Introduction to Print Culture

Catalog description

This course examines the writing, printing, dissemination, interpretation, and censorship of specific works in Early modern England, France, Italy, Spain and America. The course is an introduction to the history of authorship, publishing, and reading at the age of print culture from Gutenberg to Franklin. All the texts analyzed in the course (the Bible, Montaigne's Essays, Shakespeare's plays, Don Quixote, Pamela among them) are available in English but the course pays particular attention to the massive range of translations in early modern period. its main focus are the relation between the "printing revolution" and scribal culture, censorship and transgression, the birth of the author and collaborative writing, and reading practices from humanist techniques to reading of the novels. The course is based on the exceptional collections of rare books and manuscripts at Penn and in Philadelphia and it is taught in the Van Pelt Library.