ARTH 31.05 Art of the Book: Y1K-Y2K
This class is designed to introduce students to the book as an object and a technology. Some themes include the history of reading, the impact of printed books, increased literacy and censorship, encyclopedias, the transmission of books as fragments, collecting practices and libraries, and feminist book history. The class takes a comprehensive historical and global approach, exploring the artistic and cultural developments in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia from the medieval period to the contemporary era. Throughout the course, you will examine religious and secular artifacts encompassing an extensive range of imperial and market-produced manuscripts, intricately calligraphed and illustrated books, and other three-dimensional objects. Over the semester, you will have the advantage of working with many “real” examples of books, manuscript fragments, paintings, and objects from Dartmouth’s Rauner Special Collections Library. The course also consists of workshops on producing the book’s physical materials: paper making, quills, pigment and ink recipes, printing, and bookbinding. Studying the processes of book creation will provide you with a deeper understanding of how books have influenced culture and how cultural developments have shaped their evolution. Class meetings will be held in various formats, combining lectures and class discussions with hands\u2010on workshops and studying rare books.
Department-Specific Course Categories
Art History