GENED 1090 – What Is a Book? From the Clay Tablet to the Kindle
Semester: Spring
Offered: 2025
Instructor: David Stern
Meeting Time: T, Th, 1:30 – 2:45pm
What is the nature of the object that has been the focus of your education since you began to read–and at the core of Western culture since its inception– and why is it important to understand and appreciate its presence before your eyes even if it’s all but transparent?
You have spent much of your life since kindergarten (and perhaps earlier) reading books; and you will spend much of your time at Harvard continuing to read them. But do you even know what a “book” is? Is it merely a conveyor, a platform, for presenting a text? Can a book have a use other than being read? Does the nature of the material artifact inscribed with words shape or influence the way you understand their meaning? Do people read a scroll differently than they do a book with pages? Or a digital text on a screen? Why does the physical book persist in the digital age? To answer these questions, we will study the many different material forms in which texts in Western culture have been inscribed—from tablets to e-books—and the technologies that have enabled their creation. We will also explore every possible aspect of the object we know as a “book,” from the title page to the index, and from the layout of a page to the use of illustrations and decorations—and what each of these features of the book can tell us about its historical role, how readers have used the book, and what it has meant to them. Books we will look at will range from the Bible to Vesalius, from Homer to Harold and His Purple Crayon. Sections will visit the Weissman Preservation Center, Houghton Library, Fine Arts Special Collections, and the Harvard Art Museum, and all students will be required to study a manuscript close-up and participate in a printing workshop. The book as a material object is the focus of the course. The capstone project will be the creation of a (short) book by each student and an accompanying paper explaining its place in the history of the book in the West.
After taking this course, you will never look at a book in the same way.
Class Notes: This course has an enrollment cap and is a part of the Gen Ed lottery. To participate in the lottery, you must first submit a petition and then rank your choices through my.harvard by 11:59 p.m. EST Tuesday, November 12, 2024. The Gen Ed lottery will run Wednesday, November 13; if you are successful in the lottery, your course petition in your Crimson Cart will turn to a green check that allows you to enroll. You will have until 11:59 p.m. EST Friday, November 15, to claim your seat. After that time, enrollment will open up to non-lottery petitioners. For timely updates and detailed instructions about entering the Gen Ed lottery, please see https://gened.college.harvard.edu/courses/registration-and-lottery/
This course will be collecting preferences on the following section times:
Thursday: 10:30-11:30am
Wednesday: 1:30pm-2:30pm
Wednesday: 3:00pm-4:00pm
Please be sure to mark your preferences when you enroll in the course, choosing as many section times as possible that work for your schedule. While we will do our best to place you in one of your top-ranked sections, the more rankings you give us, the better your odds are of getting into a preferred time. If the majority of students enrolling have scheduling conflicts with the section times listed, we will consider changing the section schedule to accommodate this but, for now, these are the section times; we do not plan on adding any more unless enrollment necessitates it. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact genedcourses@fas.harvard.edu.
For more details please visit the Harvard Course Catalog.