Reading Typographically : Immersed in Print in Early Modern France

Geoffrey Turnovsky

ISBN 10: 1503637212 / ISBN 13: 9781503637214

Edité par Stanford University Press Jun 2024, 2024

A propos de cet article

Neuware - 'Anxieties about the fate of reading in the digital age reveal how deeply our views of the moral and intellectual benefits of reading are tied to print. These views take root in a conception of reading as an immersive activity, exemplified by the experience of 'losing oneself in a book.' Against the backdrop of digital distraction and fragmentation, such immersion leads readers to become more focused, collected, and empathetic. How did we come to see the printed book as especially suited to deliver this experience Print-based reading practices have historically included a wide range of modes, not least the disjointed scanning we associate today with electronic text. In the context of religious practice, literacy's benefits were presumed to lie in such random-access retrieval, facilitated by indexical tools like the numbering of Biblical chapters and verses. It was this didactic, hunt-and-peck reading that bound readers to communities. Exploring key evolutions in print in 17th- and 18th-century France, from typeface, print runs, and format to editorial organization and punctuation, this book argues that typographic developments upholding the transparency of the printed medium were decisive for the ascendancy of immersive reading as a dominant paradigm that shaped modern perspectives on reading and literacy'--.

N° de réf. du vendeur 9781503637214

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Reading Typographically : Immersed in Print in Early Modern France
• Éditeur: Stanford University Press Jun 2024
• Date de parution: 2024
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 1503637212
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9781503637214
• Reliure: Buch
• État de l'article: Neu
• Dimensions: 229 L x 152 H x 26 P (en millimètres) 229 millimètres de largeur par 152 millimètres de hauteur par 26 millimètres de profondeur
• Poids: 640 grammes

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

Anxieties about the fate of reading in the digital age reveal how deeply our views of the moral and intellectual benefits of reading are tied to print. These views take root in a conception of reading as an immersive activity, exemplified by the experience of "losing oneself in a book." Against the backdrop of digital distraction and fragmentation, such immersion leads readers to become more focused, collected, and empathetic.

How did we come to see the printed book as especially suited to deliver this experience? Print-based reading practices have historically included a wide range of modes, not least the disjointed scanning we associate today with electronic text. In the context of religious practice, literacy's benefits were presumed to lie in such random-access retrieval, facilitated by indexical tools like the numbering of Biblical chapters and verses. It was this didactic, hunt-and-peck reading that bound readers to communities.

Exploring key evolutions in print in 17th- and 18th-century France, from typeface, print runs, and format to punctuation and the editorial adaptation of manuscript and oral forms in print, this book argues that typographic developments upholding the transparency of the printed medium were decisive for the ascendancy of immersive reading as a dominant paradigm that shaped modern perspectives on reading and literacy.

À propos de l?auteur

Geoffrey Turnovsky is Associate Professor of French at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is the author of The Literary Market: Authorship and Modernity in the Old Regime (2011).