Reading the History of Reading
In Winter 2013 I’m teaching an advanced undergraduate seminar in “The History of Reading” (English 503). That definite article — the — is misleading: this isn’t a definitive history of all reading, but rather A History of Reading, as Alberto Manguel called his book on the subject.
Here are the five required books I’m assigning. Details of the course schedule &c. to follow. We’ll read them in (roughly) this order:
- Susan Hill, Howards End is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home
- A. S. Byatt, Possession: A Romance
- Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
- Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude Carrière, This is Not the End of the Book
- Stephen Ramsay, Reading Machines: Toward an Algorithmic Criticism
I’ve included links to the Book Depository to order them online, though of course they’re also going to be at the University of Calgary Bookstore. You can also compare all prices for new & used copies through BookFinder, but be careful to buy the required editions (e.g. the 2003 Penguin Classics of Sterne).
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