Topics in Lit: Scissors, Paper, Pixel: Books and Ephemera, from Blake to AI

How can examining the books, ephemera, and paper technologies of the past tell us more about the scraps of paper-the dog-eared books, class notes, receipts, tickets, scribbled shopping lists-that surround us, today? Blending literary scholarship with creative practice, we will study and reproduce book technologies from the 18th century to the present. Besides familiarizing ourselves with the basic anatomy of a book and the pipeline for book-making in the long 19th century, we will replicate various printmaking methods, from established techniques in mainstream publishing to artisanal experiments (William Blake's "infernal method," braille, and cyanotyping). We will also analyze (and craft) the ephemeral shapes bookish material took in the period: silhouettes, pop-up books, toy theaters, and maps. Along the way, we will examine the book making habits of 19th century writers (Emily Dickinson's fascicles, Charlotte Brontë's "little books," and Frederick Douglass learning to write on "fence, brick wall, and pavement"), the debt western printmaking had to Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, and digital storytelling. We will have created 2 full books by the end of the semester: one, an 18th century-inspired scrapbook that you will hand-bind, and the second, a final book art project. Other writers/artists will include: Jane Austen, Arthur Conan Doyle, WEB Du Bois, Katsushika Hokusai, James Weldon Johnson, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Art Spiegelman, Bram Stoker, & Virginia Woolf. This course satisfies the Nineteenth Century requirement, and counts as an elective to the Publishing Concentration or the Children's Studies Minor. **To participate in the course, you will need to purchase several crucial art materials.**
Course Attributes: EN H; AS HUM; FA HUM; AR HUM; EL TC; EL GML

Topics in Lit: Scissors, Paper, Pixel: Books and Ephemera, from Blake to AI

ENGLISH LITERATURE 5110

Section 01