Further Transactions of the Book (conference)

For more past programming from the Folger Institute, please see the article Folger Institute scholarly programs archive.

This was a spring 2006 conference sponsored by The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress and organized by Anthony Grafton (Princeton University) and Ann Blair (Harvard University), with Kathleen Lynch (Folger Institute). Panelists included Blaise Aguera y Arcas (Princeton), Warren Boutcher (Queen Mary University of London), Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra (University of Texas at Austin), Marija Dalbello (Rutgers), Elizabeth Eisenstein (University of Michigan, emerita), Mordechai Feingold (Cal Tech), Anne Goldgar (King’s College London), James Hankins (Harvard), George Hoffmann (University of Michigan), Adrian Johns (University of Chicago), Hilaire Kallendorf (Texas A&M), Joseph Loewenstein (Washington University), Ian Maclean (Oxford), Noel Malcolm (Oxford), Margaret Meserve (University of Notre Dame), Paul Needham (Princeton), Paul Nelles (Carleton University), Antonio Ricci (York College, CA), Joan-Pau Rubiés (London School of Economics), David Harris Sacks (Reed College), Peter Stallybrass (University of Pennsylvania), Bette Talvacchia (University of Connecticut), Germaine Warkentin (University of Toronto), and Abby Zanger (Tufts University).

In recent decades, localized studies of the histories of the book have proliferated and matured. Attention to the effects of the transmission of knowledge in different media has consequently influenced work in many scholarly fields. This weekend conference carried forward the examinations of the 2001 Folger conference Transactions of the Book. It offered a close focus on the Continental book trades as well as on the impact of the printed book on transnational or international knowledge communities. As was its predecessor, this conference was an international gathering of social and intellectual historians, literary critics, bibliographers, and others. By extending the scope of investigation beyond the widely recognized impact of the printing press, the conference encompassed the work of influential experts and new perspectives alike to assess current trends in light of the evidence of carefully historicized local studies.