Velocity and Suspension: The Sense of Time in Early Modern Writing

Catalog description

'A book that never ends, an ongoing book to tell you what is true.' Thus one literary critic describes the strangest of literary innovations from the late seventeenth century: the periodical form. Between 1641-1700, periodicals made up fully one-fourth of printed titles. Authors more often recognized as practitioners of other forms (Daniel Defoe, Eliza Haywood, Jonathan Swift, Frederick Douglass) also headed up their own journals as editors. This course, which prioritizes breadth of exposure, will also consider the temporal rhythms that a literary form like the periodical introduces and alters. By situating journalistic time within a range of calendrical regimes from the medieval period onward (the seasonal, monastic, public, scientific and yes, academic), students should find resources anew to guide their own practices of recurrent writing.