Center for the Study of Books and Media
The primary purpose of this Center, established in Princeton in 2002, is to promote research and teaching in the history of books; but as its name indicates, it includes other media as well. In fact, book history, as it has now come to be known, involves a great deal more than history and books. Having developed from the convergence of many disciplines around a common core of problems, it extends to the study of textual transmission in all modes, whether printed or manuscript, visual or oral, in all times and places. A center cannot attempt to do everything, however. So the Center in Princeton concentrates on books in the Western world from the Middle Ages to the modern era. It brings together faculty from many departments in order to stimulate research, discuss work in progress, and develop courses at all levels of instruction. It also coordinates activities with similar centers both in this region and abroad, and works closely with a corresponding group of scholars at Oxford as part of the Oxford-Princeton Partnership.
The Center organizes workshops, colloquia, and special lectures. Some are of general interest, aimed at everyone in the university community. Others are specialized, involving small groups of scholars and joint research projects within the Oxford-Princeton exchange. At the undergraduate level, the teaching program includes freshman seminars and more advanced courses for juniors and seniors. The courses offered to graduate students include a general seminar on problems and methods in the study of the transmission of texts and seminars on book history in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century. Further courses on books in antiquity and on the media of the modern world will be added later, so that students throughout the university will be able to study a wide variety of book history. In the long run, the book historians of Princeton and Oxford hope to establish a coordinated curriculum that will lead to the creation of a joint, post-graduate degree.