BOOK STUDIES CONCENTRATION PROPOSAL

Motion: That Oberlin College establish a new interdisciplinary concentration in Book Studies.

II. Rationale

Book Studies comprises “Book History” -- how books shape and are shaped by cognitive, cultural, economic, technological, and political forces -- as well as “Book Arts” -- the aesthetic, compositional, and creative dimensions of books, whether in the form of manuscripts, letterpress, hypertext, or artists’ books. Book Studies encompasses the social and cultural history of books/texts and their transmission, as well as artisanal and artistic approaches to the book as represented by book artists, illustrators, graphic designers, binders, fine press printers, and others engaged in studying the relationships between text and image. Book history and book arts are mutually reinforcing and inherently interdisciplinary. Artists’ books, for example, draw on the form of the book for creative engagement with issues and ideas that may involve history, politics, personal narrative, and poetry as well as aesthetics.

The “book” in Book Studies extends beyond the printed codex to embrace all formats, from cuneiform tablets to electronic media. The study of the book--as a material, cultural, sociological, religious, and artistic artifact--reaches all corners of the globe and extends into all eras. Book Studies attends to both hegemonic and divergent voices.

Because it encompasses a diversity of cultures and time periods, Book Studies also covers a diverse range of academic fields and methods. It brings together areas of inquiry and knowledge that have normally been institutionalized as discrete disciplines, including but not limited to: media studies, history, literary history, creative writing, anthropology, musicology and ethnomusicology, Africana Studies, religion, art, art history, East Asian Studies, psychology, library science, language study, chemistry (book conservation), environmental studies, cartography and education.  As a field, book studies is thus at the center of the new synergies emerging in liberal arts education.

Book Studies at Oberlin will foster three of the college’s broad educational goals, as reaffirmed and sharpened in the current strategic plan: 1. Help students draw connections across the curriculum. 2. Better integrate Oberlin’s exceptional resources for experiential learning (AMAM, the Conservatory, the library system). 3. Prepare students for fulfilling, creative and socially engaged professional lives post-graduation.

We propose to offer Book Studies as a concentration, not a stealth major or minor; our goal is to provide pathways for students, faculty and staff interested in books as communication, material culture, and artistic media on a global scale. Bridging theory and practice, history and contemporary culture, the intellectual and the artistic, Western and non-Western, Book Studies will encourage connections across the curriculum and allow students to tailor a wide variety of courses to their particular interests. The concentration thus counters the perception of Oberlin departments as silos while serving as a model for a holistic approach to liberal arts education.

Oberlin’s long-standing goal, newly affirmed in the strategic plan, has been to integrate the resources of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Conservatory of Music, and the Allen Memorial Art Museum in

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order to offer students more opportunities for integrated and experiential learning. A Book Studies Concentration will greatly contribute to this effort while also highlighting other superior institutional resources: the Clarence Ward Art Library’s Special Collections (especially its extensive artists’ books holdings), the Main Library’s Special Collections (rich in both the history of the book and the book arts), the new letterpress studio (housed in Mudd 212), and music Special Collections in the Conservatory Library (notably the Eric Selch Collection).  In drawing on the library’s rich collections of historically significant books and scores, artists’ books, manuscripts, print artifacts, and printing equipment, this concentration will make exemplary use of Oberlin’s extraordinary resources.

The Book Studies Concentration will also help forward the goal pursued by college and university libraries around the country of transforming library special collections from underutilized repositories of precious items into teaching spaces and living collections.  Similar to the way faculty have mobilized the collections of the Allen Memorial Art Museum in their teaching, Book Studies classes taught with special collections make abstract concepts come alive for students through meaningful encounters with objects and artifacts. More generally, the inclusions of “lab” sessions in most Book Studies courses offers a model of learning that helps bridge the humanities and the sciences.  In Book Studies, lab sessions can take place in the Goodrich Room shared by the the library’s Special Collections Department and Oberlin College Archives, the Allen Memorial Art Museum, the Art Library, the letterpress studio, an art studio, a concert space, or a computer lab.

By fulfilling the college’s goals of integrating the existing--and truly exceptional--resources for experiential learning, Book Studies offers a potential model for future concentrations.

Why Book Studies Now?

Book Studies has emerged in the 21st century as an exciting field of study.  While we are still in an age of books, books are changing. Digital technology is altering the ways they are published, read, stored, and circulated. More broadly, today’s “digital revolution” is often considered a change as dramatic as Gutenberg’s invention of movable type and the shift from manuscripts to printed books.  The competition and collaboration among media have far-reaching political, social, cognitive, and economic implications.  The ability to draw historical parallels empowers students to make intellectual sense of current changes. In an information age, in which it is vital that students learn to think critically and creatively about how information and knowledge are packaged and disseminated, Book Studies is an important component of liberal arts education.

As the current strategic plan emphasizes, there is increased pressure on costly liberal arts colleges to offer a return on their students’ and parents’ investments with promising professional opportunities after graduation. Book Studies, an interdisciplinary field that encompasses the social sciences and the humanities, is rich in future career possibilities. It alerts students to and prepares them for careers in new media, art and design, academia, education, conservation, publishing in various media, archives, and librarianship. This concentration encourages students to pursue internships as an important part of their intellectual and practical training. These internships can in turn guide students towards future career paths.

What is most exciting about Book Studies is the ways in which it prompts students to think both creatively and critically about new information technologies. Tracing technologies of reading and

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writing throughout history and across the globe provides students with rich context in which to better understand the cultural significance of current forms of communication and information storage, from social media to data mining. Book Studies thus encourages students to develop skills of critical thinking, a core value of liberal arts education, while placing equal emphasis on helping students think practically about future employment opportunities.

The future of the liberal arts depends upon training a generation of students to think in innovative ways about how best to guarantee that knowledge will be preserved and freely accessible to all. The concentration will allow students to consider the following urgent questions: 1. How does the “digital revolution” enable us to reconceptualize the book and the activities for which it is central: reading, authorship and writing, storing information, disseminating ideas, spurring dialogue and conversation, and creating new forms? 2. How does the very opportunity to reimagine the book open up new disciplinary and interdisciplinary horizons; reveal new models for collecting, editing and disseminating information; inspire new artistic and intellectual practices? 3. How can we also profit from this particular moment in the history of books to contribute to the future of liberal arts education and its role in shaping the world?   

Jonathan Rose, an outspoken advocate of Book Studies and a prominent book historian, stresses the ability of Book Studies to accomplish the intellectual and professional goals of a liberal arts education: “Without neglecting the aesthetic and humanistic aspects of the book, [Book Studies] has a strong vocational component, preparing students for careers in new media, publishing, journalism, information science, and the book arts.” Book Studies also promotes global understanding: “teach[ing] students how different societies create, distribute, use, and exchange information.”

By instituting a Book Studies Concentration, Oberlin would join the vanguard of undergraduate institutions taking steps to establish this new area of study.  Smith College recently instituted a Book Studies Concentration and Goucher College offers a minor in Book Studies. A number of other peer institutions (Wellesley, Amherst, Grinnell, Vassar, and Carleton College) are at various stages in their creation of Book Studies as a curricular area. The goal of institutions involved in this mission is to enrich liberal arts education and to prepare students for post-Oberlin professions as well as to be thoughtful and creative participants in the future production and dissemination of knowledge. Students who are interested in an excellent liberal arts education along with opportunities to learn about book history and book arts could look to Oberlin as a place to pursue those interests.    

Learning Goals

Book Studies pursues a number of interrelated learning goals. To most clearly identify these goals we have divided book studies into two core approaches: 1) history and theory, and 2) practice.

History and Theory

Book history trains students to identify all the contributors involved in the making of a book (printers, publishers, artists, typographers, booksellers, editors, readers, owners, and the many other participants in the production, transmission, and reception of books).  In productive and significant ways, book history challenges and complicates the very notion of authorship. Students also learn to think in more complex

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ways about the relationships between artistic and economic interests, individual talent and collective creativity, intellectual and physical labor, producers, distributors, and consumers of culture. Hands-on experience with different writing technologies, from ancient clay tablets to e-books, gives students a sense of the role of technology in the creation and dissemination of ideas.

The history of reading and reception offers students a grasp of the global history of reading cultures, habits, and oral traditions.  Important topics include: the shifts from reading aloud to silent reading, and from reading in groups to solitary reading; the persistence of scribal cultures in the age of print;the relationships between sound and symbol;the use of scores in relation to performance;the relationship of working classes to the “classics”; the novel and the post-colonial world; class and/or race and the formation of reading groups and book clubs; gender and literary instruction.

These topics in book studies also make students aware of their own reading practices and invite them to consider the cultural, social, and political stakes of how and what we read.

Practice

Descriptive Bibliography is the study of the book and related communicative media as material and cultural objects. This discipline teaches students how to examine physical books and print media for evidence about their production, history of ownership, reception, and circulation. This field is also involved in the establishment of new scholarly editions of texts and several forms of digital scholarship.

Book Arts enables students to bring together ideas and activities they tend to view as separate or even at odds; making and creating go hand in hand with thinking and analyzing. Through artists’ books and through calligraphy, illustration, letterpress printing, papermaking, typeface design, and electronic creations, students’ physical engagement in the making of books enriches their intellectual understanding of the nature and history of the book, illuminating ways in which medium and message are inseparable. By studying and creating artists’ books, for example, students develop a visual language to express narrative, history, and aesthetic, understanding the book as both a historic artifact and an object of art.

Advising. Each student concentrating in Book Studies will have an advisor; the advisor will be a member of the Book Studies Committee. Book Studies will pioneer the advising portfolios which OCTET and the Dean of Studies Office are putting into place.

The Book Studies concentration requires

*The Gateway course and four others. At least one course must be from the history and theory category and one from the practice category; students must take courses in at least two departments in addition to the Gateway to Book Studies. An approved winter term project or summer internship can count in the Practice Category, although it does not count for college course credit; in such cases the concentration will comprise four full academic courses and the Practice component.

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*An Intellectual Coherence Statement.  Upon declaring a Book Studies Concentration, students will identify an advisor from the Book Studies Concentration Committee.  In consultation with the advisor, they will write an intellectual coherence statement, outlining their intended course of study and their understanding of how the courses undertaken will relate to one another.  This statement will be submitted to the Book Studies Concentration Committee and periodically revisited by the student in consultation with the advisor.

* A Culminating Experience. Book Studies concentrators will meet with Book Studies advisor and one other committee member to reflect on the concentration.

Optional. Book studies faculty will be happy to confer on honors theses or capstone projects.

Courses

(A) Gateway Course: “Introduction to Book Studies.” To be developed by Professor Sandy Zagarell in collaboration with the Book Studies Concentration Committee; initially to be taught by Professor Zagarell. See Appendix IV for a description of this course.

(B) Courses that Count as History and Theory (regularly offered with clear Book Studies component):(As of 28 February 2016)

ANTH 204: Introduction to Linguistic AnthropologyANTH 438: Literacies in Social ContextARTS 306: Arts from 1960 to the PresentARTS 373: History of PhotographyARTS310: Medieval ArtARTS 315: Illuminated ManuscriptsARTS 316: Monastic Art of the Middle Ages and RenaissanceARTS 326: Synagogues, Churches and MosquesARTS 355: The Art of Japanese PrintsARTS 406: Word and Image in Medieval ArtARTS 416: Illustrated Books in Fifteenth CenturyARTS 461: Contemporary Photography: Book Archive, Picture*CRWR 375: Workshop in Cartoons, Comics, and Graphic Narratives1

EAS 116: Premodern Japanese Literature EAS 272: East Asian Book and Literary CulturesENGL 227: Romantics and Their WorldENG 315: The Eighteenth-Century British Novel and Print CultureENG3XX: History and Theory of the Novel*ENG 357: Archives: Theories and PracticesENG 363: Gaines, Morrison, Wideman: Textualizing Orality and LiteracyENG 381: Hopeful Monsters (Mixed) Media Studies FYSP 128: Media and MemoryHIST101: Medieval and Early Modern European HistoryHIST 303: Property and Possession in the Middle Ages

1 Courses preceded by * may count for either History and Theory or Practice.

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MHST 226: Music of the Middle Ages and RenaissanceMHST 336: Music and Material CulturePSYCH 209: Complex Cognition

(B) Courses that Count as Practice (a college course, an approved full winter term project, or an approved summer internship): (As of 28 February 2016)

AAST 258: Talking BookARTS O69: Re-imagining the Book (every fall)ARTS 090: Advanced Book ArtsARTS 011: Visual Concepts and Processes: ScreenprintingARTS 012: Visual Concepts and Processes: Expression, Process, and MeaningARTS 013: Visual Concepts and Processes: Dichotomy and LithographyARTS 015: Visual Concepts and Processes: Intaglio and Lithography*CRWR 375: Workshop in Cartoons, Comics, and Graphic NarrativesEAS 116: Premodern Japanese Literature *ENG 357: Archives: Theories and PracticesBy petition, a winter term project or summer internshipWinter Term LetterpressWinter Term Papermaking

Students may petition to add other courses to the theory and practice categories.  The introductory course will train them to recognize book studies components in many parts of the curriculum. Updates will be made as new courses are added to the catalog or new methods are incorporated by faculty. The interdisciplinary potential of this concentration is realized not only in the way each student designs it, but in each participant’s ability to bring an informed awareness of book studies’ integrated approach to bear on their education, including courses not specifically geared to book studies.

Sequencing of CoursesStudents can fulfill the gateway requirement at any point in the concentration, but they will be encouraged to take it early.  Doing so will allow them to tailor their assignments in subsequent theory and practice courses to their particular interests.  By periodically updating their concentration intellectual coherence statements, and in consultation with advisers, students will choose courses meaningfully and progress through the concentration intentionally.

Winter Term and InternshipsThe Book Studies Concentration Committee prizes winter term and summer internships as opportunities for students to gain experience that cannot be realized during the regular semester. The committee will recognize as practice appropriate work of this nature, even though such experiences do not count toward the number of college courses required for graduation. Proposals will be vetted by the committee as a whole and approved projects and internships will be supervised by a faculty member.

Local internship possibilities include: Morgan Paper Conservatory (Cleveland), the Cleveland Museum of Art, Zygote Press, and the Oberlin College Library. The library has a history of helping to coordinate such internships and is building bridges with the local community to enable more such opportunities. Students may also pursue internships in publishing, new media, or librarianship.

Implementation, Advising and Administration of the Concentration

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An ad hoc Book Studies Concentration Committee, comprising faculty members from existing departments, the interim director of libraries, and the special collections librarian, has been formed. Its members are eager to serve on the official Book Studies Committee. The Committee will be responsible for advising students, periodically reviewing the concentration requirements, and updating the list of courses that count towards the concentration requirements.  At regular intervals the chair of the committee will review with faculty whether the classes offered in the categories are appropriate, how often they will be offered, and whether new courses will be offered that fit into the concentration’s categories.

Alan Boyd, interim library director, has indicated the library’s willingness to provide administrative support and necessary office space. Ann Sherif has volunteered to chair the concentration committee initially and help with administration of the concentration by reviewing course offerings, soliciting new ones, and coordinating communication with programs and departments.

Ad Hoc Book Studies Committee

Laura Baudot, EnglishAlan Boyd, Acting Director of LibrariesSarah Hamill, Art HistoryErik Inglis, Art HistoryJames O’Leary, Musicology (on leave, 2015-16)Ann Sherif, East Asian StudiesEd Vermue, Special Collections LibrarianNanette Yannuzzi-Macias, Art (temporarily on leave from the committee) Sandy Zagarell, English

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Appendix I: Staffing Book Studies

Faculty who will teach the Gateway to Book Studies, 2017-2022

We plan to offer this course annually in the spring semester. The following faculty members have volunteered to teach it over the course of the next five years:

Spring 2017 Sandy ZagarellSpring 2018 Sandy ZagarellSpring 2019 Laura BaudotSpring 2020 Laura BaudotSpring 2021 Erik Inglis

Special Collections Curator Ed Vermue will take active part in the course when it is taught, as will all the other faculty members involved in Book Studies. This will not only complement and extend the course beyond the expertise of any individual; the group will act as a curricular and pedagogical collective which devises the course together and regularly revisits and updates it by taking the measure of its strengths and weaknesses as well as keeping abreast of developments in the field, scholarly, curricular, and pedagogical.

Chairs, 2016-2022

The following faculty members will Chair Book Studies over the next five years:

2016-2019 Ann Sherif 2019-2022 Sarah Hamill

Appendix II: Book Studies Concentrations at Oberlin and at Smith: A Comparison

To assist you in assessing the proposed Book Studies Concentration at Oberlin, we offer a comparison between our proposal and the most robust extant concentration in book studies at a liberal arts college, that at Smith College. The concentration we propose does not reproduce that of Smith but is comparable in substance, rigor, breadth and imaginativeness and is customized to fit the structure of concentrations at Oberlin and to take advantage of our particular resources. Oberlin faculty contributing courses (listed below) confirmed their participation in February 2016.

Oberlin College Smith CollegeTotal Courses 5 (20 credits) or 4 (16 credits) plus

approved “practice” component6 (19 credits)

Advising Each student concentrator will work closely with an advisor who is a member of the Book Studies committee. Book Studies will pilot whatever advising portfolio system the College decides upon. Students will keep

No information available.

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Oberlin College Smith Collegeportfolios to which they and their advisors will have access.

Gateway Course

Gateway Course:The gateway course provides an overview of book studies. It also introduces students to the analytical tools, methods, approaches, and vocabularies that will allow them to engage in the study of the creation of knowledge and cultures, of literature and histories, and of persons in various regions and nations, eras and cultures, as these have centered on and been shaped by books and their uses.

Gateway Course: BKX 140 Perspectives on Book Studies (1 credit)The gateway course, BKX 140 Perspectives on Book Studies, is a week-long, 1-credit, J-term course that presents the major foci of the concentration—the manufacture, publication, distribution, reception and survival of book—in a series of interactive workshops that expose students to the variety of subjects relevant to the concentration. These include graphic arts, the production and transmission of texts, literacy, and the sociology of the book. The course is directed by Douglas Patey, and will feature members of the advisory committee and others, on a rotational basis. The course may be supplemented from time to time with lectures from the many distinguished book studies people in the Pioneer Valley.

Statement Intellectual Coherence StatementUpon declaring a Book Studies Concentration, students will identify an advisor from the Book Studies Concentration Committee.  In consultation with the advisor, they will write an intellectual coherence statement, outlining their intended course of study and their understanding of how the courses undertaken will relate to one another. This statement will be submitted to the Book Studies Concentration Committee for approval and periodically revisited by the

None

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Oberlin College Smith Collegestudent in consultation with the advisor.

Electives/Core Four Additional CoursesThese three courses must include at least one course in the history and theory category and one in the practice category. They must be in at least two different departments.

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Courses that Count as History and Theory (regularly offered with clear book studies component):ANTH 204: Introduction to Linguistic AnthropologyANTH 438: Literacies in Social ContextARTS 306: Arts from 1960 to the PresentARTS 373: History of PhotographyARTS310:  Medieval ArtARTS 315: Illuminated ManuscriptsARTS 316: Monastic Art of the Middle Ages and RenaissanceARTS 326: Synagogues, Churches and MosquesARTS 355: The Art of Japanese PrintsARTS 406: Word and Image in Medieval ArtARTS 416: Illustrated Books in Fifteenth CenturyCRWR 375: Workshop in Cartoons, Comics, and Graphic NarrativesEAS 116: Premodern Japanese LiteratureEAS 272: East Asian Book and Literary CulturesENGL 227: Romantics and Their WorldENG 315: The Eighteenth-Century British Novel and Print CultureENG3xx: History and Theory of the NovelENG 357 Archives: Theories and PracticesENG 363:  Gaines, Morrison, Wideman: Textualizing Orality and Literacy (every other or every third year)ENG381 Hopeful Monsters (Mixed) Media Studies

Two Required Core Courses ENG/HSC 207 The

Technology of Reading and Writing (Eric Reeves or Douglas Patey)

ARH 267 / ENG 293 The Art and History of the Book (Martin Antonetti)

Together these two courses provide an overview of interdisciplinary book studies and a historical context that will help students identify their own interests within the concentration and make informed decisions about fieldwork and capstone projects. Students are encouraged to take these two courses soon after entering the concentration.

Two ElectivesTwo existing courses—at Smith or any Five Colleges department or program—that address the themes and concerns of the Book Studies Concentration, and are approved by the Book Studies Advisory Committee.

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Oberlin College Smith CollegeFYSP 128:  Media and MemoryHIST 101: Medieval and Early Modern European HistoryHIST 303: Property and Possession in the Middle Ages;MHST 226:  Music of the Middle Ages and RenaissanceMHST 336: Music and Material CulturePSYCH 209: Complex Cognition

Practical Learning Component

Courses in the practice category include

AAST 258:  Talking BookARTSO69:  Re-imagining the Book (every fall)ARTS 090: Advanced Book ArtsARTS 011: Visual Concepts and Processes: ScreenprintingARTS012: Visual Concepts and Processes: Expression, Process, and MeaningARTS013: Visual Concepts and Processes: Dichotomy and LithographyARTS015: Visual Concepts and Processes: Intaglio and LithographyCRWR 375: Workshop in Cartoons, Comics, and Graphic NarrativesENG 357: Archives: Theories and Practices

By petition, an approved winter term project or summer internship may count in the Practice Category, although it does not count for college course credit.Winter Term LetterpressWinter Term Papermaking

Practical Learning Experience or InternshipsPractical learning experiences or internships are an integral element of the Book Studies Concentration. Students will complete two internships (paid or supported by Praxis) that provide practical, first-hand knowledge of publishing, printing, librarianship, or any of the other professions and crafts that are encompassed by book studies. Students have responsibility for researching and securing appropriate internships from the wide array of local, regional, national and international internships identified by the concentration advisers. Each internship needs to be approved by the student's concentration adviser. See the Internships page on this website for the forms you will need to complete. Click here for a list of several interesting (and recommended) internship opportunities.

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Oberlin College Smith CollegeCulminating Experience

Meeting with Book Studies Advisor and one other committee member to reflect on the concentration.

Optional Honors Thesis: Book Studies Faculty will be happy to confer on senior honors theses or capstone projects.

Senior Capstone Seminar: BKX 3002 creditsThe culminating experience for the Book Studies Concentration is an independent research project that synthesizes the student's academic and practical experiences. The student's concentration adviser will serve as the sponsor for the project; topics for this capstone project will be decided in concert with the student's adviser and vetted by the concentration's director.The capstone experience takes place in the fall of the senior year, in order to showcase the results in exhibitions, interpretive documents, or public presentations such as collaborations, in the spring. While the project is completed and evaluated in the fall, the public showcasing of the work in the spring will provide a capstone for the hands-on, practical element of the concentration for seniors.The senior capstone seminar is organized and taught by the director of the Book Studies Concentration, who also oversees the progress of the independent projects. Each student's project would be approved by the student's concentration adviser, as well as by the director.

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Relevant Faculty and Courses they will contribute to Book Studies Concentration on a regular basis (as of February 2016):Laura Baudot ENGL315Dan Chaon CRWR 375Bonnie Cheng ARTS355Johnny Coleman AAST258/ARTS256Sarah Hamill ARTS 373, ARTS 461Jason Haugen ANTH204Erika Hoffman-Dilloway ANTH438Erik Inglis ARTS 310, 315, 316, 326, 406, 416Gillian Johns ENGL363Aimee Lee Winter Term Papermaking (Main Library)James O’Leary MHST 226, 336Kristina Paabus ARTS 011, 012, 013, 015Jeffrey Pence FYSP128, ENG381Ann Sherif EAS116, EAS272Danielle Skeehan ENG357Natasha Tessone ENG227, ENG3XX (a course in nineteenth-century British literature and culture)Paul Thibodeau PSYC209Ed Vermue Letterpress Winter Term (Main Library)Ellen Wurtzel HIST101, HIST303Nanette Yannuzzi-Macias ARTS069,090Sandy Zagarell Book Studies Gateway Course

Appendix III: Some Possible Pathways for a Book Studies Concentration

Medieval Europe and Bookmaking Gateway Arts 315 (Illuminated MSS))History 303 (Medieval)Music 226 (Music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance)Arts 069 (Re-imagining the Book) [Practice]The Book in Differing Eras, Cultures, ContextsGatewayArts 316 (Monastic Art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance)English 227 (Romantics and Their World)Music Hist 336 (Music and Material Culture)AAST 258 Talking Book [Practice]

An English major and a Book Studies concentrator whose focus is literatureGatewayEnglish 227 (Romantics and Their World) OREnglish 315 (The Eighteenth-Century British Novel and Print Culture)English 363 (Gaines, Morrison, Wideman: Textualizing Orality and Literacy) EAS 116 (Premodern Japanese Literature) OR

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Art 373 (History of Photography)Letterpress Studio Winter Term [Practice]

Books and Cognition/MaterialityGatewayAnthropology 204 (Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology)Anthropology 438 (Literacies in Social Context) ORARTS 406 (Word and Image in Medieval Art)PSYCH 209 (Complex Cognition) ORCRWR 375 (Workshop in Cartoons, Comics, and Graphic Narratives)ARTS O69: Re-imagining the Book ORARTS 090 Advanced Book Arts [practice]

Book Arts Gateway ARTS 069 (Re-imagining the Book)ARTS 011 (Screenprinting)ARTS 461 (Contemporary Photography: Book, Archive, Picture)ANTH 438 (Literacies in Social Context)

Appendix IV. The Gateway to Book Studies

The Gateway course provides an overview of Book Studies. It also introduces students to the analytical tools, methods, approaches, and vocabularies that will allow them to engage in the study of the creation of knowledge and cultures, of literature and histories, and of persons in various regions and nations, eras and cultures, as these have centered on and been shaped by books and their uses.

The learning goals of the Gateway course are the following:1. Introduce students to the field of Book Studies giving them a sense of both its scope and its key methodologies.2. Give students the concepts, tools, and vocabularies necessary for engaging with books as material, historical, and aesthetic objects. 3. Furnish students with the key questions to ask in relation to books from different eras, cultures, and in different media: Who makes a book? How many people, techniques, and materials does it take to produce a book? Who then has access to the book? How does it circulate? What is its afterlife?  What are some of the relationships between book as a material object and reading practices? What are non-literary uses of the book?  Students will also gain a clear sense of why these questions matter and the different kinds of knowledge they generate.4. Expose students to a comparative perspective on the world’s major book cultures and traditions.

These learning goals will be pursued through case studies of significant works, such as sacred texts from different religious traditions. Assignments for the course may include: the biography of a book from Special Collections; comparisons of two different versions of the same book; and a physical or virtual library exhibit curated by a single student or pair of students.

IV. Additional Benefits for Oberlin College

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Initiatives in Book Studies at Oberlin can attract grant money, faculty, and visiting speakers, and they can generate other new models for learning and scholarship. The Mellon-funded Book Studies and the Liberal Arts symposium held in October 2010 generated enthusiasm on campus and beyond among the several peer institutions that attended. Other faculty-led initiatives and outside grant proposals would likely follow an institutional recognition of Book Studies as a concentration.  This concentration would be particularly useful for attracting funding for projects in the booming interdisciplinary field of “digital humanities.”

Three departments actively involved in the Book Studies Concentration host lectures that can be coordinated with book studies courses, allowing students to hear and interact on a regular basis with noted experts in the field and increasing collaboration among departments.  These include the Harold Jantz Memorial Lectureship coordinated by the library, the English Department’s Lectures in English and American Literature funded by former Professor of English Andrew Bongiorno, and the Art Department’s Baldwin Lecture Fund and Ellen Johnson Visiting Artists Fund. In the past these lectures have brought such notable scholars to Oberlin as Elizabeth Eisenstein, Robert Darnton, Anthony Grafton, Leah Price, Cynthia Brokaw, Michael Suarez, S.J., and Peter Kornicki.              

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