Category Archives: Week 4: Book as Object- Borsuk Ch. 1

Content Developing Alongside Technology

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Within the first few pages of “The Book,” by Amaranth Borsuk, there is a quote that really opened my eyes to a thought I’d never had before. The quote is as follows: “Content does no simply necessitate its from, but rather writing develops alongside, influences, and is influenced by the technological supports that facilitate its distribution” (Borsuk 3).This idea that the writing within a book, scroll, website, etc. has not necessarily been the impetus of certain kinds of technology, but vice-versa. My mind immediately thought about fanfiction posted on sites such as AO3 or Tumblr. Fanfiction is writing based on another person’s story, comic, TV show, movie, book (etc), that is not ‘cannon’ (isn’t actually in the story either at all or at the moment) in the original work. This can cause a fracturing of the story into something new, but still related to the original, that can be disseminated through those aforementioned sites to other fans of these stories. My point here is that fanfiction seems to have been mainly an effect of the web—aka a new technology that is able to support its distribution. I had always though of it being the other way around, that it was the content that caused evolution within the technology. So flipping this idea on its head in regards to some content was something that caused me to think about which technologies made it possible for certain content to become available, made, and popular.

Week 4: “Mineral, Vegetable, Animal”

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In The Book (2018), Amaranth Borsuk foregrounds the networked production histories of book media. In an example from 1153, hair follicles on a parchment page evidence the remediation of a living being into book materials (52). I have been reflecting on Borsuk’s reproduction of this parchment page in comparison to Jonathan Senchyne’s warm instances of human “traces” through book media in The Intimacy of Paper in Early and Nineteenth-Century American Literature (2020), which I encountered in Dr. Pressman’s Literature’s Media course in Fall 2024. Senchyne’s traces manifest moments of human interconnection, creating an empathetic bond between readers throughout time and place that situates how a book object traversed its setting. In one example, the handprint of a reader marks time from 1657 (Senchyne 15). The organism which traces its memory in Borsuk’s parchment leaves the trace of a time marked more violently: unlike the human craftsperson, the animal/s lost its life in the parchment production process. How do we read media for traces not only of life, but of death?

If its materials influence the ways that we interact with and perceive a book, the book also influences the ways that we interact with and perceive its materials: that is, our understanding of trees is influenced by our interactions with paper, and our understanding of animals is influenced by our interactions with parchment and vellum. Borsuk notes that, in first millennium CE Egypt, the cyperus papyrus plant was exploited to near-extinction in papyrus production (14). Did a similar fate befall the animals whose hides were culled for use in parchment production? How did the economy of parchment shape human-animal relationships, contextualizing the role of animals in human trade and information production?

The parchment product mediates a power organization and economy of human-animal relationships in which animal bodies are exploited, alive or dead, and in which their passage from living to dead is directed by human actors. This leads me to question how life and death are configured in “media ecologies,” and how significant death is to media production. The reeds, the animals, and the trees which compose common book media interact with eventual readers as de-autonomized bodies – traces of once-life and the conditions which created their death. The plant or animal’s body is remediated from living to dead. This exploitation interrelates with the ecological violence of capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, and their social permutations.

Considering this, Borsuk’s chapter has raised new research questions for me. How were the bodies of animals used for parchment and vellum production symbolically and culturally encoded as products of information production, economy, and “the very nature of thought itself”? (44) How were human interactions with these animals shaped by the association of living organisms with product? Further, how were the lives and animal cultures of these creatures shaped by their exploitation in the vellum and parchment trades? Did botanical and zoological adaptations occur through these contexts? This would make good material for a study of nonhuman reader networks and media ecologies, which N. Katherine Hayles gestured towards in her presentation at SDSU last semester.

These questions relate to my capstone project-in-progress, which in part historicizes scientific galvanism through a disability studies framework. The galvanic slab is a site of networked interconnection between human, nonhuman animal, and technological bodies – much, I’m now realizing, like the parchment or vellum page. We know that the information in a book can be violent – and so, I need to emphasize, can be the production of the book. The medium might be fatal. I’m now thinking about anthrodermic bibliopegy (the custom of binding books in human skin) as it relates to spectacles of capital punishment, which also featured heavily in galvanism. Borsuk’s materiality study has made me more aware of the ecocritical, ethical, and thanatological implications of the human-animal-technology circuit in disseminating information and encoding meanings through trans-species interactions with book media. The dead reed, animal, or tree is a key model in contextualizing the material production of book objects. Who died to make this object? Who killed? How does the fact of death-production influence how we interact with and present the object? Now that I’m finding some footing, I want to get serious with media studies and explore these wider effects as I handle objects in Special Collections with more attuned sensitivities.

The Book’s Influence on Writing

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The first chapter of The Book by Amaranth Borsuk discusses the evolution of today’s codex’s predecessors, the development of writing surfaces, and oral and written language. In the exploration of early forms of books, like tablets, scrolls, jiance, etc., Borsuk inevitably reaches the topic of written language as a natural consequence of the development of the book is the evolution of both written and oral communication. 

I had never considered that writing developed alongside the birth of book forms. For some reason, I just assumed writing simply developed from language and someone trying to visualize that language, as is the case in the creation of Hangul. I also certainly never considered how that could also shape a language. When Borsuk brought up cuneiform, I never considered that it was because of the resources available, being the reed for a stylus, that the Sumerians’ written language, composed of lines and triangles, was a result of it. It was more similar to early pictographic languages like hieroglyphics and Chinese. 

Another example of the format on which language is written influencing the written language is the jiance, which “influenced the very shape of Chinese writing” (Borsuk, 26). Borsuk details the crafting of jiance by cutting bamboo and tying the strips together to make a writable surface out of the abundance of bamboo in China. When visualizing the jiance process, I was confused about how writing on it worked since bamboo, even when sliced open, isn’t that big. Borsuk then revealed that “the traditional Chinese style of writing from top to bottom arises directly from the book’s materiality – a bamboo slip was too thin to permit more than one character per line” (26). Reading this explanation made everything click in my mind on how writing and books are intertwined in their influence on each other. 

This chapter solidified when we talked about the book being a physical thing that influences writing and works alongside it. Though the idea made sense, it was still abstract to me until now. I enjoyed learning about how different old script was compared to today and how written language was crafted to be easier for oration, at least in Greek and Roman culture. Considering how books and language are now, it’s amazing to see how we have changed communication to fit our cultural and societal needs.

Epistemology

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Books themselves function as an artifact that is vital to our shared human experience–they have become a necessity as our needs have progressed over the course of time; this is further exemplified when analyzing the materialistic culture behind literature and books. Amoranth states, “The book, after all, is a portable data storage and distribution method, and it arises as a by-product of the shift from oral to literature culture, a process that takes centuries and is informed through cultural exchange” (Amaranth 16). Because we have transitioned from an oral to literature culture it demonstrates our underlying values– we desire to archive knowledge; books have not only cultural value but are a tool– similar to usb’s and hard drives, books act in a similar manner– they store and share information– information that will be passed on to future generations of readers and scholars. And, this can be viewed from a wide array of cultures– from Mesopotamia’s clay tablets to religious scriptures; each culture has created a necessity to reliably store and disseminate ideas. Furthermore, the fact we have moved from oral to written information signify that written literature is a culture adaptation from our needs– intrinsically, making language fixed for the time period in which the writings take place. This is a result from an amalgamation of fixed cultural apparatuses and exchange from different global values that emerge from our shared experience and values. This is evidenced by the digital humanities– once again, as a society we have evolved and adopted new means of written literature; physical books have evolved into pdfs and ebooks. We have created a necessity and a solution based on our needs. It is easier to download books and annotate them via a pdf reader rather than having to hunt them down at different bookstores– it is almost instantaneous– which again, demonstrates how our culture has shifted– looking for instant rather than delayed gratification.

Week 4: The Point of Contradictory Definitions

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Last Tuesday in Special Collections, I made a remark to my table about the instability of definitions. It was something like, “The longer I’m in school, and the more I learn how we define things, the more I realize how differently we all define everything. It’s a miracle that we can communicate with each other at all.”

The first chapter of The Book by Amaranth Borsuk reminded me of that, particularly the black pages. Each page offers a different definition of the word “book.” We don’t need to believe all of these different definitions at once to be scholars of books. We need to see them, though, to cultivate our own definitions. One of the main reasons to read and consider all of these disparate definitions is to try to understand that how we define common terms, even ones which feel foundational and universal, might be different than how the people we speak to on a daily basis define those same terms.

If we look only at the definitions on the black pages in this chapter, we learn that a book is specifically a physical, portable language storage tool (2, 8), and a book is as big and fixed in space as an inscription on a monument or a mountain (15, 35), and a book is a highly inclusive and flexible category that can include many different media (15, 22), and a book is a physical support for text, not merely the text itself (29), and a book is not just an object, it’s a technology that evolves with the needs of its users (42), and a book is, “an experience. […] A book starts with an idea. And ends with a reader.” (57). These definitions contradict each other, so the point is not to hold one definition up as the ultimate definition. Readers get to see several options, make up their own minds, and understand that other intelligent people can think something different.

More past the break…

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Books and Movement

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Within the second line of the first chapter of the The Book, Amaranth Borsuk describes the book as a “portable data storage and distribution method,” (Borsuk 1). The book stores information within it, written and drawn to be distributed, throughout the text the importance of the book as a moveable object is frequently described. The papyrus scrolls of the Egyptians could literally move, bending and curling on their own, and their form could spread widely, being made from plant material and able to be traded and exported to other nations, allowing for movement of the papyrus. Easily and independently moved books were used by the Greeks and Romans as “pugillares,” which were “portable writing surfaces,” that could be held in just one hand (Borsuk 40). In later centuries within monasteries books moved and duplicated, “each copying texts by hand…Monasteries monopolized book production,” allowing for greater movement of books and their circulation, even if it was only within certain places or for certain commissioners. (Borsuk 48). Throughout history books as objects have been physically movable, able to change place and be transported and shared, not etched only to walls and stuck in only one location. Books must be a portable object to hold information in, however although in a literal sense not all books are moveable, some have been chained to their shelves or keep only in archives, the writing, the ideas and stories that they contain are mobile. Even if not in actual motion, the purpose of books, as “portable,” will always succeed because the material within them can circulate and be shared without the object itself needing to be moved, its data may always be distributed, therefore the book is always moving.

I really enjoyed the reading this week, I loved being able to explore the history and progression of the book as an object, how it has change and yet how it has stayed the same, how it maintains the shape of the codex but is now produced at a much faster pace. I am very excited to continue reading the rest of The Book.

The Multiple Lives of the Book

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The first chapter of Amaranth Borsuk’s The Book sets the foundation of what the book as an object has meant throughout history. The book has transformed and lived different lives depending on the culture that depended on its fluid utility. Retrospectively, the form the book has taken from clay tablet to codex includes a spectrum that has taken centuries to develop. The societies that have taken the form of the book and made it theirs always did so with intent and used the object in their specific cultural context.

The history of the book as an object is fascinating and spans across the world. While it is difficult to pin down the exact definition of what a book is or is not, a key characteristic is the portable form which dates as a far as the Sumerian clay tablets. To further build on that, the identity of books is to facilitate the development of reading, writing, and illustration. Borsuk draws a quote from Jessica Brantley and her work The Prehistory of the Book where she writes, “A book might be best understood as the material support for inscribed language, a category that includes rolls and codices and even monumental inscription, both written by hand and printed by many different mechanism, and also a wide variety of digital media”. The range of materials from papyrus to bamboo to paper are all indicative of a culture that was willing to utilize natural materials in order to fuel their intellectual pursuits. The need of books, writing and reading, comes down to being able to confidently leave thoughts somewhere. The material form of books continues to be developed and refined in a way that encourages current cultures to willingly engage with them. For the modern day reader that means a plethora of digital texts in the form of advertisements, tablets, and handheld phone readings. While Borsuk provides the physical history of the book as an object, it is important to recognize where the current timeline lands. What has been a bundle of folded pages, or one long scroll, has evolved into technology with digitalized layers that disseminate information. It is different, as are all the modes conveyed in the opening chapter, but paramount to recognize the purpose and goals are still similar.

How to Call Something that isn’t a Book

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This past week, when we met in special collections, we were asked to determine whether the seven items were books or not. Quite frankly, I didn’t know how to consider them literally, so I assumed they were all different forms of books. However, I am glad I was able to hear from other classmates on their ideas of books as it opened up my mind to how a physical book differs from a conceptual book.

In Amaranth Borsuk’s The Book, “The Book as Object”, there is a distinctive feature of a physical book that pertains to the history of written text. While Frederick Kilgour considers the idea of a book to be a form of disseminating human knowledge (2), the physical book doesn’t arrive until thousands of years after the first documentation on tablets. And, even before books, the invention of the Alphabet changed the way Western cultures write. Rather than using pictographs or symbols, we now use letters in a variety of combinations to make words and ideas and sounds.

However, the one thing I would really like to talk about is the idea of the accordion. When we were in class on Tuesday, we observed what we might want to consider a book but wasn’t actually what it was called. It was one of the seven items with connected pages that could come out of the original cover but not go out of order. I considered that a book even though it wasn’t the most traditional, only to discover through reading Borsuk’s first chapter that what we observed was actually an accordion. Used centuries ago, was this accordion shaped codex of disseminating information in China (Borsuk 36). I found this very interesting to learn considering I couldn’t pin a name on what we looked at in class.

I guess I would venture further to consider what the other items might be truly called according to historical perspectives.

Book as Object

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As presented by Amaranth Borsuk in The Book, it is important to understand the history of the book and how it developed as an object within our culture before we can have debates on what classifies as a book. While the portable, durable, economically accessible book we know today may seem like a fixed cultural artifact, throughout its history, the book has continuously transformed with material availability and changing societal needs. Reflecting on the earliest books being made from papyrus in Egypt, bamboo in China, and animal hides in Greece to name a few of the first bookish societies, books have always been in a close personal connection to its cultural context.

In considering these various origins and how their ideas merge or influence each other, it is clear that the book which has resulted today is a cumulative product of human innovation rather than one that can be claimed by one culture or event. To help explain this phenomenon, Borsuk cites D. F. Mckenzie who writes in Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts, “A book is never simply a remarkable object. Like every other technology, it is invariably the product of human agency in complex and highly volatile contexts,” (42). The book has never been a static object and is continuously recreated by humans to cater to the shifting needs of time and various societal climates. While the book has largely been credited as a German innovation due to the printing press revolutionizing book production and accessibility, by looking back to understand the origins are writing and writing production, it is clear that the creation of the book is a global, collective effort. While humans more and more enter an age of technological innovations being a competition of time and ownership, the book is one of centuries long development that has been slow and collaborative. As a chain of evolution and reimagination, the book is strong in representing diversity of thoughts and being adaptable to ever changing needs. With the definition of what makes a book continuously up for debate, the book should be recognized as a global success of humanity in creating a living form of technology that may adapt to informational and distributive needs of any given culture.

Progress and Its Remediated Fear

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What I found most interesting about not only chapter 1 of Borsuk’s book but also Thursday’s class was the multiple fears of the advancement of literature from various influential people of their time. Socrates and Plato were named in both and in the Book, Borsuk says, “The great thinkers of Ancient 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, of philosophy, of time and space.”(55). In class professor Pressman commented on the close relationship writing has to politics and it seems like Plato, Socrates, Hugo, Nietzsche, Derrida, along with many others had the same fears we seem to now have today, yet, they are remedial.

The anxieties, fears, and worries that plague us about our future have already had a host. The same fears that created a disdain of the written word for Socrates, “for separating ideas from their source-“, are now ones many of us today fall for (Borsuk 55). If I remember correctly, it’s true what Socrates said about dialogue being stronger than the written word. Today, for example, many forms of media and new websites use ‘clickbait’ titles and false narratives, not to seek the truth, but to profit and entertain. Furthermore, the popularity in audio books and podcasts is also a bit worrying. It was very eye opening and comforting even, to see these great thinkers and philosophers of the past share many of the same feelings I did. That weariness of change, the unavoidable path forward, to progress, to the future unknown; “Their concerns echo contemporary anxieties about the ways digitally mediated reading and writing shortens our attention spans, and ability to engage deeply with texts (Borsuk 59). It is somewhat strange to read that. That our contemporary worries have also been ancient ones just remediated. It reminds me about our conversation about book history in general. That these ways of linear thinking serve no purpose other than to blind us to the whole picture. And its important to note that, “writing itself fundamentally changed human consciousness, much as our reliance on networked digital devices has altered us at the core.” (Borsuk 60). Progress demands change and with that change come both good and bad, “The thing we fear is precisely what worried the Ancients: mediation.” (Borsuk 60).

While time has only proven that the written language has helped develop human civilization to grow exponentially in every way, so too will the number of problems multiply. And it is precisely here that worries me, but also those before. That especially now, we cannot trust what we read and see, we have to question everything and remain aware. A worry that many of us have today but that was long ago held by a greek: “At the root of Socrates’s accusation lies a vision of writing as a technology that interposes between thinker and thought, severing the two and allowing them to travel independently of one another.” (Borsuk 60).