This course investigates how English Renaissance literature was practically, creatively, and intellectually shaped by the printing press. This is a “maker” course in which students work primarily through hands-on learning of Renaissance printing practices, using a replica of a Gutenberg-style (“pull”) printing press.

After first surveying the history of printing (including a visit to the Library’s Special Collections of rare books and manuscripts), students can explore the challenges of making a Renaissance manuscript into a printed artifact; experiment with rendering the spirit of a Renaissance literary movement through their own printing; or choose their own (or another) work of creative writing to print.

The goal will be to learn how English Renaissance printing press practices matter in understanding Renaissance literature and also how choices embodied in the printing act create new meanings in any creative writing. At the end of the course, students will take away a printed artifact of creative writing that they themselves creatively made.

(Note: This is one of two instances of English 159. Students can choose to take the same course on Tuesdays and Thursdays either at 1:00-2:50 or 3:00-4:50)