Announcing Presswork Symposium “Making & Teaching: Printing Technologies at Work”

Rare Book School is pleased to announce a free, public symposium jointly sponsored with the UVA Library, the McIntire Department of Art, and Virginia Humanities as part of Presswork, a project funded by The Jefferson Trust, an initiative of UVA’s Alumni Association. “Making & Teaching: Printing Technologies at Work” will be held at UVA on Monday, 25 March 2019.

The first half of the symposium will feature a series of overlapping, hands-on demonstrations with specialized printing equipment, including a recently commissioned facsimile eighteenth-century French rolling press, as well as a hand-made facsimile type mold from the same period, built using schematic plans from Diderot’s Encyclopédie. Participants will have an opportunity to see these machines and tools demonstrated, as well as speak with the individuals who made them—and also try their own hand at printing.

The second half of the symposium will feature a roundtable discussion exploring how hands-on teaching with facsimile machines and legacy equipment continues to influence cutting-edge  scholarly research with books, prints, ephemera, and related documents. Guest speakers will explore issues including: how printing technologies shed light on textual instability; how bibliography’s traditional focus on letterpress printing has limited understandings of scientific illustration (primarily produced using intaglio techniques); and how traditional bibliographical methods for studying hand-press materials can be applied to twentieth-century media.

The day will conclude with a keynote delivered by Amos Kennedy, who will speak on community printing, or the importance of bringing the craft of printing to broader publics. Mr. Kennedy will discuss insights and strategies for reaching out to community members through various venues, including public schools and libraries.

A reception will follow.

Please see the event webpage for more information and full schedule.