HnFinArt: Books: A Historical Exploration

  • UH 210
  • Teacher: Amy Pirkle
  • Term: spring 2020
  • Credits: 3

This studio-oriented course will explore the history, aesthetics, and techniques of hand bookbinding. We will examine the book’s transition from the scroll, to the accordion, to the more recognizable codex form, and the evolution of writing surfaces from papyrus to parchment to paper. The class will explore fundamental elements of bookbinding, allowing students to discover a variety of book structures and develop basic hand skills. Throughout the semester, students will be assigned readings over the history of the book. Most class days will begin with a discussion of the assigned reading or a binding demonstration and a work session on that particular binding structure.
Although the majority of the course grade will come from historical bindings that the students produce in class, students will also write a final research paper over the history of the book.