This seminar will introduce students to the flourishing print culture of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, including techniques of print-making, and the marketing and consumption of prints and illustrated books. An extraordinary opportunity to study original materials has been made available through a loan to Hatcher Library of rare prints and color-plate books from a private collection. Students will be able to work directly with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century travel literature, costume books, fashion plates, illustrated periodicals published mainly in Great Britain and France. These materials can help us to explore some crucial aspects of an emerging European modernity: performative identities, shifting gender roles, social mobility, information exchange, and the aesthetics of commercialism.

Specialists on topics such as travel albums, printing techniques, illustration, and caricature will present guest lectures. Students will select objects to research (such as a set of prints, or an illustrated journal) for a series of short writing assignments, oral presentations, and a final paper.

Permission of instructor required. Preference will be given half of the available places to students with some reading knowledge of French.

Estimated cost of materials: $50 - $100.

HISTART Categories for Concentration Distributions: 4. Modern and contemporary, D. Europe and the US.