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Material Cultures of The Book Unbound

When: —
Venue: Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square

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This panel discussion about the visual and material cultures of the book includes object presentations responding to Luisa Calè's The Book Unbound: Material Cultures of Reading and Collecting, 1750-1850 (CUP 2025): assumptions about the book as a bound object have isolated literature from overlapping material cultures of book making, reading, viewing, and collecting. The Book Unbound reconstructs a textual condition of unbound forms in which the book acted as a repository for open-ended collections of discrete book parts, prints, watercolours, manuscripts, and serial publications, ca. 1750–1850. The project started from the evidence of exra-illustration, a practice that supplements the text with extraneous materials (prints, watercolours, maps, manuscripts), inserted into the book and extending it to multiple volumes. Drawing on research in art history and print culture, the key question was: ‘How does our understanding of literature change if we admit the evidence of the extra-illustrated book, ca 1750- 1850?’ In the course of the research that question shifted to thinking about how our understanding of Romantic literature change when we shift the focus from bound books to unbound forms.

This panel brings together specialists in book history, prints, and visual culture working in the fields of literature, art history, and library archives, responding to the book by sharing and discussing materials from 1750 to 1900.  

Contact name: Luisa Cale

Contact phone: 07590284263

Speakers
  • Clare Pettitt —

    Grace 2 Professor, Faculty of English, University of Cambridge

  • Cynthia Roman —

    Curator of Prints, Drawings, & Paintings, Lewis Walpole Library, video presentation

  • Dr Ana Parejo-Vadillo
  • Dr Vicky Mills —

    Senior Lecturer in Victorian Literature and Culture, School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication

  • Felicity Myrone —

    Lead Curator, Western Prints and Drawings, British Library

  • Kate Retford —

    Head of Research Resources & Publications, Paul Mellon Centre, Yale University

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