Symposium on the Book

As scholars, writers, intellectuals, teachers, and students, books are our livelihood. But what if books themselves were our objects of study? Books are bound things, repositories of knowledge, memory systems, complex networks of paper, ink, stitching, board, leather, and manufacture. And books are not fixed in form; they have changed and continue to change to meet the demands and innovations of information culture, from scrolls and tablets to medieval illuminated manuscripts, early modern commonplace books, nineteenth century serial novels, twentieth century futurist books bound in metal, to twenty-first century digital books and e-readers--the ancient tablet in its most contemporary form. The Symposium on the Book explores the nature of material texts in all their forms, across time and space.



We hold two, day-long Saturday symposiums per year, typically one per semester. Each has an invited plenary speaker, an interdisciplinary panel of UGA faculty delivering short papers, a rare books workshop, and a book exhibit curated by graduate students.



Sponsored by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, the University of Georgia Libraries, and the University of Georgia Departments of English and History.