Australian booktrade history
Wallace Kirsop
12 points
* 2 hours per week
* First semester
* Clayton
Objectives At the completion of this subject students should understand the ways in which booktrade historians are now investigating the transmission of the written and printed word in colonial and contemporary Australia. They should also be aware of how the Australian experience fits into the wider English-speaking world of the last two centuries.
Synopsis The emphasis of this subject will fall on the Australian experience. Following the methods of physical bibliographers and the preoccupations of Annales-School historians of mentalities, some emphasis will be placed on technical aspects and on the international context of the Australian trade in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. After an introduction on the aims and ambitions of the new historians of books in the northern hemisphere, eg Robert Darnton, Henri-Jean Martin and Roger Chartier, various topics relevant to Australia from 1788 to the present will be studied through selected readings. Among the questions to be examined are the measurement of literacy, the organisation of the British and North American trade, consignments, the role of the newspaper office, the development of periodicals, wholesalers and publishers in colonial and post-colonial Australia, copyright and the Net Book Agreement, the rise of international conglomerates, the commercial circulating library and the reading experience. Comparisons will be made with other former British colonies, notably New Zealand and Canada.
Assessment Research essay: (6000 words): 60%
* Two class papers:
(1500-2000 words): 20% each
Preliminary reading
Febvre L and Martin H-J The coming of the book: The impact of printing 1450-1800 Verso Editions, 1984
Recommended texts
Borchardt D H and Kirsop W (eds) The book in Australia: Essays towards a cultural and social history Australian Reference Publications, 1988
Gaskell P A new introduction to bibliography St Paul's, 1995
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