Tag Archives: week 3

When Books Change, So Do We

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Reading Michelle Levy and Tom Mole’s The Broadview Introduction to Book History, one passage in particular about the codex stood out to me. In their text, Levy and Mole describe it as “portable, resistant to wear and tear“ and most importantly able to let the reader “flip back and forth between pages and […] move more easily between different sections of the text.“ While this description may seem very obvious to us at first, since this is how we have known books for years, thinking about how the codex was not actually the standard for such a long time really struck me. Taking a closer look at history, one can see that it actually took centuries to replace the scrolls.

This raised one big question for me: how much of reading is not about what we read, but about the form that allows us to read? With the scroll, reading was linear. You started at the top and moved downward. Very simple. With the codex, however, reading suddenly became more flexible. Now you could move forwards and backwards, skip ahead or compare two sections at once. This non-linear movement transformed reading into much more than just consumption. It became an act of navigation. The codex made it easier to divide texts into chapters and pages, to give precise references and to mark important places. In short, the format of the codex did not only shape the book itself, but also the intellectual habits that came with it.

What I find interesting is how similar this is to our current experience of digital reading. When reading online, you cannot only read in a straight line but also switch between various tabs, jump from one webpage and/ or text to another or scroll back and forth. Looking at it, the internet feels closer to reading a codex than reading a scroll. At the same time, it also contains elements of the scroll. Long pages that we read by scrolling down, like articles, news, blogs or comment sections. Digital reading feels like a hybrid which mixes the navigability and flexibility of the codex with the linearity of the scroll. However this parallel also makes me wonder, how fragmented reading can become before it begins to lose depth. If we constantly cross-check passages, open new tabs and shift our attention, do we risk losing focus? On the other hand, digital formats create new ways of thinking, just as the codex once opened new possibilities. They allow for faster comparisons, even broader connections and new forms of creativity.

In the end, what Levy and Mole show with the codex is that a book is not merely a container of words but also a technology that reshapes our relationship to knowledge. From scroll to codex, each form does not simply preserve text. It transforms how we read it. Ultimately, it is not about celebrating or fearing new formats, but about seeing how they slowly shape the way we read and even the way we think.

Week 3: Different Eyes on the Same Book

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When I first started reading about book history, I thought it would be a simple field with one clear method. A book is just a book, right? But I quickly realized that the history of books has been studied in very different ways, depending on the country and the tradition. In France, for example, book history focused on how books moved through society and how they influenced big historical events. In Germany, where I am from, the field called “Buchwissenschaft” was more about the practical side, how books were published, produced, and distributed. In Britain, book history developed from bibliography and textual editing, which meant looking closely at different editions of the same work and how small changes could affect the meaning.

I find this really interesting because it shows that each approach asks different questions about the same object. The French way treats the book almost like a historical actor, influencing revolutions and social changes. The German way is more focused on trade and infrastructure, thinking about printers, publishers, and markets. The British way zooms in on the text itself, paying attention to words, punctuation, and editing choices.

As a German student, I can understand why it developed in this way. Germany has a long tradition of book production and publishing, from Gutenberg’s press to the Leipzig Book Fair, so it makes sense that the focus was on how books were made and sold. At the same time, I also appreciate the French and British perspectives because they help me to see other sides of the book that I might not think about otherwise.

What I take away from this is that no single approach is enough on its own. If we only follow one national model, we miss the bigger picture. A book is never only a text or only a product. It is also a cultural force that both shapes and is shaped by history. That is what makes book history so exciting, it asks us to see books from many different angles.

Week 3: The Codex as “Endlessly New”

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When I was reading Jessica Pressman’s essay, one phrase jumped out at me: books, she says, can be seen as “a medium of endless newness.” At first, that sounded strange to me. I usually think of books as old-fashioned and timeless object compared to phones, laptops, and tablets. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized she’s right, books can still surprise us and even feel new again. Pressman talks about “bookishness,” which is when books become more than just something to read. They turn into objects we admire, even treasure. She mentions things like “die-cut pages” and “collage, color, and design.” I imagine books that have holes cut into the paper, layered textures, or unusual layouts. They almost feel alive. It’s not just about the story inside but about how the book looks and feels in your hands. I’ve had that experience myself when I’ve picked up a book with beautiful illustrations or unusual formatting. I found myself slowing down and paying attention, not just to the words, but to the object itself. I felt also more curios and ambitious to read the book.  This made me think about the relationship between books and screens. I thought immediately about Wattpad as a platform and kindle book reader. Bolter and Grusin, whom Pressman also mentions, say that old and new media shape each other. I see this happening with books today. Because we spend so much time on screens, the physical book has started to highlight what makes it different. A screen is smooth and comfortable to carry but a book can be textured, colorful or oddly shaped. In a way, digital media has made us notice the beauty and aesthetic of books even more. That’s why I like the phrase “endless newness.” It makes me see books not as outdated but as flexible, always finding a way to stay relevant and timeless I would say. I used to worry that reading on screens would replace books completely but now I think the opposite might be true: screens have reminded us of what makes books special.

For me, this is comforting. Books have always been important in my life and I like the idea that they aren’t going anywhere. They may change their look, their form, or the way we think about them, but they’ll keep renewing themselves. Maybe that’s what makes the codex truly timeless it never stops finding ways to be new.

Imagining the Single Book

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I think that most people in our day and age tend to think of books as a part of a larger whole. They’re things to be collected. They’re things to be placed upon shelves and organized in neat numerous rows either by author last name or spine color or the Dewey decimal system. To see a book all on its own seems so rare that my mind has difficulty even picturing it. I am sure that I have seen it, but there seems to be no good way to orient the display of a single codex on a shelf or on a desk, and it is equally difficult to imagine dedicating oneself to a single text.

But when we think about the history of reading (because to read them is the only rational reason to have any books at all) as something that has evolved over time, with various practices and methods, and we go back, perhaps, to the time of the first codified printing of Don Quixote, readers would have approached the text of the first modern, widely dispersed novel very differently.

As Levy and Mole explain in the introduction to The Broadview Introduction to Book History, “historians of reading sometimes distinguish between “intensive” and
“extensive” reading. Reading “intensively” means returning to a small number
of books again and again, whereas reading extensively involves reading
a much larger number of books (or other printed matter), and often reading
them only once” (xvii). They go on to explain that extensive reading is something of a novel phenomenon in the past hundred years and is a result of easily accessible printed material; “when books were very expensive and labour-intensive to produce (especially when they had to be copied by hand), most people had access to very few books. People often read these books intensively because they didn’t have access to any other reading matter. As a result, they came to know their books well and invested significant emotional energy in them” (Levy et al xvii-xviii). I like to imagine some simple, moderately well-off person in the mid seventeenth century going back to Alonso Quixano and the jousting of the windmills and the trot of Rocinante time and again by the glow of a lantern. There is no doubt that intensive reading of Don Quixote is nothing particularly unique, as it is probably the most studied novel of all novels, but to be that invested in that book because you have no other choice of reading material makes for a much different experience than that of the scholar who can understand why Steinbeck’s truck is named Rocinante in Travels With Charley, and who can tie Cervantes’ novel to numerous other works in the 400 years since its publication.

How does that type of reading alter the reader’s conception of the book itself? Are we still drawn to the same plot points? Do plot points then become of lesser importance? Are we more interested in language? Do we have time for more ornately written sentences? And are we more privy to social commentary, or are we less, with no (or few) other written works to compare to? Is the book something self-contained, as I believe we view it now, or does the book only become a launching pad for the more creative parts of our brain? Must we memorialize it and make it something more than a story?

The last two questions seem to have some answer. We can see it in the artworks of every part of the Spanish speaking world, and very much of the rest of it too. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza may be the most represented characters in sculpture and painting who are not religious figures. You can find them, if you look well, cast in bronze everywhere from remote regions of the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain to bustling downtown squares in Brussels, Belgium.

I would argue that intensive reading of Don Quixote, (and of other books of the early era of widely-available novels) of prolonged, nearly undivided attention to the story and the characters within, allowed readers to elevate them to something of a mythic status. There were artworks created, false sequels written, conversations in the public square, and this came from an inability to access other books.

Readers must have had a sense of infatuation with early novels, allowed themselves to fully exist in their worlds, used these stories as inspiration (not unlike religion), and this is something we’ve seen peter off through the centuries as readers have had access to more and more stories, whether that be in the form of books, television, cinema, video games, or other kinds of entertainment. We read now in a series of flings, ever moving on to the next thing that catches our eye, which in some ways may have led to our viewing them as “a thing to fetishize rather than to use,” as Jessica Pressman says in “Old Media/New Media” (1). Books exist in collections. They are housed in vast libraries. And so, a deep relationship with a singular set of characters and pages and words in a singular world is largely a thing of the past. They are largely ornamental except in the brief periods of time we have them cracked open.

Week 3: Already Thinking About My Final Project

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While reading this week’s texts, particularly “Old Media/ New Media” by Dr. Pressman, I started getting ideas for my final project. (Or maybe just a personal project.)

The project would be made up of two texts written by me, one physical and one digital. It would also incorporate text and images from whichever special collections text I choose. The physical text would use asterisks, numbered citations, or maybe emoji to “link” to the digital text. The digital text would be an index of hyperlinks, quotes, and other footnotes for the reader to understand the physical text better.

Themes that might be explored in this format:

  • Old vs. New media: The project would question the distinction between “old” and “new,” referencing Dr. Pressman’s writing on Bolter, Grusin, and Hayles. Regarding “Remediation” and “intermediation,” I could show how the physical text and the digital index influence each other and how they’re influenced by other media, both “new” and “old.” Both texts would be influenced by the special collections text, and that text may also be influenced by my project. My interpretation of the text through “new” media might influence how that text is seen by new readers. Readers who already know that text, however, might approach my project differently.
  • Detached Footnotes: Going back to our conversations about Marino’s Marginalia, this project could be about what happens when the marginalia is separated from the text. Eventually the medium I use to create the digital index will become defunct. The one copy of the physical text might be destroyed or kept somewhere inaccessible to most readers. How could someone read one without the other?
  • Subconscious influences: This morning, I texted Raine some of these ideas. It turns out that he started a very similar project last year. I’m not sure if he’s told me about that project before, or if we happened to grab our ideas off the same shelf in the Library of Babel, but the idea of uncertainty as to where ideas come from is one I want to play with in the project. A lot of the digital index will be references to my influences. But what about the ones I’ve forgotten?

This isn’t a project proposal, obviously. It’s a vague creative daydream. Not to be taken too seriously, yet. I don’t even know what genre it should be. Will this be a fictional story? A collection of poetry? Non-fiction prose? All of the above? I probably won’t know until we’ve visited Special Collections. Now that I have an idea of what I want my final project to look like, though, I might be able to quickly home in on a book that could play in this space. Looking forward to this week’s classes even more, now!

The Syncretism of Reading and Technology

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Reading the Broadview Introduction as well as Professor Pressman’s essay, Old Media/ New Media was fascinating. From the examination and tracing of epochs, categorizing new and emerging forms of media to the evolution of reading in all its forms, it’s clear to see that, through many cultural shifts and religious/ industrial revolutions, reading and books in general have taken various forms, reflecting their cultural placement in that time.

I want to highlight the evolution of reading because I think its very pertinent to us right now. I’ve also never read a deconstruction of it and it particularly caught my eye. The introduction mentions an example where the Theologian St. Augustine observes his mentor reading silently: “He recalls how”[w]hen[Ambrose] read, his eyes scanned the page and his heart sought out the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still.” Augustine seems to have found silent reading unusual enough to be worth commenting on. Before this, he implies, most people vocalized the text when they read, even if they were reading to themselves.” (Levy & Mole xvii). Later in the text Levy and Mole highlight how Alexander the Great did so as well but that the concept of silent reading as a whole took a while to catch on, as reading aloud was so ingrained in most cultures if not all (xvii). Thinking about this made me realize how we are currently shifting into a new era of reading and how back then there was the emergence of reading silently stemming from reading aloud.

From having an orator read from a scroll in front of a crowd in antiquity to children being read aloud bedtime stories as well as oral presentations in class, reading aloud has always been a crucial form of learning, retaining, and communicating. But the blooming popularity of audiobooks and reading on a screen creates a drastic shift yet again. Although I do want to point out that one doesn’t take over the other: “Media do not replace one another in a clear, linear succession but instead evolve in a more complex ecology of interrelated feedback loops” (Pressman 2).

I am curious to see where the remediation of reading goes. How the process of intensive and extensive reading change due to technological advancement. How the syncretism of technology and reading converges. We are already seeing it now with books as a fetishized object, a phenomenon professor Pressman calls “Bookishness”: ” -the result of new media’s impact on
literature’s old media, and it is one example of the complex, poetic, and mutually generative relationship between old and new media.”(3).

Right now, since we are at the dawn of this new age, I feel like it’s unbalanced and overwhelming how reading is changing, but hopefully, with time, once settled(audiobooks, AI), we will learn how to harness both mediums and be able to work in tandem with one another, creating syncretism between the two. That is my hope at least.