Bibliographic and Textual Studies

Drawing on the rich printed and manuscript resources of the University (e.g., the Benson Latin American Collection, Briscoe Center for American History, and Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center), the Department has a long tradition of teaching and practicing bibliographical scholarship and textual studies. Some of this work has placed an emphasis on sources, stressing that the study of pre-publication materials-notes, manuscript drafts, and page proofs, as well as authors' correspondence and diaries-allows scholars to trace an artist's creative process. Other work has focused on post-publication materials, exploring the reception and social and cultural impact of texts-what D.F. McKenzie termed the "sociology of texts." Thus, the Bibliography and Textual Studies interest group exposes students to a diverse array of methods and approaches to the materiality of texts.

BTS faculty practice across both a range of historical periods and a wide variety of genres. In addition to their many editorial projects, BTS faculty have published on: medieval manuscript textuality; the structural transformation of print in late Elizabethan England; eighteenth- and nineteenth-century print cultures; hypermedia and digital archives and textualities; graphic design in the early novel; the industrial book in America; the materiality of indigenous communications systems; marginalia; and many other topics. The emergence of digital storage and delivery technologies has shown the continued relevance of bibliography and textual studies for analyzing and investigating the technical and social processes of the production, dissemination, and reception of all kinds of text.

Faculty