materials. With many of Cut/Copy/Paste’s digital resources left thrillingly open for additions and revisions, this book reimagines our ideas of publication while fostering a spirit of generosity and inclusivity. An open invitation to cut, copy, and paste different histories, it is an inspiration for students of publishing or the digital humanities, as well as anyone interested in the past, present, and future of creativity.