Workshop: SOCIABILITY AND PRINT IN THE LONG 18TH CENTURY

SOCIALIZING WITH PRINT
SOCIABILITY AND PRINT IN THE LONG 18TH CENTURY
A ONE-DAY WORKSHOP

With presentations by Jean Boutier (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales), David A. Brewer (The Ohio State University), Jane Curran (Dalhousie University) and Elizabeth Eger (King’s College London).

How do printed texts interact with other media in the formation of communities in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Europe? As reading becomes an individual activity as opposed to a communal one, it also functions as a way of drawing together increasingly large communities whose members cannot meet face to face. The nation, explored by Benedict Anderson, is but one example. But how do self-consciously literary communities imagine themselves in a world of profound political change in which print technologies, distribution infrastructures and property rights are evolving just as rapidly?

In bringing together scholars from both Europe and North America, we hope to highlight the links between correspondence networks, printed books, reading publics and membership in intellectual and social institutions such as academies and salons. Among the topics which may be addressed are the ways in which introductions and dedications tell us about the use of printed material to build communities and how editors consciously sought to recreate communities by publishing the work of authors together. In tackling questions such as these from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, we hope to better understand how sociability is informed by and in turn shapes interaction through a variety of media, including print.

All are welcome to attend. Please feel free to stop by for a portion of the workshop, even if you’re not able to stay for the entire day:
9:30 - 10:00am       - Welcome & Coffee

10:00 - 10:15am     - Opening Remarks, Prof. Susan Dalton

10:15 -11:15am      - Jean Boutier, TBA

11:15-11:30am       - Coffee Break11:30am-12:30pm - Elizabeth Eger, "Circles of Learning in the Bluestocking Salon: Patronage, Correspondence andConversation"

12:30-1:30pm         - Lunch

1:30-2:30pm           - Jane Curran, "The Social Life of Print in the German Eighteenth Century"

2:30-2:45pm           - Coffee Break

2:45 - 3:45              - David Brewer, "The Sociability of Attribution"

3:45 - 4:00              - Closing Remarks, Richard Taws