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CALL FOR PAPERS


Rethinking Early Modern Print Culture


An international and interdisciplinary conference at

The Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies

Victoria University in the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

15-17 October 2010


The view that early modernity saw the transformation of European  
societies into cultures of print has been widely influential in  
literary, historical, philosophical, and bibliographical studies of  
the period. The concept of print culture has provided scholars with a  
powerful tool for analyzing and theorizing new (or seemingly new)  
regimens of knowledge and networks of information transmission as well  
as developments in the worlds of literature, theatre, music, and the  
visual arts. However, more recently the concept has been reexamined  
and destabilized, as critics have pointed out the continuing existence  
of cultures of manuscript, queried the privileging of technological  
advances over other cultural forces, and identified the presence of  
many of the supposed innovations of print in pre-print societies.


This multi-disciplinary conference aims to refine and redefine our  
understanding of early modern print cultures (from the fifteenth to  
the end of the seventeenth century). We invite papers seeking to  
explore questions of production and reception that have always been at  
the core of the historiography of print, developing a more refined  
sense of the complex roles played by various agents and institutions.  
But we especially encourage submissions that probe the boundaries of  
our subject, both chronologically and conceptually: did print culture  
have a clear beginning? How is the idea of a culture of print  
complicated by the continued importance of manuscript circulation (as  
a private and commercial phenomenon)? How did print reshape or  
reconfigure audiences? And what was the place of orality in a world  
supposedly dominated by print textuality? What new forms of  
chirography and spoken, live performances did print enable, if any?


Other possible topics might include:

* Ownership of texts and plagiarism; authorship; “piracy”

* Booksellers and printers, and their local, national, and  
international networks

* Readers and their material and interpretative practices

* Libraries, both personal and institutional

* Beyond the book: ephemeral forms of print and manuscript

* Text and illustration, print and visuality

* Typography, mise en page, binding, and technological advances in  
book-production


We invite proposals for conference papers of 20 minutes and encourage  
group-proposals for panels of three papers. Alternative formats such  
as workshops and roundtables will also be considered. Abstracts of 250  
words can be submitted electronically on the conference website,


http://www.crrs.ca/events/conferences/print/


The deadline for submissions is 15 December 2009.


All questions ought to be addressed to the conference organizers,  
Grégoire Holtz (French, University of Toronto) and Holger Schott Syme  
(English, University of Toronto), at [log in to unmask]



--------------------------------------------
Dr Holger Schott Syme
Assistant Professor
Department of English, University of Toronto
Department of English and Drama, University of Toronto Mississauga

Mail: Jackman Humanities Building, 170 St. George Street, Toronto, M5R  
2M8, Canada
Tel: (905) 828-3769 (wk) Fax: (905) 828-5202

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