Book History Research Network Study Day

Friday, 26th October 2007
Institute of English Studies, University of London


Rethinking the Book: Between Text and Para-Text

In their Introduction to A Companion to the History of the Book, Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose write that while "literary critics and theorists feel able to talk about a text as though it were some disembodied entity, for the book historian the text always takes an embodied form".  The aims and objectives of criticism, exegesis and the history of ideas, on the one hand, and book history and historical bibliography on the other are not simply different. As tools for human communication, books carry meaning through their "text" as much as through their physical form, and the interaction between the two is the focus of this study.

9.00	Arrive
9.15	Introduction (NG15)
	Christine Lees (Royal Holloway) and Wim Van Mierlo (Institute of English Studies)
9.30	Rowan Watson (Victoria and Albert Museum)
	"Negotiating the Change: From Manuscript Books of Hours to Printed Prayer Books"
	Chair : Michelle Brown (Institute of English Studies)
10.00	Coffee Break
10.15	Panel 1: Literary Para-texts
	Chair: Wim Van Mierlo (Institute of English Studies)
	Rob Allen (University of Amsterdam)
	" 'The Hand that Writes these Faltering Lines': Paratext, Serialization and the Author -Function in Victorian Fiction"
	Katie Halsey (Institute of English Studies)
	"The History of Henry Austen's 'Biographical Notice of the Author '"
	Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (University College London)
	"Tracing the auth or on the threshold of the book: The photographic frontispieces to Henry James's New York Edition"
11.30	Panel 2: Typography and the Book
	Chair : Warren Boutcher (Queen Mary/ School of Advanced Study)
	Claire Bolton (University of Reading)
	"Working to Fixed Measures: The Basis of the Design and Layout of Fifteenth-Century Editions"
	John L. Flood
	" 'A German Word in Latin Letters is as Foreign as a Greek Word would be in German Letters' (Bismarck): Typography and Text in the German Book"
	Gavin Edwards (University of Glamorgan)
	"Edmund Burke: Reflections on The Revolution in Typography"
12.45-1.30	Lunch (own arrangments)
1.30	Panel 3: Printed Explorations
	Chair: Johanna Archbold (Trinity College Dublin)
	Hilde de Weerdt (University of Oxford)
	"Para-Text and the Pedagogical Imperative: From Map Steles to the Printed Atlas"
	Rosalind Crone (Open University)
	"Exploring Book History through the Reading Experience Database"
2.15	Coffee Break
2.30	Panel 4: Translation and Reception
	Chair: Christine Lees (Royal Holloway)
	Cristina Ivanovici (University of Birmingham)
	"Lost in Translation: The production and Dissemination of Margaret Atwood's (Dystopian) Fiction in Romania"
	Gail Chester (Royal Holloway)
	"The Translator as Gatekeeper: Bernard Miall at Allen & Unwin, 1914 to 1953"
3.45	Trip to the National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum PLEASE NOTE: we will travel together to the V&A by Underground (Piccadilly Line). It would help if participants could purchase a ticket in advance to save time.)

This study day is free and open to postgraduates, academics and independent scholars with an interest in the History of the Book. Please contact Christine Lees (c.lees@rhul.ac.uk) or Wim Van Mierlo (Wim.Van-Mierlo@sas.ac.uk) for more information.