The Book History Colloquium at Columbia University The Book History Colloquium at Columbia University, open to any discipline, aims to provide a broad outlet for the scholarly discussion of book history, print culture, the book arts, and bibliographical research, and (ideally) the promotion of research and publication in these fields. Our presenters include Columbia faculty members and advanced graduate students, scholars of national prominence from range of institutions. Questions? email: Gerald Cloud All sessions take place in 523 Butler Library, 6:00 – 7:30pm October 7, 2008: David Whitesell; American Antiquarian Society, The Harvard College Library and Its Users, 1762-1764: Reassessing the Relevance of Colonial American College Libraries The earliest extant circulation records for an American college library--those for the Harvard College Library from 1762-1764--afford an exceptionally detailed view of how the library was used and by whom. Library use was far more extensive than historians have previously thought. November 5, 2008: Adam Hooks, Columbia University, Making Histories: Shakespeare and the Problem of Genre Adam Hooks will discuss the disproportionate influence that the First Folio has had on our notion of Shakespearean genres, using the Folio's familiar catalogue of Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies as a case study. The multitude of generic designations given to the plays, in forms such as contemporary catalogues and subsequent edited collections, have been overshadowed by the current cultural status of the Folio, but what is now often called the most important book in the history of English literature was initially a critical failure subjected to years of often heated commentary and debate. September 25, 2008: Panel discussion with: David Berona, Plymouth State University; David Hajdu, Columbia University; Mike Kelly, New York University; Reading Pictures, Burning Comics: New Perspectives on the History of Graphic Narrative The publication of two recent books—Berona’s Wordless Books (2008) and Hajdu’s Ten-cent Plague (2008)—inspired this panel discussion. Moderator, comics scholar, and rare book curator Mike Kelly will lead a discussion with Berona and Hajdu on current scholarship, historical perspectives, and a consideration of the place wordless books, graphic novels, and comics hold in both contemporary culture and the History of the Book. September 9, 2008: Jennifer Buckley; “What is the matter that you read?”: Edward Gordon Craig and the Cranach Press Hamlet Jennifer Buckley will discuss the Cranach Press Hamlet and the book’s illustrator, Edward Gordon Craig (1872-1966).  Craig, also a stage director, set designer, and theatre theorist, sought to prove that Hamlet was fundamentally a work of literature and thus unstageable, but his contributions to the Cranach Hamlet show that the two media cannot be so easily disentangled. April 21, 2008: Nicholas Dames, The Chapter; or, Fragmented Life Theodore Kahan Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University, Nicholas Dames will discuss the chapter as both a bibliographical device and the social & intellectual influences associated with The Chapter. March 24, 2008, Terry Belanger, “Noli me tangere”: Research Libraries and the History of the Book University Professor and Director of Rare Book School: University of Virginia, Terry Belanger will speak on the relationship between research libraries and those who teach the history of the book and related subjects. February 27, 2008, Will Slauter, Recycling the News in the Eighteenth-Century Blogosphere. Will Slauter, Society of Fellows in the Humanities and Department of History, Columbia University, discussed international news before the telegraph; a story of newspapers trading paragraphs with each other, copying, translating and rewriting the news.