The Formation and Re-formation of the Book: 1450-1650

FAIN: FS-250646-16

Huntington Library (San Marino, CA 91108-1218)
Mark Rankin (Project Director: February 2016 to May 2018)

A four-week seminar for sixteen college and university faculty that would examine development of the book between 1450 and 1650.

We are pleased to propose a four-week-long Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers on “The Formation and Re-formation of the Book: 1450-1650.” Sponsored by The Huntington Library, this program will investigate the gradual transformation of the production, dissemination, and reading of Western European books during the two centuries that followed the mid-fifteenth-century invention of printing with movable type on hand-operated presses. We shall investigate the impact of the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Reformation (or Counter-Reformation) on the reshaping of the organization and material nature of books during a turbulent era of religious, intellectual, literary, and cultural change. We plan to consider multiple “Reformations” with respect not only to Protestant and Catholic book publication, but also the gradual re-forming of the production, dissemination, and reading of books, in addition to paradigm-shifting treatises that spurred the Scientific Revolution.