Lorenzo
Bruni

Learning Objectives
The course aims to prepare students for an interdisciplinary study of the history of the book and its distribution and production channels. This approach is the only one that can enable a detailed examination of the complex interrelationships between various disciplines, including bibliography, history, philology, literature, sociology, anthropology, and the technical evolution of printing, physical media, layout, typeface production and typography in the era of digital technology and globalisation.

Content
The individual lectures will aim to enable students to develop an analysis focused on the historical and scientific evolution of printing and publishing. This approach can only be comprehensive if it is properly contextualised in relation to recent globalisation and the digital information overload. This awareness, from the perspective from which we now observe a history spanning millennia and replete with technological, political and social implications, will be facilitated through three themes:
1) The current, apparent decline in the importance of print newspapers and magazines, comparing this phenomenon with the spread of the printed word in the early 20th century, the 1960s and the 2000s,
2) A critical, non-patriarchal analysis of the history of print and publishing, i.e., a reinterpretation based on an inclusive, trans-feminist, anti-racist approach,
3) The emergence of new generations who have formed the new category of ‘power readers’, heralding the resurgence of the paper book (over the Kindle) and the romance genre.

Course content
The course will address and explore four main macro-areas. The first area focuses on the evolution of the written word in pre-modern times: from the Uruk tablets, around 4,000 BC, to medieval illuminated manuscripts. The second main area focuses on the emergence and spread of printing in Europe, from Gutenberg’s invention in the height of the Renaissance to the definitive establishment of the new method of book production during the Enlightenment of the 1700s, the creation of the Encyclopaedia, and the Art Nouveau period. The third area of focus, meanwhile, concerns modern printing and publishing from the historical avant-garde up to 1989. The fourth area of focus is dedicated to the development of the Italian printing and publishing industry from the time of Italian unification to the present day. This section, focusing on recent Italian history, will enable students to explore the close relationship between social transformations, literary trends and the cultural agendas that have shaped the decisions of individual publishing houses.

Final assessment
The final exam consists of an assessment of students’ knowledge of the texts on the reading list and of what they have learned during the course. The oral exam will be conducted in three stages:
1) Presentation of a short written paper (maximum three pages, in the form of a concept map or an article) on one of the topics covered during the course,
2) Analysis of an image featured in one of the PDFs from the course lectures,
3) Answering one or more questions about the books to be read for the exam.

Ludovica Braida, Stampa e cultura in Europa, Editori Laterza, 2000. (This text will be the subject of a classroom exercise to assess students’ ability to analyse it. Students who do not take this test will be required to do so during the examination.)

A. Cadioli, G. Vigini, Storia dell’editoria in Italia: dall’unità a oggi, Milan, Ed. Bibliografica, 2018.