32111
Advanced seminar
WiSe 23/24: Diffusing Knowledge: Transformations of American Print Culture
Hannah Spahn
Comments
“Books are for the scholar’s idle times,” Ralph Waldo Emerson famously claimed. In his view, American scholars should have better things to do than waste their time with printed matter. As is well known, however, even Emerson could not quite do without books but was deeply involved in the transatlantic print culture around him, both devouring what he decried as “other men’s transcripts of their readings” and producing his own. In this seminar, we will approach the complex phenomenon of American print culture in three major historical and theoretical contexts. The first is the relation of print to epistemology and what was often described as a “diffusion” of knowledge through print, in the double sense of both a democratization and a disintegration or fragmentation of knowledge. Related to the question of whether print was discussed in terms of progress or in terms of media anxiety, the second context concerns the role of print in emerging modern conceptions of both nationhood and cosmopolitanism. Building on these topics, the third and final focus of the seminar will be on conceptions and practices of print in African American culture. close
16 Class schedule
Regular appointments
Thu, 2023-10-19 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2023-10-26 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2023-11-02 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2023-11-09 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2023-11-16 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2023-11-23 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2023-11-30 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2023-12-07 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2023-12-14 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2023-12-21 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2024-01-11 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2024-01-18 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2024-01-25 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2024-02-01 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2024-02-08 12:00 - 14:00
Thu, 2024-02-15 12:00 - 14:00