Author Archives: Myles Wright

Final Project: Traces in Clay

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Books have never been static objects, even though contemporary mass production steers us to see them as uniform vessels for text rather than dynamic, material objects shaped by the environments they inhabit and interact with. My midterm examination of the 1578 A Nievve Herball, or Historie of Plantes, located at San Diego State Universities Special Collections, revealed how the book’s physical condition holds a narrative just as compelling as its printed words. In fact, a narrative which would be incomplete by only looking at the words. I found the pages of Dodoens’ herbal discolored around the edges and spotted brown, with a trail of holes book worms have left behind. Before the creation of wood-pulp paper, most commonly used today, book makers used rag paper made from linen and cotton fibers. This material is both resilient, able to preserve itself from 1578 to 2025, but also vulnerable to light exposure, oxidation, and humidity. However, I discovered the “damage” to this copy is what made its story unique, transforming it from one of many identical copies into a rare artifact with its own biography. The narrative of a book is more than just the words inside, but can be found in the physical materiality of the container itself. In our contemporary moment, we are easily disconnected from the material history of the book. It has become easy to think of books as static containers of text, rather than organic artifacts. In order for me to truly read A Nievve Herball, or, Historie of Plantes, I had to look beyond the words, and unto the pages that hold them. This prompted me to explore further beyond the page, to go back in time before the existence of the white, thin, paper page itself. Despite the absence of the “page” we know today, reading and writing still flourished, however, the physical form it took remained closely tied to the natural world which interacted with it, making it easier to view as part of a broader, organic ecology. I have extended my original material investigation, a biography of a special collections book, by creating my own cuneiform inspired clay tablet. In doing so, placing the early modern codex into a broader history of book technology that stretches back to its predecessors in ancient Mesopotamia. This creative critical work demonstrates that the physicality of books, whether clay tablets or codex herbals, are organic, ecological artifacts whose meanings emerge through their material affordances and ongoing interactions with human and non-human forces.

Amaranth Borsuk reminds readers in her 2018 book, The Book, that “the story of the book’s changing form is bound up with that of its changing content” and that each book technology, from tablet to codex, offers its own “affordances” that shape how reading and writing occur (Borsuk, 1). When I examined the 1578 herbal, the bookworms’ holes and the browned rag paper revealed centuries of exchange with light, humidity, insects, and human touch. These marks formed their own ecological biography, evidence that the book has always been part of a larger system rather than a static, timeless container. However, these ideas directly echo the earliest history of writing, specifically the clay tablets of ancient Sumer and Mesopotamia, which were inseparable from their environmental origins. Borsuk explains that Sumerians turned to clay because it was “an abundant and renewable material” and because they already possessed “highly developed techniques for sifting and working with clay to create durable and lasting artifacts” (Borsuk, 4). Just like the rag paper of Dodoens’ herbal, clay was never neutral, it was chosen, shaped, and culturally meaningful because of its ecological availability. The clay had to be collected directly from the ground, worked by hand, and inscribed while still wet, making the material origins of writing almost impossible to ignore. Through this process, reading and writing remain closely connected to the environment, resources, and people from which they emerged, leaving far fewer gaps between the final product and the natural world which provided it. 

My clay tablet artwork emerged from this recognition. To create it, I shaped wet clay into a palm sized slab resembling early cuneiform tablets, then impressed the surface with a stylus, a modern rendition of the original stylus carved from a reed. This process mirrors the ancient method described by Borsuk: “a scribe impressed a corner of the reed into the clay at an oblique angle, using combinations of wedge shapes to make characters” (Borsuk, 6). Shaping the tablet required direct physical engagement with the clay material. The wet clay clung to my hands, refusing to be overlooked. Unlike woodpulp paper, which disappears from our touch the moment we turn the page, the clay insisted to be noticed, making its natural origins, and my own role in shaping it, impossible to forget. Using my clay tablet and the cuneiform writing technique, I inscribed letters and symbols inspired by Mesopotamian signs, however, this is not the focal point of my artwork. A reader able to see past the words will find intentional imperfections; impressions of various leaves and sticks, textures of rocks and dirt, cracks and holes, and even finger prints. These marks reinterpret ancient cuneiform tablets and the deterioration in Doden’s herbal, transforming what might be called “damage” into a representation of the ecological relationship between “book” and the environment. In Johanna Drucker’s “The Virtual Codex: From Page Space to E-Space”, she observes that “a book… is not an inert thing that exists in advance of interaction, rather it is produced new by the activity of each reading” (Drucker). My clay tablet materializes this. Its meaning and history does not rely on the text, but on the reader’s ability to interpret its material surface. It must be “read” like the herbal, by reading the marks, textures, and traces. Its history is entangled with the materials and human and non-human forces that created and shaped it. The leaf impressions, the stylus wedges, and the drying cracks each represent different condensed historical moments in it. In both cases of the herbal and my tablet, these imperfections act as inscriptions of time, environment, and exchange. Just as the herbal pages bear witness to centuries of life, the clay tablet contains a condensed record of its own formation and interaction with the natural world. 

This process of creating my critical artwork reveals that books have always been shaped by their physical materials and environments as much as by the text they contain. By moving back in time from the pages of Doden’s herbal to the cuneiform tablet, I came to understand reading and writing as an organic, ecological process with many participants rather than only a textual one. This art project demonstrates that the book has always been alive, evolving through interaction with the natural world. The clay tablet reveals what modern woodpulp paper can allow us to forget, that every book materializes from the natural world and is never finished with interaction or exchange. This project challenges our modern detachment from the materiality of the book, pushing us to see the “book” as part of a larger, organic ecology, as more than a vessel for information. Reading and writing is more than an encounter with text, but with matter, history, and environment; a process that does not start when you open a book, or stop when you put it down.

Works Citied:

Borsuk, Amaranth. The Book. The MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series, 2018. 

“Cuneiform Tablets and Cuneiform Inscribed Other Items.” View Items, Arte Mission, www.artemission.com/viewitems.aspx?CategoryID=91. Accessed 14 Dec. 2025. 

“Cuneiform Tablet: List of Magical Stones.” Achaemenid or Seleucid – Achaemenid or Seleucid – The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Met Museum, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/321680. Accessed 14 Dec. 2025. 

Drucker, Johanna. “The Virtual Codex from Page Space to E-Space.” Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations, companions.digitalhumanities.org/DLS/content/9781405148641_chapter_11.html. Accessed 14 Dec. 2003.

“Unpacking my Library”

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Walter Benjamin’s “Unpacking My Library” offers a unique and personal look into the life of a book collector, prompting us to reconsider what it means to truly “own” a book and what it means to be a book “collector”. It is a wonderful final reading for this class. Benjamin begins by stating that “I am unpacking my library. Yes, I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order” (Benjamin, 59). A chaotic scene for new discovery within one’s own archive is set. 

What struck me is how Benjamin distinguishes between collecting and a collection. He emphasizes that a true collector’s passion “borders on the chaos of memories” and that the act of collecting is tied to stories and histories rather than just utility or monetary value. A collector does not simply collect books for their content or value, but for the deeper meaning each item holds. Benjamin explains, “The most profound enchantment for the collector is the locking of individual items within a magic circle in which they are fixed as the final thrill, the thrill of acquisition, passes over them” (Benjamin, 60). Each book becomes a vessel of memory and discovery, as a way for the collector to see through objects into their unique past. Our midterm project, writing the biography of a book, taught us this, exhibiting how the materiality of books are more than vessels for written content, but artifacts with their own rich histories and stories to tell. Benjamin also highlights the unpredictability of acquiring and collecting books, where even catalogued items may offer surprise or new information. Benjamin recounts discovering a rare illustrated book he had never thought of owning, describing it as a freedom given to a lonely book. For him, the “true freedom of all books is somewhere on his shelves” (Benjamin, 64).  This resonated with me, especially after our studies of archives, where we have found how exciting it can be to discover unexpected connections, histories, and the unique lives of objects. 

In “Unpacking my Library”, Benjamin reminds us that collecting and creating one’s own archive is not passive, but an emotional and physical endeavor. Our collections are reflections of our passions and memories which can be found in the content of our books and the pages themselves. This class, and Benjamin’s reading, inspires me to explore deeper into my own archive of books to uncover, or rediscover, something new.

Week 11: Bode and Osborne

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In Chapter 13 of The Cambridge Companion to The History of the Book, Katherine Bode and Roger Osborne remind us that “no book was ever bound by its covers” (Bode and Osborne, 220). While we’ve been re-learning the importance of the materiality of the physical book, Bode and Osborne, in section “Reading the qualitative archives: sources”, remind us that archiving extends beyond the physicality of the book itself. Archives preserve not just the book, but the traces of the people, relationships, and decisions that shaped it during its creation, and over time. Bode and Osborne highlight the three main and most used categories of archival records used in book history as “correspondence, publishers’ records and booksellers and library records”, each providing insight into the book’s life. Authors’ letters may reveal how a manuscript evolved through editing and negotiation, while the correspondence between booksellers or librarians may show how works reached, or failed to reach, specific readers. This correspondence may even “provide specific reasons why a book was or was not purchased for a particular group of readers” (Bode and Osborne, 220). As they write, correspondence “provides some of the most direct evidence of relationships between individuals in print culture” (Bode and Osborne, 220). With these records, scholars are able to reconstruct the “communications circuit” of print, tracing how various works moved from private creation to public consumption. In fact, archival research reshapes our understanding of authorship and authority. Scholarly editions, such as the digital Mark Twain Project, reveal that previously undiscovered correspondence can “destabilize established arguments” about a text’s purpose or meaning. Archives keep literary history alive, and are continually reshaping the boundaries of what we know, or think we know. Bode and Osborne push us to see that studying the history of the book means studying a network of human activity and correspondence, that is the archive is a living and continually growing space. 

Week 10: Electronic Literature

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Electronic literature is a rapidly growing field that combines writing and technology. As Scott Rettburg explains, the term broadly refers to works with “important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer” (Rettburg). Electronic literature is more than text stored within a computer, it is literature that could not exist without digital technology. Like all of our words, the definition has evolved and changed. Before the 1990s, “electronic literature” often meant texts in digital form, such as online articles. However, authors and scholars began using the term to describe works of art/literature designed specifically for computers, such as hypertext fiction or interactive digital poetry. Boruk taught us that material influences content, and the same applies to electronic literature. The computer and specific software platforms directly influence how we interact with various texts: “The platform in electronic literature constrains and affords practices in a material-and some might even say determinative-way” (Rettburg). 

Rettburg uses the example of “guard fields in a Storyspace hypertext or tweens in a Flash poem has a very specific aesthetic effect on the way that a reader interacts with and perceives a work” (Rettburg). Just as the tablet evolved into the scroll which eventually evolved into the book as we know it today, electronic literature will continue to evolve as technology advances. Electronic literature is yet another reminder that reading and writing is never static, but rather the form, style, and experience is constantly evolving alongside the tools we use to do so, physical or digital. 

Biography of a Book, A Nievve Herball, or, Historie of Planets

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Dodoens, Rembert, et al. A Nievve Herball, or, Historie of Plantes : Wherein Is Contayned the Vvhole Discourse and Perfect Description of All Sortes of Herbes and Plantes, Their Diuers and Sundry Kindes, Their Straunge Figures, Fashions, and Shapes, Their Names, Natures, Operations, and Vertues, and That Not Onely of Those Whiche Are Here Growyng in This Our Countrie of Englande, but of All Others Also of Forrayne Realmes, Commonly Used in Physicke. Translated by Henry Lyte and Carolus Clusius, By Me Gerard Dewes, dwelling in Pawles Churchyarde at the Signe of the Swanne, 1578.

This edition of A Nievve Herball, or, Historie of Planets, originally written by Flemish physician and botanist Rembert Dodoens, was published in London, United Kingdom in 1578. It is a herbal book, a book that describes plants and their uses. The text is in English, translated from Dutch via French. The cover of the herbal uses the three quarter bookbinding style. The spine and about three quarters of the cover are covered in one material, in this case a thin layer of vellum, while the remaining part of the cover is made with a different material. The vellum appears to be cracked, worn, and peeling in some places. On the left of the front flyleaf of the herbal, a large, vertical signature can be found.

The title page, featuring an elaborate historiated woodcut border, has a section missing, appearing to be cut out manually. Illustrations throughout the herbal are black and white woodcuts by Arnaud Nicolai after drawings by Petrus van der Borcht.

On the verso, or reverse side of the title page, is a coat of arms of Henry Lyte, the translator of this edition. A few pages forward is a portrait of author Rembert Dodoens.

The pages of the herbal are made out of rag-paper, used between the 13th-18th centuries in England. The rag-paper pages are discolored and browned, especially around the corners. This could be due to various reasons such as light exposure, oxidation, or humidity.

Book worm holes can be found throughout the pages, however, they are more concentrated in the front section of the herbal. Each section which describes various plants or flowers features a woodcut print.

Additionally, each section of text begins with a black and white initial, known today as a drop cap. There are inhabited, floriated, and foliated initials throughout the herbal. The text itself is a blackletter typeface, or gothic. 

The pages of the 1578 edition of A Nievve Herball, or, Historie of Planets by Rembert Dodoens are far from the perfect, blank white pages we see in our modern books today. The pages of Dodoens’ herbal are discolored around the edges and spotted brown, with a trail of holes book worms have left behind. Before the wood-pulp paper, most commonly used today, was invented, book makers used rag paper made from linen and cotton fibers. This material is both resilient, able to preserve itself from 1578 to 2025, but also vulnerable to light exposure, oxidation, and humidity. The narrative of a book is more than just the words inside, but can be found in the physical materiality of the container itself. In our contemporary moment, when books are mass produced and easily bought and sold, we are disconnected from the material history of the book. It has become easy to think of books as static containers of text, rather than organic artifacts. The wormholes and discoloration in A Nievve Herball, or, Historie of Plantes reveal the book as an ecological record, revealing how time, environment, and organic decay shape its material identity and the story it tells. These marks not just damage, but serve to remind us that books are more than a static container of text. To be able to truly read this book, you must look beyond the words, and unto the pages that hold them. 

The “damage” on this copy of A Nievve Herball, or, Historie of Plantes, is what makes it unique, bearing its own story to tell. The discolored pages and wormholes transform it from one of many identical copies, into a unique artifact with its own biography. The marks we are able to see with the visible eye tells a history, without having to read the words at all. This copy is made with rag paper, a process of paper making that uses cotton and linen fibers to create the sheet. This kind of paper making was used in England between the 13th and 18th centuries, before the wood pulp paper we most commonly use today was introduced. Rag paper is a resilient material, as seen through this copy which has been preserved for 447 years. Despite this, it is still vulnerable to light exposure, oxidation, and humidity which has allowed for the discoloration and worm holes to form within the herbals’ pages. 

However, the discoloration and holes are more than mere signs of deterioration, they are evidence of the papers continuing life. On the surface, the bookworms that created these holes may be seen as purely destructive, yet, their presence should be viewed as an accidental annotation or marginalia. In chapter 2 of Borsuk’s The Book, she writes that “in addition to minute differences in the binding, each book copy will contain marginalia and other residues of reading that adhere to them thanks to their individual history of ownership and circulation” (Borsuk, 76). The bookworms are now a part of this circulation. Similar to marginalia designed or written by human hands, the wormholes give us a deeper look into the life of the book itself; the human labor that created the pages and the natural processes that have continued to shape it. This herbal has many credited contributors; the author, translator, printer, bookseller, woodcutter, artist, and now the bookworms. The physicality of the book itself tells a story that is over 400 years old. The wormholes reveal and deepen our understanding that a book is more than its text, and one that is never separated from the living world that interacts with it. 

By studying the current condition of the book, the physical deterioration of the pages reveals a narrative in itself. The changing colors and textures tell us about when it was printed and published, but also a story of its survival throughout centuries of human and environmental exchange. The visible deterioration of the pages challenges the notion that the book is a fixed vessel of information. We tend to imagine books as timeless, unchanging places of storage, which is tied to their authority. However, this edition of A Nievve Herball, or, Historie of Plantes subverts this notion. The discoloration and wormholes found throughout the pages show the instability of the medium itself. Our vessels of textual information are subject to material transformation, despite how we may envision them. This shows us that reading is not a passive consumption of information, but a collaborative process between us, the environment, and the material. 

The discolored pages and wormholes of Dodoen’s A Nievve Herball, or, Historie of Plantes invites us to reconsider what it means to “read” a book. In order to understand the history behind this edition fully, you must read beyond the printed text. You must read the pages themselves. The stains, the blemishes, and the holes complete the narrative. It is one that reminds us that books are not static containers of text, but living and evolving artifacts that are constantly changing, decaying, and gathering increasing amounts of information. In an age when books are mass produced, the physical condition of Dodoen’s herbal challenges our modern detachment from the materiality of the book, pushing us to see the “book” as part of a larger ecology, as more than a vessel for information.

Borsuk’s Final Chapter, “Book as Interface”

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In Chapter 4, “Book as Interface,” Borsuk presents the book as not just an object, but as something we interact through, an interface which connects us to ideas. She explains that “the book is an idea we have of a bounded artifact… able to take any number of physical forms… It is, essentially, an interface through which we encounter ideas” (Borsuk, 197). I found it interesting how Borsuk sees the book as flexible and adaptable, yet still rooted in the habits we’ve built over centuries of reading. Even when we read digitally, we’re still basing it on “a history of physical and embodied interaction that has taught us to recognize and manipulate it” (Borsuk, 197). Even our digital reading experiences are shaped by how we’ve learned to hold and manipulate the physical, material book.

Borsuk points out that “the book accommodates us, and we accommodate to it” (Borsuk, 198). Borsuk presents the relationship between us and the book as not a one way relationship, but two. We shape how books are read, and they shape how we read. She brings in Lori Emerson’s argument that modern technology often hides its interfaces, “turning us into consumers rather than producers of content” (Borsuk, 198). Despite this, the physical book continues to influence how we think about reading, “the book is a model… for the way we think about reading in electronic spaces” (Borusk, 201). Our e-readers, kindles, and various digital readers still mimic the design and pages of what we view as the classic ‘book’, even though they don’t have to. With modern technology, we have nearly infinite ways to re-imagine reading, yet, the physical, material book still guides us. 

Week 7: Book as Idea

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In Chapter 3, “The Book as Idea,” in Amaranth Borsuk’s The Book, Borsuk explores how the physical appearance of the book, along with content, has continually changed alongside human culture and technology: “as the history of the book’s changing form and its mechanical reproduction reveal, it has transformed significantly over time and region” (Borsuk, 110). This transformation not only reflects materials or printing methods, but the shifting relationship between readers, creators, and the physical objects we hold. The book’s form has always mirrored values, artistic or commercial, and tells us about the world that produces it. 

In our current moment, the relationship between material and meaning has become more estranged, “as contemporary publishers seek to embrace digital technology, we find ourselves at a moment in which the form and content of a work bear little relation to one another. Amazon offers us the same ‘book’ in paperback or Kindle edition…” (Borsuk, 112). As books become interchangeable across various platforms, they increasingly lose their physical identity. “When books become content to be marketed and sold this way, the historic relationship between materiality and text is severed” (Borsuk, 112). The book, once a tangible object reflecting human touch, becomes purely information, designed for easy consumption, lacking the once physical and intimate engagement.

Borsuk brings in Romantic poet William Blake, who “undertook every stage of their production”, resisting the industrialization of books and “‘dark Satanic Mills’ of eighteenth century London that emitted toxic fumes, employed the poor and children in horrendous conditions, and made books into mass-produced commodities” (118). Instead, returning to “an earlier idea of the book—one steeped in mystery, beauty, and visionary language that bears the marks of its creator’s hand” (Borsuk, 118). Borsuk brings in Blake to show that books can be both a vessel for creativity, and “a means of spreading social justice” (Borsuk, 124). The meaning of a book can be found in how it presents physically, an aspect that we often lose today. The form a book takes can reflect care, individual artistry, and even resistance to commodification. 

At the end of chapter 3, Borsuk concludes that “defining the book involves consideration for its use as much as its form. Our changing idea of the book is co-constructive of its changing structure” (Borsuk, 195). Blake’s work demonstrates this, his books were both personal artworks and social justice statements, shaped by not only how they were meant to be read, but experienced. In today’s digital age, Borsuk reminds us what we lose when books are no longer able to be held, with physical pages to flip. 


Week 5: Book as Content and Commodity

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In Chapter 1, “The Book as Content”, in Amaranth Borsuk’s, The Book, Borsuk walks us through our changing perception of books as content rather than object. Borsuk explains that, “we might generalize the historic moment at which the printed text arises as one of increasing intimacy between individuals and texts, which accounts, in part, for the form of the book as we know it today” (Borsuk, 83). The book, in the form we know it today, reflects the shift of books becoming not only a more intimate experience between book and reader, but also evolving around the needs of the reader. Instead of simply consuming information, actively engaging with the text, a “dialectical relationship” between reader and author became valued. 

This shift in perception allowed for books to become commodities. Borsuk explains that, “these reader-focused elements were just as important to marketing as to book use. They mark the codex as a commodity” (Borsuk, 88). “Authors and publishers activity courted this kind of dialectical relationship”, and began to consider not just the information books contained, but also how the physical design appealed to buyers. Features that we see today like open margins left space for and encouraged “active annotation–a visible and tactile engagement of mind with page”, making books more interactive and personal, and in turn increased desirability and market value (Borsuk, 89). As the needs of the reader changed, the form of the book did as well. The printing press allowed for books to be standardized, mass produced, and more accessible for a widening audience of readers. However, this also made books products to be designed and sold, rather than rare, sacred objects only found in monasteries and universities. The new commercialized market for books, shaped by consumer demand “played a key role in the commodification of the book and in our changing perception of it as content rather than object” (Borsuk, 109). 

Week 4: Reading and Writing’s Shift

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In Chapter 1, “The Book as Object”, in Amaranth Borsuk’s, The Book, what really struck me was how writing, as we know and define it today, was mistrusted by the most revered scholars of the time. In the final section of the first chapter, “Reading and Writing’s Shift”, Borsuk explains that “the great thinkers of Greece, in fact, mistrusted writing as a technology that would destroy the oral arts of debate and storytelling on which they based their sense of the world” (Borsuk, 55). For the kind of reading we know today it “would have to change its context and text in form… which means literacy would have to extend beyond the elite and monastic communities” (Borsuk, 56). 

What we base our entire education on, and how we define the book and our access to knowledge, was distrusted, discouraged, and feared by Socrates. He believed that transcription “is a crutch that will both hamper memory and more philosophical thought in ambiguity, leaving interpretation in the hands of the reader” (Borsuk, 56). While context is still important, how we  (the individual holding the book) interpret literature and writing (separate from the intention of the author) is now the most crucial skill we learn. The transition from oral and limited transcription, to our more accessible, modern practice of writing actually “allowed rhetoric to flourish” (Borsuk, 56).  The “book” as we know it today is not in its final form, just as the tablet and scroll evolved, so will our definition. Many of us express how digitized literature, media, and AI scare us, how we are fearful for future generations’ attention spans and ability to think for themselves. Past scholars’ concerns “echo contemporary anxieties about the ways digitally meditated reading and writing shortens our attention spans and ability to engage deeply with texts” (Borsuk, 58). It makes me realize that future technology has always been feared and mistrusted. As mediums of reading evolve, how we read reflects that evolution. What Socrates feared is why we are all here today, and it makes me reconsider how I view and fear future technological advancements in writing and the “book”.

“The Library of Babel” Borges

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Jorge Luis Borges’, “The Library of Babel”, took me a couple reads to grasp. In the “indefinite and perhaps infinite” Library, what stood out to me was the importance, and vastness, of language. The Librarians struggle with the “formless and chaotic nature of almost all the books… for every sensible line of straightforward statement, there are leagues of senseless cacophonies, verbal jumbles and incoherences” (Borges, 2). When all possible combinations exist, the incoherent outnumbers the coherent. Borges’ Librarians specifically struggle with deciphering books that may use recognizable words, but form illogical sentences with seemingly no meaning. While some Librarian’s believe the majority of the books to be nonsense, the narrator argues that there is not a “single example of absolute nonsense”, instead, “in some of them, the symbol library allows the correct definition a ubiquitous and last system of hexagonal galleries, but library is bread or pyramid or anything else, and these seven words which define it have another value” (Borges, 8). In an indefinite library, and here on Earth, language and etymologies are constantly evolving, and just because you can read the words, does not equal comprehension: “You who read me, are You sure of understanding my language?” (Borges, 8). While some Librarians write off books they deem as nonsense, Borges recognizes that language is not static, but constantly evolving.