Society for History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing Conference Recap
Since I wanted to get the 'big picture' I went to David McKnight, the convener of the conference and Director of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Pennsylvania and asked if I could interview him. In that conversation David proceeded to dazzle me, unbeknownst to him probably, with the history of SHARP, his own role in it, and the History of the Book projects in many countries. He noted how SHARP was a catalyst for this emerging scholarship back when it was founded in 1991. He referenced a book by D.F. McKenzie whose Bibliography and Sociology of Texts, published in 1999, began to transform his and many others' understanding of what it meant to study the history of the book. Those ideas helped shape a scholarly discussion which also began to transform the field from a descriptive bibliographic orientation to a much broader understanding of the material texts.
- Companies:
- University of Pennsylvania Press
- Places:
- Philadelphia
- United States