Comparative Literature
369
Fragments of a Material
History of Literature
Professor Haun Saussy
Fall 2003
Building 200, room 217
Wednesdays, 1:15-4:05 pm
Webpage: http://www.stanford.edu/class/complit369
This seminar provides a
synthetic introduction to cultural and literary studies viewed from the
perspective of the material practices and constraints that have shaped ideas
concerning "literature," writing, speech, and expression, mainly in
the West. The course does not pretend to
provide a chronologically ordered overview of Western literary history, but
rather is constructed as a series of synchronic units, each focusing on a
specific "rupture event" --for instance, the shift from scrolls to
codices as the normative literary format or the rise of typewriters-- and a
specific "case history" --epigraphic writing, silent reading, gesture
and expression, etc. Among the topics
covered will be: rhetoric and bodily expression; writing and mnemotechnics; the
history of writing instruments, machines, surfaces, and supports; paleographic
analysis; oral/written communications technologies; printing and textuality;
modern/postmodern media permutations of the concepts of "literature,"
"image," "document," and "text." Although its theoretical ramifications extend
into present media theory, many of the readings target key events in late antiquity,
the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance that have set the stage for later
cultural-historical developments within the literary field. What it aims to provide is a series of
occasions for reflection on the complex, non-deterministic interplay between
cultural constructs and the media within which they are formalized and, in
turn, by which they are formed. It is
meant as a stimulus to research into the material foundations of the
fundamental institutions of literary study and to sustained reflection on the
blind side of contemporary theorizations concerning textuality, writing, and
media.
In accordance with these
methodological presuppositions, the seminar is divided into a series of nine
broadly designated thematic units. Week
One will provide an introduction to the course and raise a single case study:
epigraphic writing. Week Two examines
the discipline of rhetoric, the once (and possibly future?) comprehensive
context for the understanding of communication in the Western world. Weeks Three through Ten cover a diversity of
topics from body talk (gesture, vocalization, etc.) to electronic hypertexts.
To whatever degree
possible, student presentations will be coordinated with these overall themes
and will play a key role in establishing historiographical links between the
readings and students’ distinct areas of specialization and interest.
Please note that the
time constraints imposed by the quarter system make it essential that students
commit themselves as early as possible (but in no case later than the third
week of the quarter) to research projects and presentations. It is, therefore, important to begin thinking
right from the start about which of the thematic areas might be best suited to
your own research interests.
READINGS (available at
the Stanford Bookstore): The following books are required:
Jesper Svenbro, Phrasikleia.
Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993.
Anthony Grafton, The
Footnote: A Curious History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Mark S. Meadows, Pause
and Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative. Los Angeles: New Riders, 2002.
-- as is a Xeroxed reader,
broken down by weekly segments and made available in the Comparative Literature
office. Other readings can be found on the Internet, through Stanford Library’s
JSTOR membership: to access this, start at www.jstor.org
from a campus networked computer.
PRESENTATIONS: because this
is a research seminar, students are expected to set to work right from the
beginning of the quarter on a project that, first, will be presented for group
discussion and, subsequently, will be elaborated into a full-length research
paper (15-25 pp.). Projects may be individual or collaborative (and, if the
latter option is chosen, the length of the seminar paper should reflect the
number of students working collaboratively).
GRADING: final grades
for the seminar will be calculated on the basis of the class presentation and
seminar paper (70%) and class participation (30%).
Syllabus
1) September 24:
Introduction; Theoretical/Methodological Presuppositions; Historical
Contextualizations; Heuristic Hypotheses.
Topics: introduction to
course: what do we mean by “materiality”? "Material" vs.
"immaterial" forms of historiography; the stakes in reconstructing
the material history of literature; material history as the study of
"distortion effects." Writing
and cultural memory; formal and informal modes of inscription; ideologies of format.
Case study: public
inscription and the shifting institutional functions of epigraphy.
Reading (extracts to be
distributed in class):
-Karl Marx, 1844
Manuscripts
-Ferdinand de Saussure, Course
in General Linguistics
2) October 1: Speaking
matters (Rhetoric)
Topics: the material
history of rhetoric; techniques of vocalization, organization, delivery,
memorization; gesture and the body in rhetorical performance; the
Christianization of rhetoric; audience response as component of performance
Readings:
-Plato, Phaedrus
(21-34, 69-79)
-pseudo-Cicero, Rhetorica
ad Herennium (Bk. 3)
-Quintilian, Institutio
oratoria (Bk. 1; Bk. 11: 3.61-3.184)
-Frances Yates, The
Art of Memory (1-49)
-Saul/Paul of Tarsus (2
Cor. 10-12)
-Augustine of Hippo, On
Christian Doctrine, chapters 1-15 (pp. 124-132)
-Samuel Shaw, Language
Made Visible
Case study:
gesticulation as/and expression
3) October 7: Writing
matters
Topics: writing instruments,
writing supports; concepts of layout; the aesthetics of "hands" and
letter styles; the invention of modern cursives; Latinity's links to epigraphy;
vernacular culture's links to the ephemeral
Readings:
-Jasper Svenbro, Phrasikleia
(1-63)
-Bernhard Bischoff, Latin
Paleography (7-148)
[ON RESERVE] -Colin
Roberts and T. C. Skeat, The Birth of the Codex (1-29, 35-76)
-Brian Stock, The
Implications of Literacy (12-87)
-Guillaume IX, “Farai un
vers de dreyt nien” in Goldin, Lyrics of the Troubadours (24-27)
-James Brown, “I’m Real”
from Living in America (Scotti Bros. Records, 1995)
-Henry Petroski, The
Pencil (50-66, 331-340)
[ON RESERVE] -J. I.
Whalley, Writing Implements and Accessories (33-84)
-Tsuen-hsuin Tsien, Written
on Bamboo and Silk (90-113, 131-157)
-Armando Petrucci, Public
Lettering (1-15, 117-126)
Case studies: from
scroll to codex; from orality to literacy and back again (the rise of
vernacular literatures)
4) October 14: ABC's;
the alphabet and its doubles (hieroglyphics, ideograms); methods of storage,
organization, and reference
Topics: writing systems
(alphabetic, ideographic, pictographic), their interconnections; shorthand
systems; dictation as composition; Western fantasies about non-Western writing;
premodern libraries and library cataloging/collecting practices
Readings:
-Eric A. Havelock, The
Literate Revolution in Greece and its Cultural Consequences (40-121,
166-184)
-Jack Goody and Ian
Watt, “The Consequences of Literacy,” Comparative Studies in Society and
History 5.3: 304-345 [JSTOR]
-Jorge Luis Borges,
"The Library of Babel" (Labyrinths, 51-58)
-M. B. Parkes, Scribes,
Scripts and Readers (19-69)
-Ernest Fenollosa, The
Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry
-Jan Assman,
"Ancient Egypt and the Materiality of the Sign" from Materialities
of Communication
-Daniel Stolzenberg,
“Kircher’s Egypt” from The Great Art of Knowing: The Baroque Encyclopedia of
Athanasius Kircher (115-126)
-Nick Wilding, “‘If You
Have a Secret…’” from The Great Art of Knowing (93-103).
-The Hieroglyphics of
Horapollo (57-61)
-Friedrich Kittler,
"The Mother's Mouth" (Discourse Networks, 25-69)
Case Study: how to read
“pictographic” languages
5) October 21: Books
in Print
Topics: the historical
impact and development of print technologies; the anxieties/ possibilities that
attach to it; the rise of the book industry and of institutions to control,
distribute, suppress, the production of books; shifting concepts of the book as
artifact; authorial function v.v. the book industry; emerging concepts of
literary property
Readings:
-Adrian Johns, “Faust
and the Pirates” from The Nature of the Book (324-379)
-Rudolph Hirsch, Printing,
Selling and Reading (27-40, 125-153)
-M. B. Parkes, Pause
and Effect (50-61)
-Roger Chartier, The
Cultural Origins of the French Revolution (38-91)
-Cervantes, excerpt from
Don Quixote
-Saussy, “In the
Workshop of Equivalences,” from Great Walls of Discourse
Case Study: the
proliferation of books and cultural memory
6) October 28: Paratexts
Topics: Marginalia,
annotation, commentary; the textual apparatus, prefaces, epilogues; modes of
referencing/self-reference; indexation; the ideology and historical function of
commentary
Readings:
-Anthony Grafton, The
Footnote
-Lloyd W. Daly, Contribution
to a History of Alphabetization
-Richard and Mary Rouse,
Preachers, Florilegia and Sermons (3-42)
-Michael Camille, Image
on the Edge (11-55, 153-160)
-Jacques Derrida,
"This is not an Oral Footnote" (Annotation and its Texts,
vii-ix, 192-205)
-Jeffrey Schnapp,
"A Commentary on Commentary"
-Cao Xueqin [attr.], Hong
lou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber, ca. 1750), chapter 1.
Case Study: margins
7) November 5: Reading
machines
Topics: the history of
reading practices in their relation to the body and the book; figural
transformations of gesture and voicing; reading and Christian piety
Readings:
-Jasper Svenbro, Phrasikleia
(160-186)
-Knox, Bernard M. W. “Silent
Reading in Antiquity.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 9 (1968), 421-435.
-Paul Saenger,
"Silent Reading: Its Impact on Late Medieval Script and Society"
-Paul Saenger,
"Books of Hours and the Reading Habits of the Later Middle Ages"
-M. B. Parkes, Pause
and Effect (65-96)
-Jeffrey Schnapp,
"Reading Lessons"
-Paul Zumthor, “The
Presence of the Body” and “The Audience,” from Oral Poetry
Case Study: silent vs.
vocalized forms of reading and their repercussions
8) November 12:
Choreography and gesture
Topics: the framing of
the duality of “oral” and “written”; the “writtenness” of bodily experience; is
“writing” the same thing as “the letter”?
Readings:
-Frank Hamilton Cushing,
“Manual Concepts,” American Anthropologist 5 (1892), 289-317. [JSTOR]
-Marcel Jousse, The
Anthropology of Geste and Rhythm (78-101)
-Claude Lévi-Strauss,
“The Writing Lesson” from Tristes Tropiques (294-304)
[ON RESERVE] -Jacques
Derrida, “The Violence of the Letter” from Of Grammatology (101-140)
-Ray Birdwhistell, Kinesics
in Context (29-39, 99-110)
Case Study: dance
notation; reading out loud; authors and performers
9) November 19: Writing
machines
Topics: typewriters and
their impact on the practice and theory of writing and expression; other
writing machines; keyboarding and "style"; resistance and revolt
against mechanical instruments of writing; the phonograph and its incursions on
the realm of memory.
Readings:
-Friedrich Kittler,
"The Great Lalulā" (Discourse Networks, 206-264)
-Martin Stingelin,
"Comments on a Ball: Nietzsche's Play on the Typewriter" from Materialities
of Communication
-Michael Adler, The
Writing Machine (25-46, 121-235)
Paul David, “Clio and
the Economics of QWERTY.” American Economic Review 76 (1985), 332-337. [JSTOR]
Thierry Bardini, Bootstrapping
(58-80)
-“The Phonograph.” The
New York Times (November 7, 1877), 4; available at http://www27.brinkster.com/phonozoic/a0006.htm
-Johnson,
Edward H. “A Wonderful Invention. Speech Capable of Indefinite Repetition from
Automatic Records.” Scientific American n.s. 37:20 (November 17, 1877),
304; available at http://www27.brinkster.com/phonozoic/a0028.htm
-Sarah Bernhardt,
recording of Phèdre, 1893
-Lisa Gitelman, Scripts,
Grooves, and Writing Machines (97-148)
Case Study: The
typewriter; phonograph and cinema as “writing devices.”
10) November 26: Bookends
Topics: the
"dematerialization" of writing/textuality; new image/text situations;
remains of the prior material history of literature in the cybernetic age;
techno-writing and techno-orality
Readings:
-Geoffrey Nunberg,
"The Places of Books in the Age of Electronic Reproduction," Representations
42: 13-37 [JSTOR]
-George P. Landow, Hypertext
1-34, 71-100
-Michael Heim, Electric
Language (excerpt)
-Jay David Bolter, Writing
Space (121-160)
-N. Katherine Hayles, How
We Became Posthuman (192-221)
-Gilles Deleuze and
Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (3-25)
-Meadows, Pause and
Effect
Case Study: non-linear
(electronic) texts; permutable narratives; multi-player environments; archives;
where’s the multi in multi-media?; the changed identity of the book.
11) December 3: What
materiality means for the institution of literature
Case Study: Discussion with invited speakers.
Some suggested
research/presentation topics:
-The history of
capitalization (vis à vis specific literary genres)
-Punctuation and poetics
-Scribal transcription:
its history, practices of, etc.
-(Calculatedly) informal
modes of writing and Romantic subjectivity
-Genres and specific
material configurations/layouts/presentation strategies
-Literature and
cryptography
-Translation and degrees
of “literalness”
-Typographic practice
and ideology
-Albums and memory
-Reference tools: their
history, evolution, layout, taxonomic principles
-The conservation of
material anachronisms in textual forms
-Handwriting manuals
over the centuries
-Shorthand
-Improved alphabets,
universal writing systems
-Romantic practices of
reading
-The material attributes
of legal documents (medieval and post-medieval)
-Non-western concepts of
inscription, penmanship, etc.
-Reading/writing/speaking
primers from the 18th, 19th centuries
-The history and
ideology of critical and/or diplomatic editions
-Mayan hieroglyphic
texts (pre-1990 theories, etc.)
-Experiments with
non-linear textuality (Glas, The Telephone Book;
Marshall McLuhan's books)
-Philological fictions,
frauds, simulacra
-Artist books, book art,
the two-and-three-dimensional image of books and language
-Material aspects of
18th/19th century pornographic literature
-Pornographic reading,
writing, publishing
-Evolving functions of
prefatory material
-History of copyright
law
-Evolving concepts of
authorship
-Publishing in/as a
market
-Preaching, vocal
technique, and/or gesture (in any period, including present)
-Censorship as
translation: English 19th century "schoolboy" editions
-Rhythm and its mnemonic
functions
-Individual writers’
practices with regard to writing, classing, and preserving their work
-The history of
"material" approaches to textuality (epigraphy, paleography)
-Streamlined Moderne
typography and American public buildings
-Funerary inscriptions
-Speaking stones
-Material aspects of
scientific literature
-Diagrams,
illustrations, tables, indices and technical literature
-Practices of dictation
-Visual poetry and
typography
-Classical geometry and
typographical theory
-"Retrobooks"
(historical simulations of earlier modes of text formatting, production,
layout)
-"Private" books (Libri di famiglia, etc.)
-Practices of
self-censorship
-Forms of techno-orality
(machines, voices, rhythms, gesture, sampling, etc.)
-The “emergence” into
public recognition of long-existing genres thanks to technological developments
(e.g. recorded folksong)