ARTH 198 - Circulating Knowledge: The Printing Press to Wikipedia

Today, Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites in the world and a primary source of information for people across the globe. An unlikely forerunner, the printing press, developed in 15th-century Europe, resulted in an explosion of prints and illustrated books that similarly revolutionized European knowledge and circulated information more prolifically than ever possible before. This course will survey the history of print and printed images and their role in circulating knowledge from early woodblock printing in Asia, to the invention of the printing press and movable type in Renaissance Europe, to modern lithography, and the current impact of digital culture on print. Throughout, we will foreground discussions of access to knowledge, the democratization of knowledge, and the circulation of information. Despite Wikipedia’s popularity, the vast majority of its articles are written and edited by men who are largely from European and American contexts. Likewise, historically, the production of knowledge in print has been dominated by elite men. We will ask how gender, class, and race intersect with the production, circulation, and consumption of knowledge in printed form in the past and now. This class will include several opportunities to study prints and printed books in person at various local and nearby collections.

Credits 1

Notes
Cross-referenced with WGS 198.

Foundation
Beyond the West