New article: Paper tools

Posted by mdever on April 22, 2018 in archival research, article, literary heritage, manuscripts, materiality, paper

Boris Jardine’s article, “State of the Field: Paper Tools” in Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science (Volume 64, August 2017, Pages 53-63) makes interesting reading for those concerned with questions of paper and materiality. Jardine asks whether scholars across diverse fields are talking about the same thing ‘when they talk of paper, its qualities, affordances and limitations’.  He considers how recent engagements with paper feature across the history of science, book history, history of information, and literary history. He picks up on the point that paper can be both visible and invisible to us and that this quality might ultimately be an important object of investigation.

Fig. 1 from the article. Pages from a French psalter (c.1525–30) annotated by Queen Elizabeth I. Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II 2017.