The Perils of Print Culture

A conference to be held at Trinity College Dublin, 10-12 September 2010
Organised by Dr Jason McElligott and Dr Eve Patten

Over the past twenty years the study of print culture has become
prominent in the disciplines of history, literary studies and
languages. The study of print culture has many advantages, but there
is a growing sense among advanced practitioners that scholars need to
fine-tune or calibrate their understanding of this burgeoning field of
enquiry.

Papers presented at this conference will encourage scholars to think
more systematically about the conceptual, methodological and
technological problems associated with the study of print culture.
They will encompass a wide range of chronological periods,
geographical locations and genres of print. The topics under
consideration will include, but not be limited to:

- The tensions between the contrasting views of print as an agent of
social change and social cohesion.
- Case-studies of the ways in which print can create inaccurate,
distorted, or anachronistic accounts of the past.
- The usefulness (or otherwise) of theoretical models in the study of
print culture.
- The peculiarities of serial publication (newspapers and magazines)
and the relevance of print-culture theory to the study of journalism
history.
- The role of over-arching non-theoretical models (such as that put
forward by William St. Clair in The Reading Nation in the Romantic
Period).
- The specific problems of interdisciplinary work in print culture.
- The precise definition(s) of print culture across a range of
literary, historical and political source materials.
- The changing nature of print culture over time, and the differences
between print culture in urban and rural settings, in different
regions within the same country and between different countries.
- The opportunities created by (and limitations of) electronic
resources for academic researchers.
- Desirable future directions in electronic resource provision.
- The future of the library in the digital age.

Proposals (max. 300 words) for papers of 30 to 40 minutes duration
should be sent to the conference organisers at
perilsofprintculture@gmail.com by Friday 11 December 2009.