2017 - 2018 Critical Witness Sessions: Difference between revisions

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Below are the descriptions for the [[Critical Witness]] sessions that took place during the 2016-2017 academic year. These include the title, author, and a brief description of the book selected along with the specific sections that were read.
Below are the descriptions for the [[Critical Witness]] sessions that took place during the 2016-2017 academic year. These include the title, author, and a brief description of the book selected along with the specific sections that were read.


'''October 19, 2016'''
'''February 7, 2018'''  


Book: ''Cultural Graphology: Writing After Derrida''
Book: ''Slaves and Englishmen: Human Bondage in the Early Modern Atlantic World''


Author: [[Juliet Fleming]]
Author: [[Michael Guasco]]


Sections Read: Introduction and Chapter Two
Sections Read: Introduction and Chapter 4


Brief Description: In this book, Juliet Fleming examines the print culture of early modern England, drastically unsettling some key assumptions of book history.  Fleming shows that the single most important lesson to survive from Derrida’s early work is that we do not know what writing is. Channeling Derrida’s thought into places it has not been seen before, she examines printed errors, spaces, and ornaments (topics that have hitherto been marginal to our accounts of print culture) and excavates the long-forgotten reading practice of cutting printed books. Proposing radical deformations to the meanings of fundamental and apparently simple terms such as “error,” “letter,” “surface,” and “cut,” Fleming opens up exciting new pathways into our understanding of writing.
Brief Description: In wide-ranging detail, ''Slaves and Englishmen'' demonstrates how slavery shaped the ways the English
interacted with people and places throughout the Atlantic world. By examining
the myriad forms and meanings of human bondage in an international context,
Michael Guasco illustrates the significance of slavery in the early modern
world before the rise of the plantation system or the emergence of modern
racism. As this revealing history shows, the implications of slavery were
closely connected to the question of what it meant to be English in the
Atlantic world.

Revision as of 09:29, 1 May 2018

Below are the descriptions for the Critical Witness sessions that took place during the 2016-2017 academic year. These include the title, author, and a brief description of the book selected along with the specific sections that were read.

February 7, 2018

Book: Slaves and Englishmen: Human Bondage in the Early Modern Atlantic World

Author: Michael Guasco

Sections Read: Introduction and Chapter 4

Brief Description: In wide-ranging detail, Slaves and Englishmen demonstrates how slavery shaped the ways the English interacted with people and places throughout the Atlantic world. By examining the myriad forms and meanings of human bondage in an international context, Michael Guasco illustrates the significance of slavery in the early modern world before the rise of the plantation system or the emergence of modern racism. As this revealing history shows, the implications of slavery were closely connected to the question of what it meant to be English in the Atlantic world.