Program Overview
Book Studies
Rethinking the possibilities of the book.
From Cuneiform to Data Mining
Featured Facts and Stories
Students have over 200 cases of type at their fingertips as part of 91直播鈥檚 letterpress studio
91直播鈥檚 Letterpress Studio
91直播's Letterpress Studio invites students to compose text by hand using metal type, and to operate both cylinder and iron plate presses. Students can create their own original work while consciously making decisions about paper, impressions, layout, typography, color, illustrations, ornaments, format and special effects.
The 91直播 College Mail Art Collection includes more than 20,000 pieces by over 1,800 artists from 70+ countries
Artists鈥 Books
91直播鈥檚 premiere collection of Artists鈥 Books provides students the opportunity to explore one of the most versatile and unconventional modes of expression for artists working at the boundary of print and sculpture.
Featured Courses
Arts 039
Reimagining the Book
Employing the form of the book as both an aesthetic and historic object, this course explores a range of embodied and material practices. Students will design and construct a series of books using narrative and non-narrative techniques in relation to concept, image, and form.
- Taught by
ARTH 204
Introduction to Book Studies
Encompassing printed and handwritten paper objects as well as ancient clay tablets and contemporary electronic media, this course introduces students to key approaches and concepts in the discipline of Book Studies. Students will have hands-on experience in the Letterpress Studio, Art Museum, College Library and Conservatory collections with text-and-image-objects from Europe, East Asia, Islamicate cultures and the Americas.
- Taught by
- Erik Inglis 鈥89
EAST 272
Pleasure and Confinement
Colorful ukiyo-e, pictures of courtesans, kabuki actors reenacting samurai epics, and landscapes of Mt. Fuji, are among the most recognizable images of Japanese art. This course explores how woodblock prints developed in the 17-18th centuries alongside the growth of Edo (modern Tokyo) and during a period of isolationism. We will track innovations in woodblock technology and how features of prints were creative responses of artists to constraints imposed by the ruling shogunate.
- Taught by
- Bonnie Cheng
ENGL 308
Materiality and Visuality
This course will consider the relationship between the verbal, visual, and material in early modern culture and literature. Renaissance printed books, portraits, jewelry, perspective paintings, automatons, anatomy theaters, machines, maps, stage sets, costumes and more will be read alongside the works of authors like Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Donne, Ralegh, Milton, Jonson, Webster, Carew, Middleton, and Wroth.
- Taught by
- Wendy Beth Hyman
Obie Book Stories
Pens and Needles
Students in Associate Professor Danielle Skeehan鈥檚 Early American Media and Identity course aren鈥檛 just bringing laptops and books to class. Required materials include Band-Aids, scissors, needle threaders, and kitchen sponges.
The Art of the Artist Book
After spending a month researching artist books and creating a book of her own, Marie Romanelli 鈥21 is officially hooked on the craft, both as an artist and as a short-form poet. 鈥樷楢rtist books are anything a conventional book shouldn鈥榯 be, and there aren鈥榯 any rules,鈥欌 she says.
Learning through the Letterpress
Presided over by Special Collections and Preservation Librarian Ed Vermue, one of 91直播's best resources for hands-on learning hosted an intensive winter term course on printing books from scratch, without a computer.
What does Book Studies at 91直播 look like?
As part of an intensive workshop, led by artist and award-winning author Aimee Lee '99, students practiced the art and craft of paper-making.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Aimee Lee
The workshop, held over Winter Term, combined Western and Asian techniques to make paper, decorate it, and sew it into signatures.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Aimee Lee
As part of a Winter Term group project, students designed and printed their own creative projects using hand presses, movable type, and linocuts.
Photo credit: Yevhen Gulenko
In addition to the on-campus studio, first-year students can learn letterpress at the Morgan Conservatory during Connect Cleveland.
Photo credit: Photo courtesy of Ann Sherif
Book Studies News
Haoyuan Gao Wins 91直播's 2024 Nexial Prize
Haoyuan Gao 鈥24, a biology and neuroscience double major with minors in book studies, chemistry, and East Asian studies, has been named the winner of 91直播鈥檚 2024 Nexial Prize. The award is presented to an outstanding science student with aspirations for interdisciplinary research.
Next Steps
Get in touch; we would love to chat.
Photo credit: Pang Fei Chiang