What I took away from this class is that I didn’t understand how much the physicality of the book mattered until this class. I thought that the only thing that mattered to a book was its story and maybe the cover so I could judge whether I wanted to read it or not or whether I thought it was an accurate representation of the theme of the text. I didn’t know how much what materials that were used to make the book, or how the book influenced trends and the commodification of it, truly meant anything.

I’m glad I took this class because it really pushed me to think beyond what a book is and how it connects to the world and history around us. I thought the only connections I could make between past and present were the types of stories and characters presented. Now I know that there’s a plethora of connections through the type of ink, paper, layout of the book, and how a book can be used as an object for more than just reading. Books represent us through art, through dress, through legal systems. They all tell us different narratives about people all around the world now and before us. I learned that all books are narratives of who, how, and what made them. They all tell stories; I just needed to understand that stories can be told in different forms than just text. In this class, I was taught to crucially examine what was in front of me like I hadn’t done before. It taught me to be analytical and theoretical, I am able to now not look at books, but everything in a new perspective. I now ask, how and why, instead of what.