Last week I asked you to take a couple of minutes to write down what you found unclear or what you had questions about. Here are my responses: ===== Q. What should an annotated bibliographies look like? A. We'll talk about this with some detail in class when the deadline is closer, but you can read a good introduction to the idea at this website from the U of Wisconsin-Madison Writing Center: http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/AnnotatedBibliography.html In a nutshell, you will be responsible for conducting research into a subject and writing up an annotated bibligraphy  of secondary scholarly sources on that subject. When I pass out the assignment sheet for this, it will probably look a lot like the one I created for my 18th-century lit class last spring, which you can download here: http://www.chlt.org/~gwilliams/2004spring/c18/archives/annotated%20bibliography.php ===== Q. When do we start reading literary works?! A. I realize that some of you are impatient to start reading the non-fiction, fiction, and poetry that was produced in 17th and 18th-century Britain and that will help illuminate some of these ideas from the point of view of traditionally literary material. As President Clinton used to say, "I feel your pain." Have patience. We'll be digging into that stuff soon. In fact, next week, we start talking about the writings of Samuel Johnson, who is one of the most well-known literary figures from the eighteenth century. When we talk about these primary texts, we will be using the framework and the concepts provided by the readings we have completed so far. We'll also be studying poetry by Alexander Pope, essays by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, fiction by Samuel Richardson, engravings by William Hogarth, and poetry/art by William Blake. I realized too late that there are no women in this list (a big oversight, I realize), and I'll try to remedy this omission one way or another. ===== Q. Why is doing Book History a "problem"? Do we need a "model" to study books? A. I talked about this a bit today. It's only a "problem" in that all disciplines typically have a relatively coherent set of assumptions and approaches by which scholars go about their business. What we now call book history started out as several different scholars from several different fields with a very wide range of assumptions and approaches. People like Darnton and Barker & Adams were trying to argue for a unifying ===== Q. Did writing in less talked about places (the Far East, India, Africa, etc) have any influence on the printing and publishing methods we use today? A. Good question. Sounds like a potential research project to me. ===== Q. What's the "symbolic significance of the book"? A. Where did this phrase appear? I don't remember exactly who used it, but I think this refers to the significance that comes from the form of the book and not just from its content. For example, a cheap paperback has a different symbolic signifance than an expensive, oversized, leatherbound volume even though they both might contain the exact same words. Also, the typeface chosen, the size of the margins, the quality of the paper used ... all of these things have symbolic significance. In other words, in addition to being affected by the words on the page, a reader's interpretation of a text is affected by these features of the book. In his book _A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism_ (In the library at P47 .M34 1983), Jerome McGann uses the terms "linguistic codes" (the words on the page) and "bibliographic codes" (the features of the physical book) to denote the difference. They work together, McGann argues, to affect our interpretation. ===== Q. I like the more "linguistic" aspects of what we've discussed so far. I'd enjoy more, in-depth/technical lectures about these subjects, or things like the various "word" stages (chirographic ---> typographic, etc.) but maybe that's somewhat peripheral to the goals of the class? A. I don't plan to talk/lecture a great deal more about the various "word" stages (although they'll continue to be relevant to class discussion), but I'll point you to a couple of great books on the subject that, fortunately, we have in the library. First, check out Michelle Brown's _ The British Library guide to writing and scripts : history and techniques_ (P211 .B6967 1998), and then Michael Twyman's _The British Library guide to printing : history and techniques_ (Z124 .T89 1998). These books are a good introduction, and they are really fantastic. There are other books in the _British Library guide to..._ series on subjects like bookbinding and manuscript illumination. I highly recommend them all. Q. I could use a little more direction on what kinds of things we should take away from the readings. A. You will get what you need from these secondary readings if you come away from them with satisfactory (to you) answers to these questions: 1. What are the main points of this essay? 2. What are its strengths and weaknesses? 3. How does it differ from, disagree with, or build upon other essays we've read this semester? 4. What is useful to us from this essay? Of course, there is another question that I haven't mentioned, but that is also important: 5. What do I not understand in this essay? If you feel dissatisfied with your understanding of an essay, please do not hesitate to come to my office hours.