history of the book

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In the introduction section of Howard’s The Book, she writes “As with a person’s biography, the biography of technology is not limited to the object alone, but must encompass the history of people, places, and ideas that gave rise to the innovation”.  Before beginning to read the first chapter (Ancestors: Books before Print), I had never thought much about the history of the format of a book and how different eras and cultures each contributed to making “the book” what it is today. Upon reading this chapter I realized that I had just taken any history of books I had previously learned about for granted. I never considered the actual processes of making papyrus and parchment paper and I never thought about how unlike today, where no two people have the same handwriting, scribes were all trained to have the same handwriting because many times, multiple scribes would contribute to the same work.   With multiple scribes working on the same work, how is authorship divided?  Are any of them even considered authors considering they most likely weren’t the creative minds behind the work itself, but were instead the ones who brought the work to life through the rigorous process of printing? In this class I not only look forward to more closely looking at the various technologies that brought us to where we are today but also to looking more closely at the issue of authorship in this class.

Authorship and Its Importance

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During last week’s discussions, I was struck by the idea that, for a period of time, the author of a given work was not deemed important.  This was discussed briefly in “The Death of the Author,” by Barthes, who, in part, argued that the author of work should not be important and, in fact, only hinders discussions of the work.  I have been taught in my studies that the author of a work is extremely important; it can help illuminate parts of a work by allowing critics to compare a work by a given author to other works by that same author.  In doing so, critics, teachers, and students of literature can find similarities and differences between a given author’s works and, at times, come to interesting conclusions that would not have been possible had the author been unknown, as Barthes would seem to have it.  In this class, I hope to learn more about how the “author” became an integral part of a work through social and technological changes in writing and publishing.

Comment from last week…

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In talking about authorship, I thought Foucault’s argument was interesting in that the name of an author almost gives a “flavor” or significance to whatever text it is associated with. For example, I remember reading a study where the a group was presented with poetry from two sources: more modern, local poets, and historical, famous poets, such as Dickinson. The authors names were removed from each of the poems, and the group was told to rate the poems based on how “good” they seemed. Surprisingly, the poems authored by little-known people were given better overall ratings than the poems authored by a well-known source. A few people even thought the poems authored by the more famous people were “bad.” It’s interesting to see how the name of an author can so influence people’s ideas of their work – if the same work, or poem, was published by, say, myself, and Emily Dickinson, her poem would be the newest sensation, while mine would simply be sitting in some obscure literary magazine, never to be read by the masses. An author’s name is indeed a powerful thing.

Technology and Ownership

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/04/obama-autopen-signs-fiscal-cliff-bill_n_2405116.html

The president has used an autopen to sign legislation three times during his term.  This columnist writes that other presidents have used something similar to an autopen, with technology being the difference between Obama and his predecessor; however, it seems that only President Obama has received criticism.  As technology continues to progress, where will we draw the line between convenience and plagiarism?  Is the autopen a legitimate form of the president’s signature?  How does this apply to not only signatures, but entire pieces of work such as books and music, which are even more commonly available online as time passes?

Autopen Question

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http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/01/02/168477773/how-will-president-obama-sign-the-fiscal-cliff-bill

A person’s signature to a document represents that he or she has read and agreed to the terms of the document. If an autopen signs a document, the person does not necessarily have control of the document to which he or she is agreeing. If the terms of a document are changed without that person’s knowledge and consent, is that person still responsible for the terms provided on the document? If yes, is that fair? If no, does the autopen reduce the significance of a person’s signature?

Welcome, and a challenge

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Dear Readers,

Welcome to our course blog for VaST 231!  We will use this space for sharing research, discussing course activities, thinking “out loud,” and publishing polished writing.

To get things started, I’m offering an opportunity to not buy a book.  I have an extra copy of Ted Striphas’s The Late Age of Print, one of our required course texts, and it could be yours.  Here’s how:

Create a post on this blog in which you 1.) include a link to a news article about the president’s Autopen and 2.) give a discussion question based on your reading of the article.

The author of the post with the most comments from classmates responding to the question will receive the book on the first day of class.

Watch for a course syllabus on our Moodle site next week, and in the meantime, enjoy your January, and I look forward to meeting everyone in a couple of weeks.