Material Readings in Early Modern Culture

Announcing a new series from Ashgate Publishing Company

Series Editors: James Daybell, University of Plymouth; and
Adam Smyth, Birkbeck College, University of London

This series provides a forum for studies that consider the material
forms of texts as part of an investigation into early modern culture.
The editors invite proposals of a multi- or inter-disciplinary nature,
and particularly welcome proposals that combine archival research with
an attention to the theoretical models that might illuminate the
reading, writing, and making of texts, as well as projects that take
innovative approaches to the study of material texts, both in terms
the kinds of primary materials under investigation, and in terms of
methodologies. What are the questions that have yet be to asked about
writing in its various possible embodied forms? Are there varieties of
materiality that are critically neglected? How does form mediate and
negotiate content? In what ways do the physical features of texts
inform how they are read, interpreted and situated?

Consideration will be given to both monographs and collections of
essays. The range of topics covered in this series includes, but is
not limited to:

· History of the book, publishing, the book trade, printing,
typography (layout, type, typeface, blank/white space, paratextual
apparatus)
· Technologies of the written word: ink, paper, watermarks,
pens, presses
· Surprising or neglected material forms of writing
· Print culture
· Manuscript studies
· Social space, context, location of writing
· Social signs, cues, codes imbued within the material forms of texts
· Ownership and the social practices of reading: marginalia,
libraries, environments of reading and reception
· Codicology, palaeography and critical bibliography
· Production, transmission, distribution and circulation
· Archiving and the archaeology of knowledge
· Orality and oral culture
· The material text as object or thing

Proposals should take the form of either 1) a preliminary letter of
inquiry, briefly describing the project; or
2) a formal prospectus including: abstract, brief statement of your
critical methodology, table of contents, sample chapter, estimate of
length, estimate of the number and type of illustrations to be
included, and a c.v.

Please send a copy of either type of proposal to each of the two
series editors and to the publisher:
Dr James Daybell, james.daybell@plymouth.ac.uk; Dr Adam Smyth,
adam.smyth@bbk.ac.uk
Erika Gaffney, Publisher, egaffney@ashgate.com