Text and Technology: from Handwritten to Digital Formats

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Frist 209
Frist 209

Speakers

  • Christine Roughan
4-students

Description

Course page

How did the introduction of new text technologies impact premodern culture? What motivated or delayed the adoption of the codex or the various types of print? Did these technologies encourage new practices or suppress old ones? And how does the story change when we turn from European to Near Eastern contexts? By learning about past text technologies, we'll gain a fuller understanding of how today's digital text technologies leave their mark on how we interact with texts and with the world. This course teaches relevant digital humanities methods for texts and reflects critically on both our current moment and premodern pasts.

Sample Reading List

  • Colin Roberts and T. C. Skeat, The Birth of the Codex
  • Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies
  • Sarah Werner, Studying Early Printed Books, 1450-1800: A Practical Guide
  • Geoffrey Roper, The History of the Book in the Muslim World
  • L.W.C. van Lit, Among Digitized Manuscripts
  • Elias Muhanna, The Digital Humanities and Islamic & Middle East Studies

Reading/Writing Assignments

70 to 120 pages of reading per week.

Requirements/Grading

Term Assessments:

  • Project(s) - 30%
  • Papers/writing assignments - 10%
  • Participation - 20%
  • Programming assignments - 10%

Final Assessments:

  • Final paper or project - 30%

Other Requirements

  • Multimedia Student Project Required

Prerequisites and Restrictions

No knowledge of source languages, manuscript/book studies, or digital methods is required.

Other Information

Weekly readings will introduce key points for manuscript studies, book studies, and digital subjects. Students will explore these topics through submitted responses and in-class discussions and will explore relevant digital methods through code assignments. In short projects and the final project students will use digital methods to present their examinations of aspects of premodern texts, drawing on materials available in Firestone Library Special Collections.