Manicular from 13th Century English Bible
Making Books, Shaping Readers developed organically following papers delivered by Siobhán Collins, Carrie Griffin and Mary O'Connell at a Departmental conference. Notwithstanding their scholarly focus on different periods of literature: medieval, early modern and Romantic respectively, shared discussion revealed common intellectual concerns. These concerns are related to how texts are physically produced and transmitted to readers, and how forms of textual production and its science shape readers. Griffin originated the idea of developing and structuring what was clearly an emerging, and bridging, research field. The potential and validity of this project was recognized, and a commitment to develop it was agreed on, by each of the above named scholars. The project was formally launched at the Departmental Graduate conference, Bookends, on April 3rd 2006.
