Students are asked to analyze and interpret older texts, focusing on physical qualities of the book. They consider how size, material, and ornamentation compliment textual content, and examine what these characteristics suggest about the text’s original audience, in order to weigh how these contexts relate to contemporary book presentation. Students are then asked to produce a 1-2 page, thesis driven essay in which they develop a thesis about a book’s material significance in the literary marketplace.
The exercise template link provides a template for developing material culture assignments.
The data table link provides suggestions of texts in the Rare Book Room that have been approved for use for material culture exercises, with call numbers and some notes for the pedagogical uses of these works.
The catalogue link provides a summary of the data table, and the gallery link provides all the images of the suggested texts on a single page.
If you have any questions or suggestions, or if you would like to add your assignment to our archive—please contact us. Thank you!