LRBS COURSES 24-28 JUNE
The Book in the Ancient World
Course tutors: Dr Irving Finkel, Dr Matthew Nicholls, Dr Marigold Norbye, Dr. Kathryn E. Piquette and Alan Cole, Curator of the Museum of Writing
The course is an intensive survey of the origins of, and the changes in, textual culture that took place between c. 2500 BC and 400 AD. It will set these changes into their related historical contexts and place considerable emphasis on the material nature of writing and book construction. This will involve extensive use of materials from the Museum of Writing (Curator: Mr Alan Cole) currently housed in the Senate House Library. In addition to handling and using original artefacts, students will have the opportunity to experiment with writing on clay tablets, on papyrus, and on wax tablets using modern reconstructions under the guidance of Alan Cole who will provide practical sessions during some of the seminars (these are asterisked). The course will end by looking at the ways in which the modern book form (the codex) emerged at the end of the period, and how some of the ancient texts studied in the course survived through the post-classical manuscript periods to the age of printing.
Course outline/ Outcomes for students / Recommended Introductory reading [PDF, 282kb]
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Children's Books, 1470-1980
Course tutor: Jill Shefrin
This course is designed to provide a holistic introduction to the study of early and modern children’s books, examining the book as physical object—both bibliographically and materially—as well as concepts of rarity and collectability, together with the history and practice of children’s book collecting, bookselling and scholarship. Case studies will focus on different historical contexts, printing technologies, book design and cross-cultural influences over 500 years.
Many children’s books are, by nature of their principal readers, scarce: children are hard on their books. Books from earlier periods, books produced for a cheap popular market and, in the twentieth century, books published under wartime conditions may be especially rare. Additionally, until the twentieth century, copyright deposit libraries did not particularly value the acquisition of books published for children.
The critical, historical and bibliographic literature on children’s books is complicated by having been written for varied audiences. Children’s books have traditionally been of interest to children’s librarians and primary schoolteachers on the one hand, and, on the other, to antiquarian collectors, booksellers and librarians of special collections primarily concerned with bibliography and in the history of publishing and illustration. In recent years, bibliographical, critical and historical research have all exploded, supported in part by academic interest in the history of the book and the study of children’s literature. Academics in a range of disciplines—particularly English literature—have entered the field. But collectors and scholars have been studying the history of children’s books since the nineteenth century.
Students will have the opportunity to see and handle early material in some of London’s rare book collections and to understand how bibliography serves as a tool of description and communication between the worlds of collectors, booksellers, curators and scholars. They should acquire a sufficient sense of the current state of bibliographical and historical research in the field to enable them to pursue their own professional or personal interests.
Course outline / Outcomes for students / Recommended Introductory reading [PDF, 432kb]
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An Introduction to Bibliography
Course tutor: Professor Anthony Edwards
This course aims to give students an introduction to the various elements of bibliography and to set those elements within their appropriate historical and methodological contexts. It will examine the different forms of the book from manuscript through its development in its various printed forms and introduce students to the forms of bibliographical enquiry and their associated terminology and implications.
Course outline / Outcomes for students / Recommended Introductory Reading [PDF, 212kb]
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Mapping Land and Sea before 1900
Course Organisers: Dr Catherine Delano-Smith, Sarah Tyacke CB.
Lecturers: Peter Barber, Tony Campbell, Tom Harper, P.D.A Harvey, Silvia Sumira, Ashley Bayton-Williams, Laurence Worms, Felix Driver, R.J.P Kain, Rose Mitchell, Alexander Kent.
This course is designed to develop the participants' understanding of the main genres of European mapping found between the middle ages and 1900. The focus is on the production and use of the maps, charts and globes within their social and cultural context. Participants will consider the changes that brought about the emergence of mapping and its development up to and during the Enlightenment and the subsequent rise of military-based national mapping agencies seeking to provide systematic mapping of the home territory and of colonial territories as the European powers competed for dominance worldwide. Leading experts in their respective fields offer insights into medieval traditions of mapping, sea and ocean charting, and globes as well as later governmental, county, regional and estate mapping, national and colonial mapping that included the contribution of indigenous people. There will be an opportunity to consult material at the British Library, The National Archives and the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).
The course is suitable for historians, art historians, geographers, students of literature, librarians, archivists, map and book dealers.
Course outline / Outcomes for Students / Recommended Introductory Reading [PDF, 396kb]
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The Medieval Book
FULLY BOOKED
Course tutor: Professor Michelle P. Brown
Additional Lecturers: Dr Rowan Watson
This course will provide an intensive introduction to manuscript culture during Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The historical contexts for manuscript production will be explored and the landscape populated with some of those who commissioned and made these remarkable works. Techniques of production, terminology and methods of description and cataloguing will be examined and a brief survey of palaeography and codicology will be provided. Styles and principal trends will be studied, with the aid of digital images, slides, facsimiles and primary sources (with valuable opportunities to examine manuscripts at the British Library, the V&A and Senate House Library). The Course Tutor and additional lecturers are all acknowledged experts in their fields and will share their experience and perspectives as scholars and curators.
Course outline / Outcomes for students / Recommended Introductory Reading [PDF, 266kb]
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The Printed Book in Europe, 1450-2000
Course tutor: Professor John Feather
This is an introductory course for which there are no pre-requisites other than those needed for admission to the LRBS. It is suitable for anyone with an interest in the history of books, including historians, literary scholars, librarians, collectors and antiquarian booksellers. No prior knowledge will be assumed, other than through the pre-course reading which will be selected from the Recommended Reading list.
Course outline / Outcomes for students / Recommended Introductory Reading [PDF, 170kb]
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Type and Its Uses, 1455-1830
Course Tutors: Professor James Mosley
The aim of the course is to present a narrative that follows the changing forms of printing types during the 'hand press period' and offers a view of the forces that helped to shape them. It will use projected images to examine the detail of designs, and there will be visits to some major collections for direct access to some important examples of printing, and to demonstrate the techniques of making and handling type.
Course outline / Outcomes for Students / Recommended Introductory Reading [PDF, 230KB]
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LRBS COURSES 1-5 JULY 2013
The Anglo-Saxon and Carolingian Book, c.600-1050
Course tutors: Professor Michelle Brown, Professor Jane Roberts
This course will provide an intensive introduction to manuscript culture during the early Middle Ages, with specific reference to post-Roman Britain and Ireland , Merovingian Gaul, the Carolingian Empire and Anglo-Saxon England. The preservation and transmission of sources from Antiquity and the creation of literate Christian cultures will be examined and the historical contexts for manuscript production explored. Particular attention will be paid to wider literacy-related issues and to the development of palaeography, codicology and illumination. Study will be undertaken with the aid of digital images, facsimiles and primary sources (with valuable opportunities to examine manuscripts at the British Library). The Course Tutors are all acknowledged experts in their fields and will share their experience and perspectives.
Course Outline / Outcomes for Students / Recommended Introductory Reading [262kb]
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European Bookbinding, 1450-1820
FULLY BOOKED
Course tutor: Professor Nicholas Pickwoad
The history of bookbinding is not simply the history of a decorative art, but that of a craft answering a commercial need. This course will follow European bookbinding from the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, using the bindings themselves to illustrate the aims and intentions of the binding trade. A large part of the course will be devoted to the identification of both broad and detailed distinctions within the larger groups of plain commercial bindings and the possibilities of identifying the work of different countries, cities, even workshops without reference to finishing tools. The identification and significance of the different materials used in bookbinding will be examined, as well as the classification of bookbindings by structural type, and how these types developed through the three centuries covered by the course. The development of binding decoration will be touched on, but will not form a major part of the discussion.
Course outline / Outcomes for students / Recommended Introductory Reading [PDF, 170kb]
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The History and Practice of Hand Press Printing 1450-1830
Course tutors: Dr Claire Bolton, Richard Lawrence
A five-day historical and practical course which will explain the various processes involved in the production of a printed page from making punches, creating moulds and casting type, through type setting and imposition, to inking and printing. The course will be a mixture of history-based and practical seminars; all students will be given the opportunity to work on iron hand presses of the nineteenth century. At a later stage in the course students will have the opportunity to work in pairs on their own small-scale projects. The course is suitable for bibliographers, librarians, art-historians, collectors, museum curators, print enthusiasts, and literary and cultural historians, as well as bibliophiles.
Course Outline / Outcomes for Students / Recommended Introductory Reading [PDF, 260kb]
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The History of Libraries from the Middle Ages to the Present
Course tutors: Dr Karen Attar (Senate House Library, University of London), Dr Keith Manley, Dr David Pearson (City of London), Kyle Roberts, (Loyola University, Chicago), Dr David Rundle (University of Oxford), Dr David Shaw, Dr Daniel Starza Smith (University of Reading), Dr Nicholas Sparks (Warburg Institute), and Ian Willison (Institute of English Studies, University of London)
Book history is heavily reliant on library history, for the books whose history is studied are primarily those that have been preserved in libraries. This course introduces students to books en masse, with the added meaning that they derive from their presence in libraries. Starting in the Middle Ages, the course traces of evolution of the main sorts of institutional library: monastic; cathedral and parish; academic; national; dissenting; circulating and subscription; and rate-paying public libraries. Many libraries right up to national level have been transformed by private collections, and the course will also cover private libraries of two significant eras, the early modern period and the nineteenth century. The focus will be predominantly British; however, British libraries will be placed within an international context for full understanding. As various types of libraries are discussed, similar themes will be explored: library users and contents; access; library management (the acquisition, description and arrangement of books); the impact of technology and of economic and political events on libraries; libraries and society; library architecture; important individuals in the history of libraries. Important, too, are the preservation and loss of libraries and their contents. Finally, the course will seek to introduce some of the current and recent research pertaining to library history.
Course Outline / Outcomes for Students / Recommended Introductory Reading [PDF, 213kb]
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An Introduction to Illustration and its Technologies
Course tutors: Dr Rowan Watson and Paul Goldman. Some classes will be taken by invited experts.
This course offers an introduction to the history of book illustration, an insufficiently exploited resource for the graphic arts and a major means of communication. The approach adopted emphasises the significant part played in the field by developments in printing and in printmaking technology. Recent years have seen new perspectives in what is often called "illustration studies"; there are now new descriptive tools and terms of reference. Students will have the opportunity of seeing certain methods demonstrated and will be able to work towards an understanding and recognition of some of the processes which will be examined.
The course is suitable for librarians, art-historians, collectors, dealers, museum curators, print enthusiasts and literary and cultural historians as well as bibliophiles.
Course Outline / Outcomes for Students / Recommended Introductory Reading [PDF, 230kb]
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Modern First Editions; Dealing, Collecting and the Market
Course Tutors: Mr Laurence Worms (Ash Rare Books)
Additional Lecturers: David Chambers, Angus O'Neill (Omega Bookshop), Julian Rota (Bertram Rota Ltd.), etc.
A practical course intended to explore and examine the present-day market in literary first editions of relatively ‘modern’ vintage – the era commencing approximately from the demise of the three-volume novel in the 1890s. There will be reflection on the history, problems and problematic nature of this market, but the course will range across all areas and provide a thorough grounding and background for collectors, booksellers, librarians, academics and others, who (either professionally or privately) engage or seek to engage with ‘modern firsts’, and require a more detailed insight into the assumptions, nuances, rationale and operation of this market.
The course will be taught by a panel of highly experienced booksellers, who will bring not just skill and expertise, but a lifetime of reflection on their chosen field.
Course outline / Outcomes for Students / Recommended Introductory Reading [PDF, 298kb]
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Modern Literary Manuscripts
Course Tutor: Dr Wim Van Mierlo
This course will address issues of authorship and creativity through the study of literary manuscripts from the modern period (1700-2000). The objective is to develop an "archaeology" of the literary work based on the principles and ideas of genetic criticism and historical bibliography, and to give students expertise in examining and interpreting an array of pre-publication documents. The emphasis will be on methodology as well as on developing skills to give the student the necessary theoretical and practical tools for analyzing literary drafts, both as physical documents and as text. The course is aimed at students of literature who want to integrate archival research and textual scholarship into their critical work as well as early-career professionals in the book trade, librarians and archivists who want to widen their understanding of draft materials. While for practical reasons, this course will mostly make use of print and digital facsimiles, students will have the opportunity too to work with original documents.
Course outline / Outcomes for Students / Recommended Introductory Reading [PDF, 239kb]
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