Table-ronde au Congrès SHARP 2019 : « Book History on the Margins »

Un appel à communications pour une table-ronde au Congrès SHARP 2019, qui aura lieu à Amherst (Massachussetts), est lancé. La table-ronde portera sur la thématique suivante : « Book History on the Margins ». Les propositions doivent être envoyées avant le 30 octobre 2018.

Pour plus de détails, veuillez consulter le texte complet de l'appel (en anglais seulement) ci-dessous :

Working title: “Book History on the Margins”

This roundtable seeks to put into conversation those who do the work of book history on minority subjects, genres, and traditions across any time period, geography, language, and history. There have been thriving conversations of how book history and bibliographic scholarship can help form new narratives and traditions—this includes the importance of initial enumerative bibliographies, the creation of finding aids and tools, and the uncovering and establishing of previously untold histories of book production and consumption. This roundtable asks those who engage in this labor to come together and talk about commonalities with our experiences working with minority subjects, genres, and practices and discuss if this can or should influence book history scholarship that works on more canonical or valued figures, genres, and histories. Questions we might explore include:

• What are the challenges of working with histories that are not found in the archive or preserved in an accessible way? How do we participate in a discourse that values a material experience we may not have?
• What is the responsibility of the book historian, bibliographer, and the archivist working with materials for vulnerable populations?
• How does the historical precarity of our subject matter affect the way we teach and present these histories and narratives to the public? Our students?
• What does working with non-canonical or uncategorizable subjects tell us about the perhaps hidden values of our methods? Our field? Our forms of enquiry?
• Is there value in imagining a “book history on the margins” from putting these conversations together? What might the values or practices of this (sub)field be? Do they differ meaningfully from more general practices and values?

We especially welcome proposals from early career scholars, archivists, special collections librarians, and those who identify as or work with under-represented populations. We also welcome those who do not identify as book historians ???? We are imagining very short, informal “presentations” that form a discussion for the bulk of the panel. Please send enquiries and responses with 200-word abstracts to Kate Ozment at keozment@cpp.edu by Oct. 30 in order to meet the conference submission deadline.