Syllabus: Seminar: Topics in Media Theory: Histories of the Book
This course studies how the written word travels through time and across media. What is a book?
How do you make one? What rules have different cultures developed about when to share, sell,
preserve, censor or pulp? How did the books on our shelves or our cloud storage get there, and
how do we ensure that what we write today will survive into the future (do we want it to)? What
light can artifacts from different times and places shed on the ways you store and retrieve
information, inside the classroom and beyond?
How do you make one? What rules have different cultures developed about when to share, sell,
preserve, censor or pulp? How did the books on our shelves or our cloud storage get there, and
how do we ensure that what we write today will survive into the future (do we want it to)? What
light can artifacts from different times and places shed on the ways you store and retrieve
information, inside the classroom and beyond?