C334: Many people have claimed that ours is an age in which electronic media predominate. Amid the flow of 24-hour radio and television, the visual and sonic entropy of digitally-enhanced cinema, the dizzyingly connective internet maze, the kaleidoscopic intensity of video gaming, and the breakneck pace at which new media develop, it gets harder to imagine a seemingly old-fashioned medium like books having much importance these days.

Yet, in many respects, books and book culture seem to be booming. Bookstores have been supersized. Online bookstores promise even greater accessibility. Book clubs like Oprah Winfrey’s, and book franchises like Harry Potter, inspire legions of people to read—-and to buy. Meanwhile, large multi-national corporations publish more and more books every year, and new types of digital reading devices are emerging constantly.

Given these and other developments, now seems like an appropriate time in which to figure out how best to research and discuss book culture. In this class, we’ll explore how the physical form of books, and the infrastructure by which they’re produced, have transformed over time. We’ll consider how relations of race, class, and gender influence who reads what, with whom, and under what conditions, and why people make value judgments about one another on the basis of which books we read. We’ll also investigate questions of authorship, ownership, and originality as they arise within the context of books’ mass reproducibility.

Broadly, therefore, you’ll learn specific skills by which to research, and critical frameworks by which to assess, the politics of book culture past, present, and future.

REQUIRED TEXTS:
Finkelstein, D. and McCleery, A. (eds.) (2006) The book history reader (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Miller, L. J. (2006). Reluctant capitalists: Bookselling and the culture of consumption. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.