Gender (Bibliographical Society of America)

June 17, 2022 Claire M. L. Bourne

In 2021, the Bibliographical Society of America graciously hosted a conversation about the intersection of typography (specifically, how typography was described, discussed, and understood to function culturally and politically) with discourses of race and gender in early modern England—and in our own moment.

The virtual roundtable covered how early modern typography—broadly construed as the design and disposition of type on paper and within the bounds of the book—was anything but a neutral container for the publication of early modern writing.

VIDEO: Wing Foundation Lecture on the History of the Book (Newberry Library)

June 16, 2022 Claire M. L. Bourne

I was honored to deliver the Wing Foundation Lecture on the History of the Book at the Newberry Library on March 3, 2022. The event took place in person after two years of virtual events. I’m grateful to Jill Gage, Custodian of the John M. Wing Foundation on the History of Printing, for the invitation to speak about some new ideas around my next book project, “Accidental Shakespeare,” and to the staff at the Newberry for supporting this program.

OUT NOW! Typographies of Performance in Early Modern England

June 16, 2022 Claire M. L. Bourne

My first monograph Typographies of Performance in Early Modern England was published by Oxford University Press in 2020.

It is the first book-length study of early modern English playbook typography and tells a new history of drama from the period by considering the page designs of plays by Shakespeare and others printed between the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century. It argues that typography, broadly conceived as the disposition of type on the page, was used creatively by printers, publishers, playwrights, and other agents of the book trade to make the effects of theatricality—from the most basic (textually articulating a change in speaker) to the more complex (registering the kinesis of bodies on stage—intelligible on the page.

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