Book History & Queerness

Book History and Cultures

• Online Resources
  • Diversify Your Book History Syllabus [Google Sheets]
    This shared Google Sheet, initially created by Hannah Alpert-Abrams, is a collective effort to record sources that center “(and/or [are] authored by) people who have historically been excluded from the field. The list includes books, articles, and digital projects about all geographies and time periods, organized by region and date.” History of the Book syllabi are also shared on a dedicated sheet.
    
  • The Art of Washi Paper in Japanese Rare Books [Online Course]
    “Learn about the history, production and design of papers used inside Japanese Rare Books.”
    *The free version of this online course requires a free account and login for access*
    
    
• Print Books
• Suarez, M. F., & Woudhuysen, H. R. (Eds.). (2013). The book: a global history (First edition). Oxford University Press.
  Suarez and Woudhuysen’s (2013) one-volume collection of essays on the global history of the book focuses predominantly on Western book and printing history, but offers a wealth of sources for further reading and study.
  
• Updates to this list are forthcoming.
  
• Instructions for Access to Print Books:
• Click the links above to view these titles on WorldCat.org
• On the item page, scroll down to the ‘Find a Copy at a Library’ section to search for a local library where you might be able to access the book (college and other private libraries may not allow public access)
• NYC Locals: Look out for listings at New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library, and Queens Public Library.

Book Arts, History, and Queerness

• Edwards, J. (2022). Queer and bookish: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick as book artist. punctum books. https://doi.org/10.53288/0328.1.00
  The eBook version of this title is currently available for free via the DOI link included in the source’s bibliographic citation. Edwards (2022) offers an exploratory discussion of Sedgwick as a book artist and Sedgwick’s books as themselves “visual, textural, and material objects.”
  
  
  
• McKinney, C. (2020). Information activism: A queer history of lesbian media technologies. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv14t48t3
  While this source is not open access, the introduction is available in PDF format, and a copy is on order with the New York Public Library. This book engages the print revolution of the 1970s as manifested in the documentation of lesbian media, documentation of experience and community, etc. While this text focuses predominantly on the transition from print media to forms of digital media, this text offers a unique window into queer self-representation, cultural production, activism, and community building through analog mediums including book forms.
  
  
  
• Sargan, J. (2023). What could a trans book history look like? Toward trans codicology. Criticism, 64(3). https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/criticism/vol64/iss3/23
  This open access article challenges the limited view that trans book history is encapsulated in individual biographical narratives and personal records alone, proposing an “affective” and “embodied” approach to book history that can reframe trans connections to the past.