[1] The Social Life of Books: Uses of Text and Image Beyond Reading and Viewing

Session Organizers: Aaron Hyman (University of California, Berkeley), Hannah Marcus (Harvard University), Marissa Nicosia (Penn State University, Abington College)
Saturday, 14 October 2017, 8:30–10:00am

Fish wrappers, cigarette rollers, toilet paper, the backing for embroidery, lining for baking pans, the raw material for papier mâché—these are but a few of the uses that the page was subjected to outside the normative economies of reading and viewing. But texts and images also often functioned in less pragmatic and more freighted ways: as numinously charged surfaces to be touched upon one's person, as personal possessions hidden inside mummy bundles for the enjoyment of the deceased, as symbols to be iconoclastically destroyed, or as divine conduits to be ceremonially ingested. Sometimes books and images, which by their nature inform, instruct, invite annotation, and implore users to follow their designs, incited such uses beyond mere reading or viewing. We seek interrogations of uses and reuses of the page that emphasize instances in which material necessity was charged with a semantic or symbolic dimension. When was the sheer need for paper or parchment complicated or compounded by the content of the page? Or when might repurposing have been prompted by alternative understandings of a book's materials, in their own right? During this conference session, three participants will give 20-minute presentations, followed by a half-hour discussion led by a moderator.

Please submit a proposal of no more than 500 words, along with an abridged CV, by 25 October 2016 at:
rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-papers

[2] Materials of Image Transmission & Transfer

Session Organizer: Aaron Hyman (University of California, Berkeley)
Friday, 13 October 2017, 1:45–3:15pm

If the transmission of images, both geographic and between different media, has become a common theme of recent scholarly investigation, the physical and technical nitty-gritty of these operations has received far less attention. More often, scholars approach transmission and transfer from their indices: a copy that cleaves to an original, or an object made in one part of the world and found in another. But precisely how were images sent far and wide? And what were the technical practices by which one image became another, or was used to create another type of object altogether? In proposing answers to these questions, this panel aims to grapple with transmission and transfer not only in the abstract frame of “circulation,” but also, and more fundamentally, as material processes.

The panel thereby seeks to methodologically highlight the kinds of material evidence that might be used to reconstruct the physical processes of transmission and transfer. What kinds of access can residue (smudges, stains, additions) and erasure (pinholes, missing pieces, cutaways) give us to the artist’s, engraver’s, or metal smith’s studio? What are the vestiges of a scribe’s method of copying or the publisher’s practice of forgery or re-edition? How does wear, or even preventative reinforcement, divulge the particularities of an object’s journey through the world?

Proposals are welcomed that focus on images which traveled, at least originally, by means of paper or parchment supports—prints, book illustrations, manuscript illuminations, among others—in any geography and period.

During this conference session, three participants will give 20-minute presentations, followed by a half-hour discussion led by a moderator. Please submit a proposal of no more than 500 words, along with an abridged CV, by 25 October 2016 at:
rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-papers

Bibliography Among the Disciplines, a four-day international conference, will bring together scholarly professionals poised to address current problems pertaining to the study of textual artifacts that cross scholarly, pedagogical, professional, and curatorial domains. The conference will explore theories and methods common to the object-oriented disciplines, such as anthropology and archaeology, but new to bibliography. The program aims to promote focused cross-disciplinary exchange and future scholarly collaborations. Bibliography Among the Disciplines is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and organized by the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in Critical Bibliography at Rare Book School. For more information, please visit: rarebookschool.org/bibliography-conference-2017