When I finished the Johns Hopkins Guide reading on electronic literature, my brain was kind of going. I went in thinking this would be a pretty straightforward definition (literature that exists digitally) but it turned out to be a whole concept that is way more complicated (and interesting) than I thought.
The thing that really caught my attention was this quote from the Electronic Literature Organization’s definition. The reading mentions how electronic literature includes works that are “works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer” (568-569). What really brought my attention about this is the emphasis on “taking advantage” of digital capabilities, not just existing in digital form. It’s not enough to just slap a novel onto a Kindle and call it electronic literature, there has to be something about the work that needs the computer to function properly.
This difference got me thinking about all the different forms mentioned in the reading. Hypertext fiction, interactive narratives, bots, SMS works, even collaborative online writing projects. The sheer variety is kind of overwhelming to be honest. For instance, we’ve expanded so far beyond the traditional book format that it’s hard to even nail down what counts as “literature” anymore. The reading talks about how some people in the ELO were debating whether things like video games or interactive fiction should be included, and I see why that’s controversial.
What I find most fascinating (and maybe a bit unsettling) is the idea that the medium fundamentally changes the literary experience. The reading discusses how electronic literature doesn’t just change how we read, but potentially what reading even means. When you’re clicking through hyperlinks or interacting with a digital poem that responds to your inputs, are you still “reading” in the traditional sense? Or are you doing something entirely new?
I also appreciated how the reading acknowledges that electronic literature isn’t replacing print literature—it’s just expanding what’s possible. The author mentions how some works couldn’t exist without the computer’s capabilities, which makes sense when you think about things like generative poetry or works that change based on reader input.
One question I’m left with though is this. Where’s the line between electronic literature and just internet content? For instance, are Twitter threads literature? What about really well-crafted Tumblr posts? The reading touches on this when discussing collaborative writing and networked environments, but I wish there was more clarity on where we draw those boundaries, or if we even should.
Overall, this reading definitely challenged my assumptions about what literature can be in the digital age. It’s clear that as technology evolves, so too will our definitions of literary art. Kind of exciting, honestly.
Typo Bilder Buch (Typo Picture Book) (2012), by Romano Hänni, is an artist’s book made of cardboard and paper towels. Hänni letterpress printed 65 copies of the book. He used the colors red, yellow, blue, and black. There is some readable text, printed in German, but most of the book is made up of illustrations made out of typography. Hänni uses both serif and sans-serif typeface, along with some of his own printing forms, to create some obscure shapes and some recognizable images. These typographic scenes were printed onto sheets of paper towel, which were then stitched together and bound in a cardboard cover with a paper dust jacket. It comes with a four-page English translation of the German text.
Hänni’s Website also offers the following description of the work:
The page layout was deliberately not prepared. The design and sequence of the pages were intended to develop during the work process. The first printing forms were blue lines and linear frameworks at the bottom of the pages. New ideas developed during the unrolling and tearing off of double pages of paper towel as well as during composition, setup, printing and removing of the type.
The printing workshop represents the available raw materials: Lead characters, synthetics and wood, brass lines and signs, typographic signs and lead symbols. The typo pictures were composed from individual parts and printed on the hand proofing press; some of them were superimposed in several printing cycles. They are intended to mutually influence and merge into each other and to display an inner connection.
The page format was determined by the paper: Paper towels, maxi roll; composition: 100% oxygen-bleached pulp (54 g/m2± 5%), wet strength additives, agents; roll length: 62,1 m ± 2%, sheet size: 23×26 cm, ± 2%, paper from responsible sources.
When I first opened The Divan of Hafez in the Special Collections room, I just stared at it for a moment before even touching it. It wasn’t only the smell of old paper or the way the leather cover seemed to crumble slightly at the corners it was that strange feeling that the book was somehow awake again. Like it had been waiting for someone to open it. It’s small, smaller than I expected. It fits perfectly in my hands, the way an object made to be handled should. The leather cover is dark brown, with faint decorative lines and small patterns pressed into it. It’s worn at the edges, the spine a bit loose and there’s a tear near the bottom. But instead of feeling fragile, it feels alive. You can tell it’s been used, used, maybe passed from one person to another, maybe read out loud many times. When I reached the first illuminated pages, I couldn’t look away. Both sides are full of bright floral patterns blue, pink, gold carefully mirrored across the gutter. It’s almost too perfect. The two pages look like a carpet, a symmetrical design that draws you in before you even start reading. It’s as if you’re invited into the text, but you must cross through color first. The gold still catches the light, and for a second it doesn’t feel like looking at a book it feels like entering one. The poetry itself sits neatly in two vertical columns, framed by thin colored lines. The script Nastaliq (main calligraphic hands used to write Arabic/Iranian scrip) flows softly, like it was written by someone who didn’t just know how to write but how to breathe through ink. Most of the text is in black, but here and there, words appear in red. The red is not random. It marks the start of each ghazal (poetic form) or a name, or sometimes a single phrase that stands out. When I noticed it, I realized how rhythmic it makes the reading (even I can’t read nastaliq writing) like a pause, a heartbeat, or maybe a reminder to pay attention. The color gives the text its own kind of movement. Then there are the miniature paintings. They show small scenes two figures sitting together, a courtyard, the suggestion of conversation. The colors are still strong: deep blues, pinks, oranges, gold. I think they don’t exactly illustrate the poems but echo them, like visual metaphors. You can almost imagine someone reading the lines, then glancing at the image beside them words and paint reflecting each other.
The paper is another story. It’s handmade, slightly rough at the edges, with faint laid lines visible when you tilt it toward the light. Some corners are darkened, maybe from fingers. A few pages are torn or uneven. But none of it feels like damage. It feels like proof that the book was alive in the world. I kept thinking about how every part of this object the script, the pigments, the binding mirrors the same balance that Hafez plays with in his poems: between the sacred and the sensual, between what fades and what lasts.
The beauty isn’t separate from the meaning; it is the meaning. During my research I often read that Scholars probably place this copy in the late 18th or early 19th century, during the Qajar period, when Persian calligraphy and book arts were at their height. The design, the script, the color palette it all fits that time and region, maybe Shiraz or Isfahan. I like imagining the person who wrote it: a scribe bent over the page, drawing each curve of Nastaliq carefully, mixing red pigment for the next ghazal, leaving a small trace of their hand on every page. Now, it lives in the Special Collections library, resting quietly on a soft cradle. There’s a white catalog label near the spine a sign of its new life as an archive object. But even in that careful, quiet space, it doesn’t feel still. It hums in a way. The folds, the loosened binding, the little spark of gold along the border they all suggest motion, like the book hasn’t finished being read yet. When I started describing The Divan of Hafez for this project, I realized that what I was really describing wasn’t just a book but a set of relationships. The way beauty turns into language. The way a reader leaves fingerprints behind. The way an object holds memory. Hafez often blurs the line between earthly love and divine love between what’s fleeting and what’s eternal. And somehow, this manuscript does the same. It’s worn, but it shines. It’s old, but it still speaks. And maybe that’s part of the reason why I chose this book. I’ve heard of Hafez before not in a classroom, but in conversations with friends from Iran and Afghanistan, who talk about him the way one talks about an old relative, or a wise friend. His poems are still alive in their homes, spoken at gatherings, quoted over tea. I’ve listened to them talk about the Divan as something that helps them express love not just romantic love, but love for friends, for parents, for life itself. When I read Hafez now, even though translation, I feel a bit of that. There’s something about his words their openness, their trust in beauty that makes me want to look differently at the people I love. Maybe that’s what poetry is supposed to do: to make us more tender, more attentive. I think that’s why this manuscript matters to me. It’s not only a historical object; it’s a bridge. Between languages, between centuries, between people. Between me and those moments with my friends when they tried to explain what Hafez means to them. Somehow, in the pages of this old book, I could feel it that poetry still carries the power to connect us, to remind us of that love, in all its forms, keeps circulating, just like the hands that once turned these pages. Maybe that’s what makes it so hard to walk away from: even after all this time, The Divan of Hafez still knows how to look back at you.
Part 2: When I think back to my time with The Divan of Hafez, what stayed with me most wasn’t the gold or the binding it was the red ink. Those strokes of pigment, placed with so much intention, divide the black text like breaths between thoughts. The red rubrics that signal each new ghazal (poetic form) don’t just organize the text, they give it rhythm, almost like a pulse. In many manuscripts, red ink is a practical device. But in this one, it feels emotional. It glows against the black, soft but steady, like a flame that refuses to fade. Reading it, I kept noticing how this tiny change in color turns reading into something physical. It makes you stop, breathe, look again. It slows you down the way poetry should. I started thinking about what that gesture changing color means in the life of the book. I keep coming back to the thought that a book is never just a container, it’s an active space where meaning happens through touch, color, and movement, not just through language. The red here isn’t decoration, it’s part of the act of reading. The page performs the poem. These marks of use, the worn corners, the uneven ink, the slightly blurred red lines belong to the same story. They show that someone once cared enough to make each beginning visible. This attention to beginnings makes me think about how books move through the world: from the person who makes them, to the places that share them, to the readers who leave their traces behind. The red rubrication makes that journey visible it marks the moment when writing becomes reading, when language re-enters life. The scribe’s hand, the reader’s eye, my own curiosity: all of them meet in that flash of color. At first, I thought I was writing about a decorative feature. But the longer I looked, the more I realized that the red ink is an argument about devotion. It is the manuscript’s heartbeat the sign that beauty itself can be a form of knowledge. When I think about why I chose this book, the answer is partly personal. I had heard of Hafez before from my Iranian and Afghan friends who talk about him with warmth, almost as if he were family. They quote him when they can’t find the right words; they open his Divan to seek guidance. For them, poetry is not distant it’s alive, intimate, daily. I kept thinking about how fragile and yet enduring this combination is the way the red fades slightly at the edges but still shines centuries later. In that small detail, I saw the persistence of love itself: delicate, but stubborn. The red marks echo that duality. They separate, but they also connect. They remind me that art isn’t about perfection, it’s about the ongoing attempt to make feeling visible. Through my friends and through this object, I’ve come to see that Persian and Afghan poetry holds a kind of emotional openness I’ve always admired a way of expressing affection, friendship, and devotion without fear. Reading Hafez in this manuscript, I felt that openness in a material form. The red ink wasn’t just marking text it was marking tenderness. What I love most about this object is how its material, emotional, and intellectual layers blend. The red pigment mark’s structure and meaning, but it also carries feeling and memory. It shows how books can hold knowledge and affection at the same time. Nothing in this manuscript is separate. The color, the words, the touch of the page all work together to create a quiet conversation about care. Even the fading of the ink feels meaningful. The red has softened at the edges, but it still shines. That change does not feel like a loss. It feels like age has given the book a new kind of beauty. The manuscript does not hide its years. It wears them with calm and dignity, as if it knows that time is not its enemy. That quiet endurance feels like an act of love too. Hafez’s poetry often moves between the sacred and the human, between devotion and desire. The red ink mirrors that balance. It separates and connects at the same time. It draws attention without dividing. It shows that art is not about perfection but about the effort to make emotion visible. The devotion here is not toward a religion or rule, but toward the simple act of paying attention. To notice, to care, to look closely. That is its own kind of prayer. This manuscript changed how I think about book history. I used to imagine it as a study of preservation, about recording what already exists. Now I see it differently. Book history is about continuation. Every time someone reads, observes, or describes a book, its life extends a little further. A manuscript does not survive because of age alone. It survives because people keep returning to it, keep finding something alive within it. Attention is what keeps it breathing. Through my friends and through this book, I began to understand something about Persian poetry that feels important. It does not divide emotion and intellect. It lets feeling and thought exist together. It treats love as something both deeply human and deeply wise. Reading Hafez in this way made me realize how poetry can teach presence and humility at the same time. The red ink did not just mark the text. It marked tenderness itself. To notice the red ink is to practice awareness. It is a small act of mindfulness, an invitation to slow down and be present. In a world that moves quickly and demands constant attention, this manuscript offers another rhythm. It reminds me that meaning is not something we chase but something we meet when we pause long enough to see it. When I left the Special Collections room, the world outside looked sharper. Even the red of a stoplight seemed different. I thought of the manuscript and how color can guide movement without commanding it. Maybe that is what the red ink really teaches: to see the world as something to be read with care, with patience, and with love. What remains after closing the book is not only the memory of its beauty but a realization. The life of a book is not just in its words but in its gestures in the way it was made, the way it has been touched, the way it continues to invite attention. The Divan of Hafez reminded me that the book is also the story of love and continuity. It shows that beauty and devotion are not separate from life. They are life. And that lesson, written in red, will stay with me for a long time. It made me realize that book history isn’t just about preservation, it’s about continuity. Each description, each reading, each observation is another act of devotion a way of keeping the object in motion. And that’s what Hafez himself seems to whisper through every verse that love, in all its forms, survives by being shared.
So, what remains after closing the book? A quiet realization that the most meaningful parts of a book’s life might not be its words but its gestures the care with which it was written, the colors chosen to emphasize breath, the way it has been held. The Divan of Hafez shows that a book’s biography is also a biography of love: how people have carried, touched, and believed in words across generations.
I was under the impression (wrongfully) that electronic literature was simply e-books or PDFs stored in a digital device; I never made the connection between literature and the capabilities of the electronic device—for example, digital media have hyperlinks and other modes of interaction, creating a new manner in which literature is reproduced through different modes of media. One example that caught my attention was that electronic literature branched out into several forms such as “chatterbots, interactive fiction, novels that take the form of e-mails, SMS messages, or blogs.” There are many forms and genres in which electronic literature is being reproduced—and, as technology evolves, so do these modes and media. I always thought about the relationship we have with literature as a feedback loop—author, word, and text to reader. E-lit challenges and blurs this paradigm by immersing the reader in a different experience, one that cannot be offered by traditional books. By no means am I making a clear distinction that one is superior to the other, but rather highlighting the idea that they both offer a different user experience. In a similar manner, in a previous post I discussed how language is not static or fixed, as it is always changing and adapting, echoing the framework in which e-lit operates—digital media has branched out through all the user participatory interactions, which demonstrate the instability or nonlinearity of this media. Intrinsically, this also demonstrates the ephemerality of electronic media; just as books can be considered outdated as we have culturally shifted to e-book’s and PDF’s, electronic literature can be archived if the software/ web cease to support that particular format– our current tumultuous political climate also influences. The government has erased several online pages that preserved publicly known information, censoring and making works disappear completely– demonstrating the fragility of this mode of media and echoing that we are in a constant state of change. The relationship between media, text and readers have changed and evolved– from time to technology.
As someone who knew what they loved(books) from a very young age, my relationship with its concept and physicality has gone through many changes. None so drastic as what I feel today. When I was younger, I was read bedtime stories when I would be tired, and I would have story-times in class where we’d all sit on the carpet and listen to the teacher read. If I was feeling brave, I would look at a monster book I vividly remember having and quite boldly purchasing at a school book fair one year. As I grew older, the texts got a bit thicker, smaller even. I would read for fun while simultaneously read for school. I remember having large hardcover school textbooks on core subjects like History, Science, and English. Then the author’s became important around late middle school and definitely high school. Canonical writers like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Steinbeck flooded my brain with their words and characters. And it was sometime in my late high school years that I listened to my first audiobook.
Just like how Professor Pressman states in her article, “In order to read Between Page and Screen, you must take, quite literally, a material turn. You must shift away from the traditional posture of holding a book and reading the text printed upon its pages.”, I too had to reorient myself to how I interacted with reading. Now I was listening to someone else’s voice reading the book. Sure, it was similar to the orality of being read to when little, but now there is no focal point. The voice is in my speakers or headphones, not in front of me. My hands weren’t preoccupied and anticipating to turn the page or use my pointer finger as a guide. I had a harder time focusing yet it made all the more sense to just simply use an audiobook. Or at least that’s how it felt when I gifted someone a physical book and they replied to me saying, “I only listen to audiobooks now.”
Now, you have easy access and purchase power to let’s say a text that you would find in a bookstore, right on your phone. And the phone would mimic turning the page, highlighting function etc…Furthermore, hypertexts like Marino’s story now force the reader to engage with the text but specifically through marginalia and the journey doesn’t have to be linear if you don’t want it to be. Texts, along with technology, our changing our literary landscape in drastic ways. And lastly as aforementioned Borsuk’s Between Page and Screen is a digital text that can only be read or rather translated through the eyes of technology. You engage with the text, almost working alongside it, by pointing the book towards the lens and watching the text come to life and float in front of your screen. It is a fascinating thing to not only experience but to be aware that we are in the midst of a great shift in the way we interact with media and literature; books are evolving, literature is augmenting itself, and we are guiding this change in the Digital Age.
Ethiopian magic scrolls are long, narrow composite objects made from multiple parchment strips joined end-to-end. Each strip is thick, stiffened, and bears a natural light-brown tone on the flesh side and a slightly darker underside. The strips are sewn together with leather through pairing holes or simple overcast stitching, producing a continuous scroll that can measure several feet in total length while remaining narrow in width, as small as a few inches. When rolled, the scroll curves with the inscribed surface facing inward, protecting the written and pictorial elements.
The support is vellum, prepared to a fairly coarse finish. The parchment’s rigidity increases with age; edges may cockle and some strips show folding creases where the scroll was repeatedly rolled. The flesh side retains more abrasion and darkening than the hair side, and occasional thinning or worming may be present at stitch sites. Surface abrasion and small losses are visible along fold lines and at the stitched joins, but overall the sheets remain structurally sound because of the substantial thickness of each strip.
Rather than a codex binding, the scroll is an assembled roll: individual parchment leaves are joined by sewing and sometimes reinforced with narrow leather or cloth patches at the joins. The leather ties that hold the seams together are visible along the reverse. There is no spine in the codicological sense; instead the object’s cohesion depends on the stitching sequence and the outer tie or wrap used to close it when not in use. The scroll may have had a primary outer fastening—cord, leather strap, or a protective cover—but in many preserved specimens this has been lost or survives only as fragments.
The text is written vertically along the length of the scroll and is usually arranged in either single narrow columns or paired columns read left to right along the unrolled surface. Columns are separated from pictorial fields and marginal notation by decorative ruling. Narrow vertical guide lines or ruled margins run near the outer edges of the strips and help constrain the writing. Lines of text are regularly spaced; scribal hand size varies but is generally compact to economize the limited width of the support.
The script is Ge’ez, written by hand in a black ink that remains the primary graphic element across the scroll. A secondary pigment of various colors, although the accent color is typically the same on each scroll, is used sparingly to highlight words, headings, invocations, or to add details to drawn figures. The ink thickness and stroke quality indicate that the writing style is consistent with no added emphasis such as larger text or bold for headings. It also implies that each scroll is written by a single person. Occasional corrections and overwrites show that the scribe worked directly on the parchment without extensive preparatory sketches.
The horizontal separators between text and images are decorative bands featuring geometric shapes and repeated motifs—zigzags, triangles, and dot or chevron patterns—executed in black and sometimes accented with color. These bands serve a dual purpose: organizing the scroll’s sections and visually distinguishing textual matter from pictorial. Vertical ruling lines, often drawn in faint ink, mark margins and provide alignment for columns. Illustrations are hand-drawn and integrated into the scroll at specific locations rather than being appended as loose plates. Figures typically occupy a full-width zone between bands of text and are often framed by the decorative horizontal lines. The imagery tends to be schematic and symbolic: supernatural human-like creatures, saints or holy figures, crosses, and anthropomorphic protective talismans. Figures are drawn primarily in black ink with selective colorful accents for haloes, garments, or weapon details. Compositionally, the head and torso are frequently emphasized and stylized while limbs and lower bodies are reduced or abstracted to fit the narrow format. Marginalia and small talismanic markings may appear beside the main figures. Small marginalia, cryptic signs, and talismanic diagrams often inhabit the spaces between text columns and pictorial panels.
Width is consistently narrow compared with the overall length, designed for portability and sequential unrolling. The scroll’s edges may show darker handling wear, and the outermost sections—those rolled on the outside—are more abraded and discolored. Creasing and flattening along repeated fold or roll lines show frequent use. The reverse side occasionally contains practice strokes or inventories of ingredients, suggesting the scroll served as a working tool for a practitioner rather than as a display object. The entirety of the page is utilized. The scroll alternates blocks of text with pictorial vignettes, separated by decorative horizontal rules. This alternation suggests a ritual sequence where textual incantations, lists of names, or liturgical formulas accompany visual protective figures. The scroll lacks foliation in a modern sense; navigation would have been tactile and visual, using repetitious graphic markers to find specific spells or images.
Ownership marks on these scrolls are often non-standard: small inscriptions naming an owner or healer, added seals, or pasted strips with later annotations. Repairs are common at sewing joins and along edges; some repairs use later leather or cloth strips and modern threads. Repaired holes and patching indicate the scroll’s continuous practical use and value.
As a material object, the Ethiopian magic scroll sits at the intersection of manuscript, talisman, and ritual implement. Its narrow, stitched construction, combined inks and pictorial elements, and clear signs of handling identify it as a portable healing or protective tool assembled and maintained by a practitioner—often a church-associated or lay exorcist—rather than a book intended for passive reading in a library. Its physical wear, repairs, and layered marginalia document a continuous, practical life in the hands of practitioners and owners rather than an archival, library-centered existence.
Part 2: The Analysis
Ethiopian magic scrolls are religious objects designed to move: long, narrow rolls of sewn parchment whose images, texts, and physical form function together as portable technologies for purging illness and restoring a person’s capacity to circulate in daily life. They are tailored to the individual wearer, alternately banded with blocks of Ge’ez text and pictorial plates that are exposed sequentially during rites designed to expel evil spirits and demons. Reading the scroll through mobility—how it is carried, worn, unrolled, repaired, and exchanged—reveals how form follows function: portability shapes pictorial composition and ritual use, while the scroll’s preservation attests to its therapeutic value.
The scroll’s construction emphasizes durability and compactness. Multiple thick parchment strips are sewn end-to-end and often reinforced with leather stitching and outer ties so the roll can be tightly wound for transport and repeatedly unrolled for ritual display. The narrow width minimizes bulk and weight while a long linear sequence provides staged content: the healer unrolls to the next pictorial plate, exposes it to the patient or congregation, performs the corresponding invocation, then rerolls the scroll for transport. Unlike a codex, whose spine and sewn gatherings favor stationary consultation and page-turning, the scroll’s rolled format is optimized for motion—carrying in a case, slipping under a cloak, or wearing on and around the body—so that sacred images and texts travel with both practitioner and client.
Many healing scrolls are bespoke objects made to a client’s height so the unrolled sequence corresponds to body zones from head to foot; the client’s name is often added to confirm the scroll’s directed purpose. This personalization allows the scroll to be wrapped around a person for head-to-toe protection, converting the object into a wearable talisman rather than a passive book. Image placement therefore follows a bodily logic: plates addressing head ailments appear near the beginning of the unrolled length, chest or abdominal protections appear mid-scroll, and so on. The entirety of the scroll is custom made for the client. They weren’t mass produced for sales or profit, and they weren’t completely standardized.
The pictorial program is central to the scroll’s portable functionality. Images are schematic and bold—emphasizing heads, eyes, haloes, weapons, nets, and geometric talismans—so they read quickly during ritual exposure. Large, high-contrast outlines in black ink provide immediate legibility; selective accenting in red, pink, blue, or brown highlights operative features and acts like a visual rubric for the practitioner. Decorative horizontal bands frame pictorial plates and act as visual separators, enabling quick navigation: a healer can feel or see the next band, unroll to the next plate, and enact the corresponding rite without laborious textual search. The imagery therefore functions as both symbol and instruction: it signals which spiritual agent to invoke, which body part to treat, and which physical gesture or handling the healer must perform to activate the talismanic power.
These scrolls are explicitly religious instruments whose primary therapeutic mechanism is spiritual: they eliminate illness by expelling demons and evil spirits through a ritual sequence of images and prayers. The pictorial plates often combine Christian iconography—crosses, haloed figures, archangels—and apotropaic geometries; this combination anchors the scroll’s authority in recognizable sacred figures while deploying talismanic signs that trap or bind harmful forces. The healer’s use of the image—exposure, touch, motion over the afflicted body, and recited Ge’ez formulas—constitutes a ritual technology that enacts exorcism and thereby seeks to restore bodily and social mobility. The scroll’s portability is thus integral to its religious aim: to move to the afflicted, to act on their mobility, and to return them to the social circuits of work, worship, and family life once cured.
Wear patterns and repairs document that the scrolls were frequently touched and wrapped in different positions. Outer rolls often show darkened edges and abrasion consistent with exposure to hands, dust, and sweat; localized creasing at frequent fold points indicates repeated unrolling in varied settings. Repairs—re-stitched joints, leather or cloth patches, and later thread types—reveal conscious decisions to maintain a working object rather than retire it. Marginal additions and smaller later hands that write extra talismans or ownership notes mark episodes when the scroll passed between owners or was adapted for new clients. These material interventions form a palimpsest of movement: every patch, re-sewn seam, and added mark is evidence of the scroll’s circulation through households, marketplaces, and the fact that they were repaired means that the owner wanted them to last.
Mobility is not only physical but also social and economic. Portable scrolls enter markets of exchange as commissioned goods, gifts, or loaned items; their production and repair involve craft resources and payments, creating material ties among clients, healers, and suppliers. A bespoke scroll is a costly, tradable asset: commissioning one signals social investment in a person’s health and mobility, while repairing and reusing a scroll demonstrates communal trust in its efficacy. Ownership inscriptions, pasted strips, and added seals or marginal notes trace the social routes of exchange and binding relationships across families and communities. Following the scroll as it moves reconstructs networks of care and the flows of protective knowledge otherwise invisible in institutional archives.
The scroll’s ultimate purpose is to restore the patient’s independent capacity to circulate. In agrarian and market-based societies where mobility links directly to livelihood and social participation, a ritual technology that physically travels to the patient and acts to remove spiritual impediments to movement is especially salient. Wearing a scroll made and named for you is a literal aid to reentering everyday movement: it protects while traveling, it signals healed status to others, and it materially documents a therapeutic intervention. Thus portability mediates the relationship between health and social being, enabling individuals to reclaim the spatial freedom necessary for economic, religious, and familial life.
Viewed through mobility, Ethiopian magic scrolls appear as engineered objects whose sewn structure, bespoke sizing, bold imagery, and patterns of repair make them effective devices for itinerant spiritual care. The differences from codex books—rolled format optimized for handling and wearing, image sequencing aligned to bodily use, and tactile navigation suited for fieldwork—underscore how form is adapted to social function. Future study pairing close material analysis (wear-pattern mapping, thread and pigment assays) with ethnographic accounts of contemporary practice would deepen understanding of how mobility signatures vary across regions and communities. Tracking scrolls as moving things recasts them not as static artifacts but as active participants in networks of healing, exchange, and movement that sustained religious life in Ethiopia for centuries.
Works Cited
Windmuller-Luna, K. (2015, April 1). Ethiopian healing scrolls. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/ethiopian-healing-scrolls
I’ve been a writer for a very long time. In many ways I think I can tie this back to the murder of my father as a child, sifting through his things, what he collected, what he wore, for years trying to piece the clues together to make sense of who the man was who I hardly ever knew. It led to an obsession with permanence. What are we when we’re gone apart from the things we leave behind? So I write in a kind of vain attempt at immortality. At its very best it is a noble effort to endure, at its worse it is nothing but pure vanity, of thinking one might matter enough to be spoken of far into the future.
What frightens me the most about digital literature is the knowledge that these things are ephemeral. As Doctor Pressman says in her introduction to electronic literature, sometimes we have “only seven years of access to these works,” a far cry from the tens, hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of years of access we have had to the works of literature we all have grown up with. My favorite novel is nearly ninety years old–the book I did a biography on for the midterm was first written in the thirteenth century. When writers write they write to stay. Writing has always, in some form, been a struggle against time. To record one’s thoughts and the mechanics of one’s mind takes those things from fleeting to enduring.
The three Ps of e-lit are poetics, critical practice, and preservation. “Facade” was created on a version of the web that no longer exists. Caitlin Fisher’s “Circle” plays with ephemerality in its core concept. I think it is admirable, and quite Zen, for artists to create without the impression of any permanence in their work, but what does that mean? I believe it goes against the very nature of being human, to me. It is to allow for death, to celebrate it, to accept it.
I have known very many men who have spoken of accepting the end, of being at peace with it, but when the end came I believe rather firmly that all of them realized they had been liars. And it is far different for a man with a rifle in his hands to wave away life with a flick of the wrist when they are willingly gambling with it than for someone who creates, whether to commune with the masses or in cathartic process, to accept that what they have done is of no meaning to anyone but the artist themselves. If it is true then it is admirable. But I cannot understand it. It is a complete and total submission to time and its forward progress, and to think of it makes me feel incredibly small and powerless, like standing in a field of ever-receding black, vanishing and vanishing in every direction all around you.
Seven years of access? I have blinked once and seven years passed. And to look back I often return to things I have written or things I have created. If they were not there how would I have any measure of who I ever was or how I became whoever I would be?
Maybe I am harping on some age-old fear. I know I am. But I know this because when those fears were expressed people wrote about them; people conveyed the fears in mediums that were enduring. We can look back at the historical record, and we can find them. We can trace where we once were, how we came through to the other side. What does it do to us, as a society, as mankind, if there is nothing to trace? We are floating, and maybe we always have been, but I do not know how to accept it.
Finished in 1726, the SpanishDominicanChoral Book boasts a size of 18 inches tall, 12 inches wide, 2 inches in height. The book is protected by a cover made of wooden boards bound in leather that appears a bit weathered and frayed on the bottom of the spine and inner corners, but is otherwise intact. Both the front cover and back cover feature metal inlays with barnacle or flower motifs, rounded studs lining the edge, decorative metal corners, and two rectangular metal clasps. The spine features four raised bands, indicating the book was sewn together. Filling the space between the book’s spine and book block are plain endbands, which aid in the preservation of this choral book.
The untitled antiphonary contains hymns and chants written in both Latin and Spanish in red and black lettering. Pages are numbered incorrectly, with leaf 29 numbered as 28; leaf [31] unnumbered; leaf 30 numbered as 29; leaves 32-34 numbered as 30-32. The majority of pages within the book are made of parchment and inscribed by hand using ink. The pages’ edges are painted red, which has bled onto the borders of the pages inside. The book’s hymns include illuminated lettering, often in red, preceding the verses and accompanying five line-staves written with red ink. The musical notation, written in black, uses neumes to denote the pitch at which the syllables are sung, but not the rhythm. After page 99, a table of contents names the hymns’ titles. After the table of contents are additional hymns with unnumbered pages, written in a different and more elaborate font.
The SpanishDominicanChoral Book also has a colophon that, when translated from Spanish to English, reads “This book was sent to me to be made for Doña Ifabel and Sor Juan who were singers at the Dominican Religious Consolation Convent of La Rambla in 1726. Written by Fr. Ludovicus Ayllon of the same order,” revealing that the book was made in Spain, though most of the text is in Latin. In a page before the previously mentioned colophon, another one written in red ink and inside an inverted triangle reads, “The tone written for our father serves any purpose in the order. The tone of Saint Austin’s Lucius serves any purpose. The tone of all this is given to the feast of all the fields of the order,” which describes how the hymns in the Choral Book would’ve been meant for various occasions.
Analysis
When imagining a book from the eighteenth century, one might picture a decrepit artifact showing its centuries of age in yellowed, decaying pages, elaborate, illegible text, and archaic language. Yet, that is not exactly the case for the 1726 SpanishDominicanChoral Book. Instead of a dying book, the Choral Book remains in relatively good shape with legible words. Though there is some damage to the inner corners of the book, warped pages, and some separation between book blocks and the spine, the Spanish Dominican Choral Book has withstood the test of time and lives in Special Collections to tell its tale. This leads to questions of how a book of such age can be preserved so well, with answers lying in its construction. The Spanish Dominican Choral Book, with its cover of ornate metal inlays, clasps, and use of neumes, not only flaunts the Catholic Church’s wealth but also how books served as an exercise in restricting knowledge and as a testament to the Church’s withholding of knowlede by enforcing oral tradition.
The SpanishDominicanChoral Book is bound in wooden boards, wrapped in brown leather, and embellished with charming metal inlays, all of which aid in the preservation of this sacred text, while also displaying the immense wealth of the Church. When crafting a book, everything is intentional and costs money: from the material of the cover and pages to the font chosen. Being a sacred text meant that the Choral Book had to be made of top-quality material, aesthetically pleasing, and constructed to last a long stretch of time, which it has accomplished thanks to these elements being funded and put into practice. The wooden boards of the Choral Book are still intact, providing a sturdy structure, while the leather casing protects the wood boards and book blocks from daily wear and tear. The metal inlays of the book are not only beautiful in their possibly oceanic or floral motifs, but also serve to protect the book. These metal inlays raise the book about an inch off any flat surface when lying down and keep the book the same length away from other books when filed onto a shelf. Having this raised surface can help in preserving the book, as it prevents the immediate surface of the book from interacting with grime or a wet surface and doesn’t allow friction between the leather cover of the book and any surface to occur. The corners of the book are also embellished with metal, which secures the leather on the wood boards and prevents the corners from getting severely damaged and fraying. Though these metal inlays were both beautiful and practical, they were also presumably expensive since metal was a more scarce resource that required lots of fuel to manipulate it. Though the Church could’ve made the book without these embellishments or high-quality materials, they didn’t and spared little cost. Lastly, on the outside of the book are rectangular metal clasps that secure the book shut. This prevents the pages of the book from being exposed, which consequently aids in the preservation of the book and its text. Though one might pick up the Choral Book just to awe at the Latin hymns that were handwritten, despite Gutenberg’s press being a popular mode of book creation as early as the 15th century, that wasn’t the only thing created by hand. Everything was crafted by hand, which meant everything had to be purchased, then given to craftsmen to transform and apply to the book, an expensive and laborious endeavor. Some monks would sit for many hours to painstakingly write out the hymn’s lyrics and notation, while others would proofread and correct mistakes, some were tasked with illuminating the script, and others had the job of putting the book physically together and binding it, all of which cost a hefty amount in supplies and providing for the monks. Being able to fund such an endeavor required plenty of money and the luxury of time, which the Church was able to provide in order to advance its mission of spreading Catholicism.
Though some of the aforementioned physical aspects of the book may seem arbitrary, the inclusion of the metal clasps and use of neumes for musical notation symbolize the restriction of knowledge through the use of oral tradition. In Spain, “until 1782, the inquisitorial prohibitions of 1551 and 1559 against the printing, selling, or possession of a vernacular version, either complete or partial, of Holy Scripture remained in effect” (Frago, 581). This meant that common people of Spain, who could’ve had the ability to read in their vernacular, couldn’t access one of the most printed books, the Bible, in their tongue. Instead, primarily religious authorities were the ones with access to the most books and were able to read these books, unlike the common person. So, the common person would get these religious texts read at them during service because they couldn’t buy or improve their reading skills with a common text in their language, and certainly didn’t have lots of spare time to learn another language. In “The History of Literacy in Spain: Evolution, Traits, and Questions” Antonio Viñao Frago writes that “much illiteracy was due to a lack of practice as a consequence of a combination of deficient schooling, of a strictly academic focus to instruction, and of the absence of general social uses for reading and writing skills,” supporting the idea that the the everyday person didn’t have the time nor resources to read. This restriction of religious knowledge and literacy is symbolized by the metal clasps on the Choral Book, as it keeps the book perpetually shut. The book is not something that can be easily opened and simply riffled through. It includes the task of unlocking the book before accessing its contents, making a show out of opening something presumably important. The restriction of knowledge is reflected in the low literacy rates of Spain, as “approximately 70 percent of the population ages ten and over” are not able to read according to Frago. Though this data was recorded from a 1860 census, rather than one from an earlier time, because “it was not until the census of 1860 that information on literacy appeared for the first time” (Tapia et al, 574), it shows how low the literacy rate of Spain was as time went on.
This subtle signal of restricting knowledge by use of oral tradition is furthered when examining the musical notation. The neumes in the Choral Book are stemless, square-like notes which are typically used in Gregorian chants. These notes do not indicate rhythm nor an exact pitch, but a relative pitch. Though written in books, neumes are not for learning a new piece; they are instead a mnemonic device to help recall or memorize chants, similar to cheironomic hand gestures. This meant that the religious members interacting with the Choral Book would’ve already known the hymns in the book and had the book to aid in their chants. Further to the point, in “The Growth of Literacy in Western Europe from 1500 to 1800,” Dr. Robert A. Huston notes that when it came to reading, “Spain and Italy emphasized memorization over reading,” which legitimizes the Choral Book’s position as not a tool for gaining knowledge but for reinforcing knowledge for the people who were already in the know.
The Spanish Dominican Choral Book is more than just an artifact to gawk at; it is the embodiment of the Church’s wealth, power, and control of knowledge during the 18th century in Spain. Its lasting construction, including expensive materials of wood, leather, and metal, is a testament to the wealth of the Church and its dedication to preserving sacred texts. The metal clasps and neumes serve as symbols of the Church’s deliberate restriction of knowledge and authority, which they reinforced through oral tradition and by dictating what was to be read, heard, and known. During a time when literacy was at a significant low and religious texts, which would’ve helped literacy rates, were restricted, the Choral Book played a role in upholding the Church’s rule and enforcing traditional values, instead of being a tool for gaining knowledge. Though today we might glance over a book in a store and briefly admire its cover, the construction of the book is significant and acts as a reflection of the times we live in.
Works Cited:
Frago, Antonio Viñao. “The History of Literacy in Spain: Evolution, Traits, and Questions.” History of Education Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 4, 1990, pp. 573–99. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/368947. Accessed 26 Oct. 2025.
Houston, Robert A. “The Growth of Literacy in Western Europe from 1500 to 1800.” Brewminate, February 18, 2018. https://brewminate.com/the-growth-of-literacy-in-western-europe-from-1500-to-1800/.
Selwood, Dominic. “The British and Reading: A Short History.” Bookbrunch, November 24, 2021. https://www.bookbrunch.co.uk/page/free-article/the-british-and-reading-a-short-history/.
Tapia, Francisco J. Beltrán; Díez-Minguela, Alfonso; Martínez-Galarraga, Julio; Tirado, Daniel A. (2019) : The uneven transition towards universal literacy in Spain, 1860-1930, EHES Working Paper, No. 173, European Historical Economics Society (EHES), s.l.
The first time I ever heard about digital literature was when I received an email from the College of Arts and Letters, calling for art submissions. In my head, digital literature didn’t make sense because I had only ever thought of literature on a physical page in a book. I thought: How can literature be digital (besides me typing a story or poem on my computer)? It confused me as to how anyone could go beyond that, even though I had already seen versions of digital literature without knowing.
Unfortunately, I cannot remember the exact museum I went to, but I do remember the art piece. I was in a dark room with a video playing on one screen. In the video, a woman sat in a kitchen and picked items up one at a time, naming them. You couldn’t really predict what she would show you next and, quite frankly, it was hard to discern any true rhyme or reason to which objects she would choose. That was so until she had listed perhaps 16 items and I had realized she was listing them all in alphabetical order. There was something quite eerie about the recording considering there was no ‘typical’ story besides the one you imagined. Not only did this story of sorts force me to listen in a very specific way but it also encouraged me to view these words with a specific emotion attached to them. Where “apron” might just be any other word, it was the beginning of her story.
The electronic literature displayed in Professor Pressman’s lecture reminded me a lot of this experience. I found that by watching and reading these pieces, I was experiencing something far more profound than a book. While both literature in books and digital literature are art, they convey different messages because of the medium they are attached to. I recognize that there are limitations to art based on what message should be presented to the audiences. The digital literature artists could not have performed these stories without the technology they used. It’s quite simple when you think about it, as a painter can’t make a painting with paints and a canvas. Otherwise, it would be an entirely new art medium. These digital writers are using digital technologies to play with audiences’ reception of the art, to change the way readers consume, to redefine what it means to read words in a specific order and speed.
With the alphabet story, I believe I felt uncomfortable listening to it, not only because of her listing objects without explaining a motive, but because of the pace she chose to read them at. It was a slow process, getting through the alphabet in roughly five minutes. It demanded my attention yet also forced me to listen and think. In the silence, she gave me time to consider the story between the lines. Similar to “Pry” that engages readers by having them actively pry out more information from between the lines, this video encouraged me to make my own story from the omission of filler words.
