39 Step Press & Bonnie Mak: Yale Book History Presence Project

Time: 
Wednesday, March 31, 2021 - 4:45pm to 6:00pm
Location: 
Online ()
Description: 

The Yale Program in the History of the Book invites you to attend a public panel discussion with the participants in the 2020-2021 series.
Zoom webinar registration: https://bit.ly/3c2zSiW
This year, the program has undertaken the Presence Project, a creative and critical project centering on the meanings of presence in relation to the material text. To be present in the archive, to be present with the material text, to be found or lost, survive, bear witness: these are only a few of the valences by which the role of presence is charged in relation to the material text. The tenacious power of these relationships has only been emphasized by the political circumstances of our historical moment.
Each of our participants brings an original and incisive critical voice to their work as book historians. We are thrilled that they have accepted our invitation to take part:
39 Step Press, represented by members Dennis Duncan, Gill Partington, and Adam Smyth. In their own words: “We are a group of academics interested in the history of the printed page. In 2015 we bought a wrought iron Model 4 letterpress printer and founded 39 Step Press. Since then - both collectively and individually - we’ve been doing practical research on the quirks and distinctiveness of print, on what can go wrong and the effects that produces. We are all interested - in different ways - in the errors and accidental substitutions that creep into typesetting, and the glitches, inky smudges and blanks that printers usually try to avoid.”
Bonnie Mak is an associate professor at the University of Illinois, with appointments in the School of Information Sciences, History, and Medieval Studies. She studies the production and circulation of knowledge, with a particular focus on visualization practices from antiquity to today.