Existential Questioning—Final Thoughts

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The main thing I’ve gained from this class is more questions—a deeper understanding yes—but also a profound perspective switch.

A sample of some questions I have yet to answer:

What should be archived? What is a book? How do I get out of Babel’s library? What is to be ‘trusted?’ What does trusted even mean? What does anything mean?

I will say, for sure, that I have a new appreciation when it comes to books as an artifact (and artifacts in general). I think this story will give an adequate example of what I learned in this class.

I was going through my grandpa’s safe with my mom the other day, and found my great-grandma’s stamp collection book. Now this is a hefty and thick book, and you want to know my first reaction, BECAUSE of THIS CLASS? It was to read its life story. I flipped through the dusty pages (which coated my fingers btw) to discover some interesting things. 1.) Some stamp spots had glue residue, indicating there were stamps there at one point (I told my mom, and she was like :how did you know that? I felt like Sherlock Holmes in that moment). 2.) I also gathered that most of the stamps collected were from the US, Australia, and Austria. 3.) Some of the stamps are from the early 1800s. 4.) There were also countries that no longer exist in the world today. This made me wonder when the book was from. One piece of writing told me all I needed to know. 4.5) It referred to the ‘Great War,’ not World War I or World War II, which means it was published after World War I and before World War II. My mom was yet again amazed by my detective skills (which I learned from this class). Those were just some of the things I noticed, but before this class I would’ve thought it was just ‘cool’ and moved on. But I didn’t, and it made me appreciate the book even more, and gave me so much more joy/curiosity than previous me would’ve gotten out of it.

I also now have so much more curiosity in terms of the digital world that I didn’t before. This class was like opening my eyes underwater, and being able to see Atlantis with 20/20 vision.

I honestly learned everything…that’s all I can really say—is just everything—which is why I say Existential Questioning because how do you even explain everything? You can’t, so you just sit with it. Anyways, so sad this class is coming to an end. I’ve never been so upset for a class to end.

post-book!! class me>>>>>>>>pre-book!! class me

What Haven’t I Learned?

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I can’t help but feel overwhelmed having to write everything I have learned this semester in just one blog post. There is so much to discuss, I don’t even know where to start. This class was truly so unique in that it wasn’t just about books; it was also about the digital. It wasn’t just about the old, but was about the new. It was about so many elements that had to do with publishing, book binding, writing, reading, the past, and even the future. For a class about books, it wasn’t about reading but about the books themselves. Books are physical, cultural objects with a body you can read, not just storage containers for text. These objects are companions, part of collections, and commodities. Books are so many things all at once.

The idea of “bookishness” as a response to a culture in transition explains the phenomenon of book collectors and physical media collectors in the digital age. This class touched a lot on digital history and how quickly new technologies have changed our world. Amazon started as a bookstore, gained trust from the public, and became a place where you can buy anything. Just like how screens have interfaces, books contain interfaces too, which can be read and interpreted the same way texts can. These interfaces make you feel something, which causes the digital world to take inspiration from the book interface by making Kindle and laptop screens white with pages you can turn. Subtle things like having a “home” button and a background containing a sunny field create feelings of comfort, pushing a safe feeling when using these foreign devices.

Archives were also a big topic in this class, and how there are still so many unread stories in the archives all over the world. These historical papers are also looked through by people who either deem them important or unimportant, leading to the question: how does somebody get that much power to shape our history?

In all, I could go on and on about everything I’ve learned in this class and how I am a much better person for it. Just like how books are not one thing, this class is not one thing. This class was about culture, society, and history. To look at the future, you must look at the past, and that is exactly what we did. We saw how the new was inspired by the old, and that we wouldn’t have any new without the old. This was a media studies class, a book binding class, and an archives class all in one. The information I have learned in this class has reshaped how I view media and history. I am leaving this class changed and inspired. Thank you.

What I have learned from making my final project:

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Working on my final project has made me look at books in a new way. I wanted to show how a book becomes part of someone’s everyday life, but once I started taking photos, I realized how true that really is. A book is always around in small, quiet moments. It sits on a desk while I study, it travels in my backpack, or it rests beside my morning coffee. Seeing these moments through the camera made me notice how naturally a book fits into my day.

Because I am studying abroad, this project feels even more personal. I only brought a few books with me from Germany, and they have become small reminders of home. When I photograph my project book in different places, I see how it slowly collects pieces of my time here, almost like it is sharing this experience with me. I never paid attention to this before.

Thinking about Walter Benjamin while working on the project also helped me understand his ideas better. He talks about how each book has its own story, and now I see what he means. Even small marks on the cover or tiny folds on the pages show where the book has been. While taking photos, I catch myself noticing these details and thinking about the moments behind them. It makes the book feel alive in a quiet way.

I am also learning how much patience a photo project needs. Sometimes the image I imagine in my head does not match the photo I take. The light might feel wrong, or the scene does not have the mood I want. So I try again, move things around, or wait for a different moment. It takes time, but it also makes me slow down, which I actually enjoy.

Overall, this project is teaching me that books are not just things we read. They move with us, stay close to us, and hold small pieces of our lives without us realizing it. Working on this has made me appreciate those simple, everyday connections a lot more.

What I’ve learned while working on my final project.

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With my final project, I’ve learned a lot about what it means to interpret an artifact. On my midterm, I wrote about the Ethiopian Magic Scrolls that we saw in special collections. I put a lot of time into my paper, but after reading Dr. Pressman’s feedback, I realized that my paper wasn’t specifically about one of the scrolls. As I’ve been working on my project, I’ve picked one specific scroll in special collections to focus on, instead of writing about all of them. But in doing so, I realized that it was up to me to figure out what to write. And its been a little awkward. There is no outside source for this specific scroll. I had to figure out what it was that I was looking at, and it makes me feel a bit like a fraud. Are my interpretations of the object valid? I want to say no, that I’m not an expert in the field, but I’m still a researcher in my own way. I feel like I’m making stuff up, even with my own observations. I really haven’t done anything like this before, and I’m glad to be doing it, but I definitely had to increase my confidence through this process.

For the creative aspect, I’m expanding on the concept as books as accessories, specifically individualized ones. For this part, I’ve begun doing outside research on books as fashion, but there aren’t many resources on Ethiopian, or even African, books as accessories. At least not in English. I’ll have to connect it to European and American history, which isn’t bad, but I was hoping to discover something more. Maybe I still will, and I just need to search more efficiently. Admittedly, I haven’t begun the physical creation of my scroll, but I do have it planned out and it shouldn’t take too long, assuming there are no hiccups in my schedule this week. I look forward to making it, but writing on a scroll my height will take some time. I might just make it long enough to wrap around my torso as a sash instead of matching my height. It is meant to be my accessory, after all. Overall, this project has me reevaluating how I conduct my own physical research, and I’m looking forward to sharing with you all!

what i’ve learned

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It’s been interesting to see all the different ways that scholars have discussed the topic I plan to talk about. The topic of digital blackface is so broad that I found it useful to read sources that discuss digital blackface from multiple perspective. I’ve also appreciated how all the sources I’ve read stress an aversion to arguing based on purely moral grounds. I think that a common reaction to discussing digital blackface is to question its legitimacy and tangible harm, and the sources I’ve read are aware of that as well. For example, Tempest M. Henning discusses digital blackface from purely an argumentative and rhetorical perspective.

I think it’s also been helpful to see the way the sources I’ve read had built off of each other. Multiple sources I’ve read reference each other. Seeing how the authors of my sources have built on each other’s research has felt useful in figuring out how I want to build my own argument. Eric Lott’s Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class, felt particularly dense the first time I read it, but seeing how others summarize his findings made his work more comprehensible to me.

I think research has been different for me this for this writing assignment compared to previous ones. I feel like I am probably guilty of knowing the answer i want to find before I research, but that felt kind of impossible this time since the topic is so broad. It’s a little scary because of the fear of looking into something and investing time in it only for that source to be useless for the essay. But this process of researching has allowed me to observe the scholarly context of the topic I’m discussing first.

Final Project Abstract and Thoughts

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My final project will focus on the power aspect between reader and creator, that before this class I never really considered before. I’ll also be touching on power in relation to access. I will be doing a creative project that brings together both the digital and physical. Mark Marino’s and Borges’s works are especially pertinent to this project in terms of inspiration. Borsuk’s and Bouse’s work, Between Page and Screen, is also influential as it points to the access part of my project.

nteracting physically with an archive, and subsequent forms of literature, is a form of power exchange between the reader and creator with the physical object acting as the transmission point between the two. It’s where terms are negotiated by each individual. On the one hand, the reader chooses what to read, where to go, and what to do. And on the other hand, the creator makes the paths, sets the guidelines, and can restrict access. This project brings those power exchanges and struggles to the forefront of the individual’s mind through an interactive experience that allows them to reflect on their discovery journey through a piece with many different branches, where not all of the materials are provided to them. They have the power to actively fulfill all of the requests of the author, or actively resist those requests. Either the readers get the full experience or they won’t, all depending on their available resources (like time, money, creativity) and determination.

What I still need to know for the final project

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I feel good about the ideas I’ve expressed in my thesis about digital blackface and archives. At this point, I still have some sources to read. I also need to look back on some of the sources we’ve read this year that discuss archives. I have a master document with all my sources and the notes I’ve taken as I’ve been reading. Once I’m done with reading I’m going to create an outline for my essay, which I plan to finish at the end of the week. I think I might be a little stuck on purpose, not because I think the essay has no purpose, but the purpose feels amorphous in my brain right now. I think this might be because I plan on tweaking my thesis a bit. I don’t feel like it fully expresses what I’m trying to get across as much as I’d like to yet.

Final Project Thesis

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For the final I have decided to circle back to my midterm, on the book from special collections-  De Magorum Daemonomania. De Magorum Daemonomania uses its material and visual technologies– its blackletter typeface and authoritative printing style– to demonstrate a false sense of credibility and institutional authority. 

This time I want to focus more heavily on the work as a media object rather than its text itself. The book’s typography and format creates this false illusion of legal structure, legal scholarship, and legal format. I am going to bring in these points from my midterm, but expand on  them with outside sources, with a focus specifically on the authority of the typeface and how it shaped how De Magorum Daemonomania was read and interpreted. This aspect of legal formatting functions as a tool of persuasion that is aimed at legal scholars and people with positions of power, in order to prosecute feared witches and demons of the time this was published. The authoritative formatting of this book changes the tone of the text, as well as who was most likely reading this book. In this sense, De Magorum Daemonomania exemplifies how early modern print culture could manufacture cultural belief—and cultural fear—through design. Design is more important than we think, and De Magorum Daemonomania does a good job demonstrating this. I also am going to bring in some outside sources that analyze ideas of witchcraft in early European times, as well as works that analyze the significance of typeface. Both of these factors also affect the interpretation of the book and how those in early Europe were reading. Borsuk’s The Book will also bring in aspects to support my thesis and claim, touching on the history of typeface and typography. I am excited to expand on my midterm, as I was very intrigue about the history of this book and the history of typography. 

Bibliography

Anna Borsuk- The Book

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373512460_The_Perception_of_Qualities_in_Typefaces_A_Data_Review

https://archive.org/details/thinkingwithdemo0000clar/page/n1/mode/2up

Final Project Proposal

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For my final project, I will be exploring the digital page and writing a scholarly essay that examines the sociocultural evolution of the page through a media archaeology framework. The transformation of the page spans centuries but in this digital epoch of history, technology has fundamentally changed the why and how the digital page matters. The internet serves as the contemporary printing press but understanding why derives from a long non-linear history.

My work will be based on Bonnie Mak’s “How the Page Matters”, as well as pulling from other texts that Dr. Pressman mentioned over the semester. Steven Johnson’s “Interface Culture” will help in ushering in the 21st century perspective of how the digital interface has changed how we look at the webpage as a tool. Additionally, I will position and introduce media archaeology through “An Archaeology of Media Archaeology” Erkki Huhtahmo and Jussi Parikka’s work, which helps guide the definition the term as “existing somewhere between materialist media theories and the insistence on the value of the obsolete and forgotten through new cultural histories that have emerged since the 1980s.” In consideration of past technologies and the temporality each incurred in its era, there is profound meaning in understanding why the digital page matters today. I have not yet looked into N. Katherine Hayle’s works but I am also interested in “How We Became Posthuman” as a means of further refining digital page in contemporary society. By understanding media archaeology and the blend of old and new media, there is a futuristic purpose in design, materiality, and content that derives from the reexamination of past iterations of media. In turn, literary history and content is continuously evolving alongside older forms but is not meant to erase it, but only to improve based on the user and who they communicate to.