2/1 Manuscript Text Technology
Michael Camille “Sensations of the Page: Imaging Technologies and Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts” (33-54) from The Iconic Page in Manuscript, Print, and Digital Culture. Eds George Bornstein & Theresa Lynn Tinkle. University of Michigan (1998) PDF
William Endres “More than Meets the Eye: Going 3D with an Early Medieval Manuscript” published in the proceedings of The Digital Humanities Congress 2012.
Textual Practice Presentation One: typewriters
Stephanie writes: “The typewriter was manufactured in the arms factories following the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution. The first typewriter was invented in 1867 by Christopher Latham Sholes. After providing some historical context (forerunners; the influence of Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail; the development of the technology in Europe and US; the monetizing and commodification of the textual practice), I will focus on the materiality of telegraphy. This includes explaining the key-and-tape system, the networking of wires, and the importance of the role of the telegraph operator. Throughout, I will structure the discussion around binaries. Specifically, I will discuss the following binaries as inherent in the textual practice of telegraphy: presence/absence, encoding/decoding, readership/authorship, producer/consumer and public/private. Finally, I’ll briefly connect telegraphy to modern textual practices (namely, social media/microblogging/texting). The students will then practice with a Morse Code Key simulator to replicate the experience of a telegraph operator encoding text.”
Stephanie Hawthorne Typewriters vis aid
Becky on telegraphy. Here is a link to her slides (links to google drive)
Becky writes: “Telegraphy as a means of communication rises to popularity in in the mid-nineteenth century. It continues as a primary mode of communication, only to be eclipsed (eventually) by the telephone–once this technology becomes commonplace–in the twentieth century. The last telegraph sent in the US was sent by Western Union in 2006–the last known telegraph sent in the world was sent in 2013 in India. Telegraphy draws on ancient and instinctive human behavior–the need to connect across distances and, effectively, to close the gap of time and space. As a text, telegraphy draws on the supposition that actors want/need to communicate quickly, and it untethered communication from practices that were less reliable, slower, and almost solely visual.”