Editing Theory and Practice

Catalog description

How does a text become a text? What forces govern how the text appears and sounds? What are the roots of the idea of the text? Of the author? As a textual editor, what is your role and relationship to the texts and authors you edit? In this course, we’ll read theories of the text, the edition, the role of the editor, the idea of “error” and “correction,” and their histories, including connections to hygiene and eugenics, conflicts over descriptivism and prescriptivism, ideas of authoring/authority and unique composition and copyright, among other concepts. Students will practice basic editing techniques as well. Authors include G. Thomas Tanselle, Fredson Bowers, Jerome McGann, Debra Tannen, Joseph Grigely, Paul Ricoeur, Roland Barthes, and Stanley Fish. This course is a pre-requisite for ENGL1190Y: Editing as Revision.