How to Look at Books:
Objects, Systems, Sequences, Series, and Constellations
Um, you had me at 'hello.'
Although I am not a bibliographer, nor even exactly a librarian, nor am I in school any longer, I'm really glad I nerded out and made it to this talk. I heard two men discussing the talk afterwards, as we lined up to leave the library, and one kept saying to the other that it was a "virtuoso performance!" which is a bit much. But in fact true in this case. So many librarian/academic/techie types are TERRIBLE public speakers, which is a fact I had to just start accepting (... in contrast to my previous life as a writer/MFA student, attending readings and literary events regularly).
First, it is probably important to note that Michael Suarez is not just an academic, book-ish person; he is a poet, editor, curator, English professor, director of the Rare Book School, has like four master degrees and a PhD, and is a Jesuit PRIEST. What? Anyways, he is an excellent and compelling public speaker.
He was ostensibly discussing a "fully engraved" version of the works of Horace produced by John Pine in the 1730s (something like this, I imagine) but really who cares? It was dazzling.
The gist is that standard bibliographic analysis has no way of approaching such a work, since it is essentially unique and can't be described in terms of edition, issue, impression, or state. Here's just a few of the random notes typed furiously into my phone while he spoke:
This last quote, which was the closing presentation slide, is something Suarez has apparently discussed elsewhere. He elaborates on its meaning (among other things) in the closing plenary address for the 2012 RBMS Preconference, audio-recorded and available here (Suarez begins speaking around the 43min mark). Also, further development of the Book-As-Body-As-Relic idea, and this definition of the Library: it is about the Subject-Object Relationship, about the interaction between subjects and objects, a site for the construction of subjectivities and the mediation of objects. (!!!!!)
Although I am not a bibliographer, nor even exactly a librarian, nor am I in school any longer, I'm really glad I nerded out and made it to this talk. I heard two men discussing the talk afterwards, as we lined up to leave the library, and one kept saying to the other that it was a "virtuoso performance!" which is a bit much. But in fact true in this case. So many librarian/academic/techie types are TERRIBLE public speakers, which is a fact I had to just start accepting (... in contrast to my previous life as a writer/MFA student, attending readings and literary events regularly).
First, it is probably important to note that Michael Suarez is not just an academic, book-ish person; he is a poet, editor, curator, English professor, director of the Rare Book School, has like four master degrees and a PhD, and is a Jesuit PRIEST. What? Anyways, he is an excellent and compelling public speaker.
He was ostensibly discussing a "fully engraved" version of the works of Horace produced by John Pine in the 1730s (something like this, I imagine) but really who cares? It was dazzling.
The gist is that standard bibliographic analysis has no way of approaching such a work, since it is essentially unique and can't be described in terms of edition, issue, impression, or state. Here's just a few of the random notes typed furiously into my phone while he spoke:
"the remit of bibliographical inquiry is: how did this book come to be as it is?"
"our historical knowledge will always be limited by the questions we ask."
in German, there is a distinction between the two words erklären and verstehen — one verb describes a causal explanation of events and one describes an interpretive understanding... so how do we get to the state of verstehen?
the word made flesh:
the library = the church
the reliquary = the book
tradition of printing/reprinting as "vehicle for the display of virtuosity" and creation of nationalist sentiment... display of gratuitous consumption also.
book production has always taken place in a "constellation" of craftsmen and artisans, a whole community (economics)
our goal is "intellectual humility" !!!
Shelley —"we must learn to imagine what we know"
This last quote, which was the closing presentation slide, is something Suarez has apparently discussed elsewhere. He elaborates on its meaning (among other things) in the closing plenary address for the 2012 RBMS Preconference, audio-recorded and available here (Suarez begins speaking around the 43min mark). Also, further development of the Book-As-Body-As-Relic idea, and this definition of the Library: it is about the Subject-Object Relationship, about the interaction between subjects and objects, a site for the construction of subjectivities and the mediation of objects. (!!!!!)
