Author Archives: Micaela Macario

Final Project: The Book Helix

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Books are often treated as neutral vessels or objects whose value lies primarily in the text they carry rather than the form that carries it. This assumption persists even as digital media increasingly separates content from materiality of the book, reinforcing the idea that the book’s body is secondary to its meaning. However, this view overlooks the significant ways books function as material, embodied extensions of the book owner. Books are touched, carried, marked, shelved, displayed, damaged, lost, and preserved. They archive time and attention, hold the memories of their use, and occupy space within cultural happenings. When one collects books, they have a full archive of who they are. They do not merely reflect identity but serve to form identity as well. My bookwork project argues that personal book collections function as bodily extension and identity through material ownership. Similarly, DNA is a double helix structure that has intertwining nucleotides, like books in a personal library, that hold the genetic information that makes us who we are as individuals. In other words, our identity. To explore this claim, I created a sculptural bookwork that is a double-helix DNA structure composed of pages and covers from my personal library.

The Book Helix is a sculptural bookwork that materializes my argument that books as objects function as extensions of the body and archives of the self. Constructed as a double-helix DNA structure using pages and covers from my personal library, the bookwork visualizes how just as DNA encodes the genetic information that defines who we are. Personal books in a book collection work like nucleotides in DNA helix to encode memories, intimate reading experiences, and material traces like marginalia that collectively shape identity.

The choice of DNA as a formal metaphor is intentional. DNA holds information that determines how a body develops, adapts, and survives, similarly, books encode the ideas, values, and affective experiences that shape who we become. The pages used in the sculpture are not interchangeable. They are taken from books that have marked specific moments in my life such as periods of learning, uncertainty, affirmation, and change. In this sense, the work treats books not solely as commodities but as material traces of lived experience of my life narrative.  Each strand represents a trajectory of intellectual and emotional development, while the spiral structure emphasizes continuity, inheritance, and growth over time with each new book added to my collections. By transforming books into a bodily structure, the work insists on the vulnerability and intimacy of reading practices. It asks viewers to reconsider their own libraries.

Susan Stewart’s On Longing explains important ideas for understanding personal libraries as identity forming archives, a concept that is materially portrayed in The Book Helix. Stewart argues that book collections derive meaning from their accumulation, arrangement, and proximity to one another (Stewart, 1993). Objects within a collection become narrative markers, producing meaning through their intimate relationships and proximity to one another and the owner. When applied to books, this idea reveals how personal libraries function as material autobiographies. They are archives that record who we have been, what we have valued, and how we have changed over time.

Books acquire significance through the specific moments at which they enter our lives. We collect books as gifts, during periods of curiosity or obsession, through academia or education, or as part of childhood. Each book marks a particular memory, experience, or emotional context. When books remain in a personal collection, they become fixed points in an evolving narrative of selfhood. The Book Helix materializes this process by using pages and covers from books acquired at different moments in my life, treating each page as a narrative marker rather than as a simple vessel of text. The sculpture portrays a visible accumulation of markers from my personal library, demonstrating how identity is formed through lived experience. Each page functions as a material “marker” drawn from a specific book within my collection, and, like nucleotides within a DNA strand, these fragments accumulate over time forming who I am. 

Stewart’s emphasis on accumulation and proximity is central to the structure of The Book Helix. Rather than having individual books on their own, the sculpture intertwines pieces from many texts into a single double-helix form. This reflects Stewart’s argument that collections produce identity through narrative association. The helix structure emphasizes continuity, suggesting that identity is not composed of discrete moments but formed through overlapping experiences that persist over time. Books function especially powerfully within collections because they register time in visible ways. Marginalia, underlining, old post-it notes, cracked spines, and faded covers act as inscriptions of lived experience. These marks transform books into what Stewart describes as souvenirs. These objects matter because of the memories attached to them not because they can be exchanged or replaced (Stewart, 1993). In The Book Helix, these material traces are preserved rather than erased. Pages bearing signs of wear are incorporated into the sculpture highlighting how books are a primary source of meaning. The work insists that these traces are not damage but memory.

The Book Helix also demonstrates how fragile pages are turned into a bodily structure, reinforcing the idea that books function as extensions of the self. Like DNA, which carries information necessary for continuity and survival, personal books store individual experiences and memories that cannot be replaced by another copy. The Book Helix shows how books within a collection operate as material anchors of identity and objects that preserve the past while remaining physically present in the ongoing formation of the self.

While Susan Stewart’s argument explains how personal libraries work as narrative systems of identity, it does not fully account for how the materiality of the book itself actively produces meaning. Stewart shows why books matter within collections, and Johanna Drucker’s work clarifies how books matter as objects. Where Stewart emphasizes accumulation and memory, Drucker turns attention to material structure. They argue that the book is not a neutral container but a performative object whose physical properties shape interpretation and experience (Drucker, 1995). This shift from collection to form is essential for understanding The Book Helix, which does not assemble books as symbolic artifacts but transforms their material bodies into a new structure that is meaning making.

Rather than treating the book as a simple medium, this approach demonstrates how structure and physical presence shape interpretation. Johanna Drucker’s The Century of Artists’ Books argues that books are not passive vessels but performative objects, whose properties actively produce meaning (Drucker, 1995). Artists’ books, in particular, disrupt the illusion that books should disappear in the act of reading. By making books through unconventional structures, like sculptural configurations, artists’ books expose the ideological norms embedded in conventional codex design.  The Book Helix pages used in the sculpture cannot be read sequentially. This challenge of linear reading norms redirects attention from textual content to material presence. What matters is not what the books say, but what they have held: personal experience, use, and memory. By transforming books into a DNA structure, the bookwork portrays their role as makers of identity.

Janice Radway’s essay “Reading Is Not Eating” challenges dominant ideas that paint reading as consumption. Radway critiques the idea that texts are passively absorbed by readers, arguing instead that reading is an active, interpretive, and socially situated practice (Radway, 1986).  If reading were simply a form of ingestion, books would lose their value once their informational purpose was fulfilled. However, readers routinely keep books they may never reread, preserving them for reasons that exceed utility. These attachments reflect the relational nature of reading. Books are not depleted through use. They accumulate meaning through continued presence. Radway’s argument helps explain why material traces such as marginalia, creased spines, or underlined passages matter. These marks do not indicate consumption but interaction. They show moments of emotion or transformation.  Books thus become records of embodied engagement and the formation of identity.

To understand books as bodily extensions requires a shift away from seeing them as external tools and toward recognizing them as material participants in the formation of identity. This perspective challenges the assumption that the book’s role ends once its text has been read. Instead, books persist as objects that absorb traces of interaction, memory, and affect, functioning in ways that closely resemble the body itself. 

Drucker argues that books are performative forms whose material structures actively produce meaning (Drucker, 1995). The codex, with its sequence, binding, and tactility, organizes  bodily engagement like how a reader holds the book, turns its pages, or navigates its materials. These physical interactions are not secondary to interpretation. When books are treated as bodily extensions, their material vulnerabilities take on new significance. A cracked spine, a torn page, or water damage is more than aesthetic deterioration. These marks resemble evidence of time, use, and survival. Drucker’s emphasis on material presence allows us to see such damage not as failure but as bodies that age. They accumulate marks that reflect lived histories rather than idealized forms.

Janice Radway’s statement that “reading is not eating” supports that books work as a bodily extension of its owner. Radway challenges consumption-based metaphors that portray reading as a process of ingestion followed by disposal (Radway, 1986). If reading were truly consumptive, books would lose relevance once their informational content was absorbed. Yet readers rarely treat books this way. Instead, they keep them, return to them, and allow them to occupy space in their lives long after the act of reading has concluded. This persistence shows that books function relationally rather than instrumentally.

Radway’s argument reframes reading as an interactive and embodied practice, one that produces long lasting emotions. Marginalia, underlining, bending the corner of a page, and stains are not signs of use in the sense of depletion, but records of engagement. These marks transform books into hybrid objects of part text and part autobiography. In this way, books begin to serve bodily extensions. Books remember where we lingered, where we struggled, and where we returned.

 A personal library is not merely a collection of random items but a curated narrative or archive that tells a story about its owner. What matters is not only which books are present, but how long they remain, where they are placed, and which are allowed to coexist. Stewart notes that souvenirs are valued not for their intrinsic properties but for their ability to anchor memory and sustain personal narrative. Books operate similarly. A book kept for years often holds significance because it marks a particular moment in an individual’s life such as a course taken, a period of questioning, a relationship, or a shift in worldview. The book’s continued presence allows that moment to remain accessible, materially embedded in everyday space.

The DNA metaphor at the center of The Book Helix makes this argument visible. DNA encodes biological information that creates growth, development, and continuity. Similarly, books encode the intellectual, emotional, and personal experiences that shape identity over time. By constructing the sculpture from pages and covers taken from my personal library, the work treats books as material carriers of personal history rather than abstract symbols of knowledge. The double-helix structure emphasizes relationality. Identity, like DNA, is not linear or singular but produced through interaction and repetition. Reading experiences accumulate, overlap, and sometimes contradict one another, but together they form an evolving self. The intertwined pages in the helix reflect this process suggesting that no single book determines identity. Instead, meaning emerges through entanglement, through the ongoing presence of many texts within a shared material space.

Ultimately, to think of books as bodily extensions is to acknowledge that identity is not formed solely in the mind. It is shaped through sustained, material engagement with objects that carry memory and meaning. Books become part of the self not because they contain information, but because they participate in lived experience, absorbing traces of who we were at the moment of encounter. The Book Helix invites viewers to reconsider their own relationships with books. What stories do our shelves tell? What parts of ourselves are stored in the objects we preserve? And what does it mean to care for books not simply as sources of information, but as extensions of who we are?

Work Cited

Borsuk, Amaranth. The Book. MIT Press, 2018.

Drucker, Johanna. The Century of Artists’ Books. Granary Books, 1995.


Pressman, Jessica. “Bookwork and Bookishness.” Interview with Brian Dettmer and Doug Beube, 2018.

Pressman, Jessica. “Jonathan Safran Foer’s Tree of Codes: Memorial, Fetish, Bookishness.”, 2018.Radway, Janice. “Reading Is Not Eating.” Feminist Studies, 1986.


Stewart, Susan. On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Duke University Press, 1993.

My New Perspective on Books

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This class has truly been a cornerstone in my education so far. Coming into my first ECL course, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had always thought of books as simple vessels of knowledge, objects whose primary purpose was to deliver information from the author to the reader in a straightforward, linear way. Because of that, I initially felt skeptical about what more there was to say about “bookishness.” But after our first class session when we discussed, “Marginalia in the Library of Babel” by Mark Marino, where I was getting lost in the hyperlink marginalia, I knew this class was going to challenge me to think beyond the dominant norms of learning. This course opened an entirely new world for me, one that reshaped how I think about books, reading, and materiality.

I want to thank Dr. Pressman for guiding us through that shift in perspective. Her approach pushed me to think beyond the norms taught to us, especially regarding books as physical, cultural, and even ideological objects. For the first time, I found myself discussing course readings at the dinner table because they felt so thought-provoking and had me thinking about our course at all hours of the day. My dad even started reading The Book by Amaranth Borsuk after I wouldn’t stop talking about it

What I valued most was how each reading felt purposeful and built toward a larger understanding of bookishness as more than just “loving books.” I learned to see the book as an interface and a dynamic space where meaning isn’t just absorbed but actively co-created between reader and object. The material aspects of books that I once ignored, like binding, typography, cutouts, and format, now feel central to the stories they tell. A book isn’t just the text written on a page. it’s a historical artifact, a piece of art, and an archive of cultural practices and personal relationships. By the end of this course, I realized that reading is never passive. Every book invites an embodied interaction, and the form carries a narrative beyond the words. This class expanded my understanding of what literature can do and what books can be, and I’m incredibly grateful for how it challenged and transformed my thinking.

Final Project Proposal: The Book Helix

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My final project explores Dr. Pressman’s concept of bookishness, and everything we have learned in class so far, by diving into how books work as extensions of identity, memory, and the body in a digital age. My overall argument is that books function not only as vessels of textual information but as material carriers of personal identity. In a way, books act like genetic code that shapes, reflects, and preserves who we are. I argue that bookishness operates through materiality rather than meaning. The physical book holds emotional and bodily significance that exists beyond its written content.

To portray this argument, I will create a sculpture bookwork project titled The Book Helix, a double-helix structure constructed from strips of book pages. Each strip will represent a specific strand of my identity, different pages of books that I have on my collection on my shelves. I will most likely photocopy and print the pages so I don’t have to mess up or repurchase the certain book. By piecing these strips together into a three-dimensional DNA form, the project visually and conceptually connects the ideas of biological identity with the physical material of the book. The helix design symbolizes how books act as genetic material in the cultural sense because they encode memory, personality, values, nostalgia, and emotion. 

The media format of sculptural bookwork not only looks like fun to make, but it is also inspired by my love for Beube’s book work. Throughout our time in Special Collections, I have been immensely intrigued by the different creative book forms that have sparked my creative inspirations for this project. This medium allows me to demonstrate how bookishness turns books into living extensions of the body and human memory reinforcing that the significance of books lie not within the text inside, but in the ways we use them to create who we are.

Annotated Bibliography

Benjamin, Walter. “Unpacking My Library.” In Illuminations, 1968.
Benjamin discusses collecting books as an autobiographical act. His ideas inform my use of books as repositories of personal memory in the DNA sculpture.

Borsuk, Amaranth. The Book. MIT Press, 2018.
Borsuk examines the book as an evolving technology. Her work helps contextualize my project within larger conversations about book form and transformation.

Drucker, Johanna. The Century of Artists’ Books. Granary Books, 1995.
Drucker’s analysis of artists’ books provides theoretical grounding for my sculptural approach and supports my use of books as visual art.

Pressman, Jessica. Bookishness: Loving Books in a Digital Age. Columbia University Press, 2020.
Pressman argues that in the digital era, books function as aesthetic and identity-based objects. This foundational text supports my argument that books become extensions of identity and emotional memory beyond their textual meaning.

Pressman, Jessica. “Bookwork and Bookishness.” Interview with Brian Dettmer and Doug Beube, 2018.

This interview explores how book artists reshape and transform physical books into sculptural works. It supports my project by demonstrating how altering book materials can reveal identity, memory, and symbolic meaning beyond textual content.

Pressman, Jessica. “Jonathan Safran Foer’s Tree of Codes: Memorial, Fetish, Bookishness.”, 2018.

Pressman analyzes Foer’s sculptural, cut-out book as a work that transforms the book form into a memorial object. This helps support my argument that physical book material can embody memory, identity, and emotional resonance beyond textual content.

Radway, Janice. “Reading Is Not Eating.” Feminist Studies, 1986.
Radway’s discussion of reading practices reinforces my argument that meaning comes from personal, embodied engagement rather than textual content alone.

Stewart, Susan. On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Duke University Press, 1993.
Stewart’s discussion of souvenirs and material memory informs my idea of books-as-memory-objects.

Week 13: Joy in My Messy Book Collection

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In “Unpacking My Library,” Walter Benjamin reflects on the emotional and almost intimate relationship collectors have with their books. He explains that the true value of a collection lies not in reading the books but in the personal history surrounding them. As he writes, “every passion borders on the chaotic” and the passion of a book collector is marked by fond memory and affection more than utility or practicality (60). This idea resonates deeply with the way I relate to my own small but growing collection.

Like Benjamin, I don’t always acquire books because I intend to read them right away. Instead, I often pick one up because I’ve either heard great reviews, it’s been gifted to me, or simply because I liked the way the cover looked. Benjamin writes that collectors often have a relationship with books that is more about the story of acquisition than the text itself. He writes  “the thrill of acquisition” in collecting becomes a central feeling, as each book carries a unique experience and relationship between the book and its owner (60).

This is exactly how my own collection works. I store books away on a shelf, thinking that I’ll get to them later, and then I completely forget about them until I clean my room. When I rediscover them, I feel a sudden sense of joy not just because I’m finally about to read them, but because each book reminds me of where it came from. My books hold memories of past moments, people, and places. The joy I feel from stumbling upon my books relates to Benjamin’s argument that collections are biographies in object form. The books gifted to me especially hold emotional sentiment. Their value is not connected to the words on the page but rather to the person who gave them to me. My personal experience of book collecting is similar to Benjamin’s notion that a collection is an archive of one’s memories serving as a personal narrative or timeline. My shelves might be messy, and I haven’t read a lot of the books I own, but their value comes from what I experience in life.

Week 12: Scholarly Archives Now

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After reading Jessica Pressman’s excerpts from Bookishness: Loving Books in a Digital Age, Dr. Pressman states that “digital images posted to social media now serve that purpose,” revealing how our relationships with books have evolved in the digital age. Books have always been more than just vessels for text. They are extensions of our identities, emotional narratives, and lived lives. What used to be shown through physical books on a shelf is now shared digitally through book photos, reading posts, or online quotes. These digital traces keep us feeling “close” to literature, even as more of our reading and writing happens online.

This idea connects to our time in the Special Collections last Tuesday, where we explored the Larry McCaffery Papers and other literary archives. As we sifted through boxes of physical manuscripts, annotated texts, and personal letters, we examined tangible extensions of Larry McCaffery’s identity. These were marks of McCaffery’s life displayed through various textual forms. Each marginal note, age-stained yellow page, or folded letter carried a personal and material intimacy that evinced the notion of how deeply intertwined books and identity can be. Pressman’s ideas and beliefs make me think about how future archives might capture this same intimacy when so much of our textual engagement now exists digitally. For upcoming generations of scholars and writers, archives may no longer be built around boxes of letters and manuscripts but rather online folders of emails, cloud storage links, or social media feeds.

Anna explained that part of the archiving process already includes this digital shift. She described how the library receives tangible archives from scholars, carefully scans each item, and uploads them into a digital archive database. This process not only preserves the physical materials but also makes them more accessible to future researchers. It also blends the tactile history of literature with the evolving digital landscape. The “bookishness” of today’s academic and literary life may look a little different than it used to. However, it still extends our identities as physical books once did. This shift complicates what it means to be “near” to a book or to literature itself. The digital archive might preserve our identities through a screen instead of paper.

Halloween Costume: Book Worm!

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The night before, I was sifting through my closet looking for ideas for my halloween costume. My original idea was to dress up as Dr. Pressman, but my wardrobe is not nearly as exciting as hers. I then began to sift through my notes and pictures of books that we have examined in our Special Collections Lab. I came across Liber de arte distulandi [sic] simplicia et composita: Das nüv Bůch der rechten Kunst zů distillieren is a collection of scientific work in German by Hieronymus Brunschwig. This old text had deep wormholes throughout the spine, both through the cover and the pages in between. I decided to recreate the wormholes with an old shirt that I had lying around. By cutting holes in the front and back of the shirt, I was able to mimic the wormholes in the pigskin cover of the Liber de arte distulandi [sic] simplicia et composita: Das nüv Bůch der rechten Kunst zů distillieren.

Week 11: Digital Texts “Brought Back to Life”

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In both Katherine Bode and Roger Osborne’s chapter “Book history from the archival record” and Jean-Christophe Cloutier’s introduction to Shadow Archives, the authors reveal that archives are never neutral spaces. Archives are shaped by the cultural values, power structures, and technological conditions of the eras in which books are produced and preserved. Bode and Osborne explain that a book exists far beyond its physical covers, arguing that “no book was ever bound by its covers” (220). By tracing the “book network cycle,” they highlight how the creation and circulation of a text passes through numerous stages and hands including writers, editors, printers, publishers, distributors, collectors, and archivists. Each of these agents plays a role in determining which works are preserved and recognized as culturally significant. Therefore, archives become curated reflections of dominant ideologies.

Cloutier also argues that archives reveal the values and exclusions of their historical moment, especially when examining African American literature. He describes African American archives as “shadow archives,” existing in the margins because mainstream institutions historically excluded or undervalued Black writers and cultural production (12). His metaphor of the archive as a “boomerang” suggests that texts may disappear from view but can return to relevance when cultural interests shift or when scholars retrieve and reinterpret neglected materials. In this way, Cloutier illustrates how archival life cycles are deeply tied to questions of race, access, and institutional power.Both Bode and Roger Osborne’s text and Cloutier’s introduction raise questions about whether “dead” texts can return to life. The idea feels especially relevant in the digital age. I started to think about our last class in the Digital Humanities Center. Amaranth Borsuk’s Between Page and Screen demonstrates how a work can temporarily “die” and then be brought back to life. For example, when Borsuk’s Between Page and Screen’s software aged out, her work could not be read or shared. However 5 years later,it was revived through technical migration to new platforms. This digital example parallels Cloutier’s boomerang metaphor because texts can fall out of circulation not only due to cultural exclusion but also technology that continues to evolve and update rapidly.

Bibliography of a Book: Ethiopian Magic Scrolls

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The Ethiopian Magic Scroll held in San Diego State University’s Special Collections is a unique sacred artifact that embodies both the textual and physical traditions of Ethiopian Orthodox spirituality, where writing, prayer, and healing intersect. The scroll is composed of vellum, a parchment made from tanned goat skin. Anna Culbertson stated that the goats used to create the vellum underwent a spiritual ritual prior to the tanning and parchment making process.

 Multiple strips of vellum are stitched together vertically with fine sinew thread, forming a continuous column of text and imagery. The vellum has darkened to a brownish hue from handling and age, and has visible creases suggesting frequent rolling and unrolling. The scroll was multiple feet long and only a few inches wide. The scroll’s shape was intentional as it could be rolled tightly and stored inside a leather case or pouch, worn around the neck or body as an amulet.

The text is written in Ge’ez, the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Ge’ez is no longer spoken, but is maintained by the Ethiopian church. The script is handwritten in black ink with sections highlighted in red ink to signify divine names. The scroll has painted figures and ornamental borders, including Christian iconography such as angels, crosses, and geometric knotwork. The most prominent figures often hold crosses or protective symbols, highlighting the scroll’s purpose as a defense against evil.

As a physical object, the scroll connects the sacred and the practical. The materiality in the vellum, stitching, ink, and structure reveals that it was not a book meant to be read in silence or stored on a shelf, but rather a living text designed for continuous, bodily engagement. The daily wearability and prayers turn this object into a perpetual instrument, ensuring the wearer’s constant protection. 

Scholarly Analysis

At first glance, the Ethiopian Magic Scroll in San Diego State University’s Special Collections appears to be a sacred, delicate, hand-painted manuscript inscribed with prayers and Christian iconography. Yet, unlike most books that rest on library shelves, this scroll was made to be worn. Its intended position on the human body in a leather pouch and hung around the neck reveals its purpose not as a passive text but as a functional instrument of protection. The Ethiopian magic scroll’s wearability, sacred inscriptions, and continual presence transform it into a form of spiritual armor that literally and symbolically shields the body from evil and illness. Examining this artifact through its material form and cultural context reveals how Ethiopian Christians reimagined the book as a living, embodied act of prayer.

The creators of these scrolls were Dabtaras, clerics of the Ethiopian church. Unlike priests, Dabtaras were not formally ordained to lead liturgy, but they played a vital role within the church’s intellectual and ritual life. They served as scribes, scholars, and healers, responsible for copying sacred manuscripts, composing prayers, and making protective amulets such as the magic scrolls. Their work reflected a deep mastery of both theology and traditional medicine, bridging religious devotion with practical care for the community’s spiritual and physical well-being. Dabtaras’ authority came from their literacy in Ge’ez, the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Although Ge’ez was no longer used in everyday language, Ge’ez remained the language of the Church, and it was reserved for scripture and prayer, thus signifying the scroll’s importance. Because not everyone was able to read Ge’ez, the scroll’s power resided in the presence not in the comprehension of the text. Its power operates through continuous proximity to the human body. When worn, the scroll unites the sacred with the body, transforming the individual into a vessel of continual prayer carried wherever they went. Unlike books confined to churches or homes, this text was mobile and personal operating whenever and wherever the wearer went. The act of carrying it transforms daily life into a perpetual ritual and protection. 

The design and materiality of the scroll further reflect its sacred wearability. Made from vellum, tanned goat skin, the material carries both durability and sanctity. Its toughness and flexibility also made vellum ideal for constant daily wear, allowing the scroll to withstand handling, movement, and the natural friction of the body without losing its sacred inscriptions.Goat skin held ritual significance in Ethiopian Christianity, as animal parchment was seen as a pure and suitable medium for its protective and operative role. The scroll’s imagery also reinforces its purpose as Christian figures hold crosses and knotwork borders create protective frames against evil. These visual elements operate as both art and theology, and when worn, they protect the wearer while embodying the faith and artistry.

The Ethiopian Magic Scroll alters our traditional lens of reading for context and redefines what a “book” can be. Prior to this course I thought of books as objects meant to be read, studied, and stored. The Western codex form, with its flat pages, bound spine, and sequential organization. It poses the act of reading as an intellectual engagement with text rather than a physical or spiritual one. The Ethiopian Magic Scroll contrasts this idea. It is not a book to be read for understanding, but rather a book that acts. Its purpose is functional: to protect the person who wears it.

This reframes the scroll not as a static text but as an interface between body, faith, and material culture. As Amaranth Borsuk (2018) explains, “the book is an interface,” a site where the physical form mediates meaning and experience (p. 184). The Ethiopian magic scroll demonstrates this idea by transforming the act of reading into a bodily engagement with the sacred scrolls. In this case, the text’s effectiveness depends on its continual proximity to human flesh changing faith from something read into something physically experienced. The scroll functions less as a container of knowledge and more as a living medium of protection, combining the written word with the daily purpose of faith and survival.

The Ethiopian Magic Scroll exemplifies how material form and religious devotion converge to create a living expression of faith. Its design, function, and continual presence on the body show how the scroll was never merely a written artifact but a sacred technology of protection. These scrolls were examples of sacred religious texts with functionality. The scroll’s physical endurance, through its durable vellum and portable format, symbolizes perpetual spirituality. Just as the goat skin resists deterioration from movement and touch, so too does the wearer’s belief persist amid uncertainty and danger. The scroll thus operates as a form of armor as it shields the individual from harm not through metal or weaponry, but through prayer, inscription, and faith embedded in material form. Its wearability blurs the line between object and person, between belief and body, producing a form of lived spirituality that is both intimate and everlasting.

By merging the sacred with the material, the scroll turns the act of faith into a daily, embodied ritual. The wearer becomes not simply a reader or believer but a participant in the continual activity of prayer. This dynamic relationship differs from Western notions of the book as static, intellectual, and detached from the body. In the Ethiopian context, the book lives through its contact with the human body, its prayers circulating not through spoken language but through the physical act of wearing and carrying. The magic scroll reminds us that meaning can be enacted rather than read, and that the boundary between text and life is far more porous than we often assume.

In this sense, the Ethiopian Magic Scroll redefines what a book can do and what it can be. It stands as both text and belief, theology and technology. A book can be a bridge between divine protection and human vulnerability. Through its sacred materiality and embodied purpose, it reframes reading into presence, and faith into armor.

Non-linear Reading of Digital Texts

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After reading Chapter 4 of The Book by Amaranth Borsuk, I began to find a new understanding for digital texts. Amaranth explains how technological advances such as the Kindle or Nook “aim to pour texts written for print into digital vessels” while other authors and artists are utilizing the technological layout to add an immersive, animated, or game-like experience for the reader (220). With this, we are able to create an infinite canvas where the reader is “non-linear reading” requiring the reader to interact with the text. This shift highlights how digital texts are not just replications of physical books, but rather remediations. They are new forms that borrow from the tactile and navigational qualities of print while expanding the possibilities of texts. 

While reading about hypertexts and the way hyperlinks create a networked style of reading, I immediately thought back to “Marginalia in the Library of Babel” by Mark Marino. The feeling of being able to explore and interact with the text was a completely new experience that I hadn’t felt from a traditional physical book. I was so confused before we discussed the reading in class as I have always read for definitive answers. But while reading “Marginalia in the Library of Babel” I found myself navigating my own reading journey through a web of interconnected ideas, rather than following a structured, linear path. While clicking through the hyperlinks, I found myself digging deeper, bouncing from one hyperlink to the next with minimal to no structure or path. This sense of agency and mobility through the text demonstrates what Amaranth Borsuk writes as an “infinite canvas,” where the boundaries of a text are no longer fixed by the page but are dependent on the reader’s choices (221).

I remember discussing this experience with my peers and realizing that each of us had followed a completely different pattern of clicking and traversing through the intricate network of hyperlinks. Some clicked on certain links because they were interested in a phrase or idea, while others went down entirely different pathways. This truly resulted in unique interpretations from the same work. This variation revealed how hypertexts allow readers to engage with a text on an individual level, emphasizing the role of reader interaction in meaning-making.

Illustrations in Books

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In class so far, we have discussed the cultural significance of blank spaces within text formats, but on Tuesday we had the pleasure of diving deeper into imagery and illustrations within texts. Dr. Pressman and our readings have mentioned that the blank spaces signify the cultural norm of silent reading. Similarly, the placement, positioning, and size of an image on a page “can propose an interpretation that is complementary, supplementary, or even contradictory” (Mak, 17). This idea connects directly to the aesthetics of the book, as imagery plays a key role in shaping how a reader interacts with and experiences a text. Whereas blank spaces guide the rhythm and pace of reading, illustrations often guide the focus and meaning of the content. The visual elements can elevate a book beyond its textual function, turning it into a cultural artifact that communicates through both language and design.

During our visit to the Special Collections Lab, we examined a botanical book in which the imagery was the central feature of the page. The detailed botanical illustrations were not just decorative, they were the primary conveyors of knowledge. The minimal text served a supportive role, naming or explaining what the images depicted. This visual display showed how illustration itself can embody meaning and serve as a scientific, aesthetic, and cultural tool. As Mak writes, “ illustrations can refer to the world beyond the page and participate in a wider discourse about the book that involves the social status of the particular codex, its designers, and its owners” (17). 

In this botanical text, the intricate images did more than portray plants. They connected art with science. The precision of the drawings demonstrated scientific observation, while their elegant presentation reflected artistic intention and cultural value. This bridging of science and art through the combination of words and imagery shows the aesthetic power of the book as a medium. It demonstrates how illustrations can extend the book’s purpose beyond reading into seeing, experiencing, and even situating the text within broader social, cultural, and intellectual contexts.