It has attracted academics from departments of history, literature, library science, sociology, economics, art history, education, classics, communications, journalism, religion, and even anthropology. T he field also has a large following outside the university among publishing professionals, book collectors, bibliographers, authors, and librarians. In fact, as an interdisciplinary movement, book history has been dramatically energizing more established fields of study. Many literature professors are finding that book history provides a rigorous and empirical approach to such issues as reader response, canon formation, and the politics of literary criticism. Classicists are focusing on such questions as the Roman book trade and literacy in Periclean Athens.
Musicologists now see the importance of producing their own publishing histories.
Library historians, once consigned to the margins of academia, are now moving into the mainstream of social and cultural history, exploring the role of librarians in shaping reading tastes, assimilating immigrants, censorship, racial segregation, prisons, and even the Nazi Holocaust. Even some computer scientists, like Edward Tenner at Princeton, see their work in book history as part of a larger unified field of the history of information. One of the courses may be a cognate course from history, literature, or other appropriate fields. Back to Menu Language Requirements Modern foreign language preparation is expected of all applicants to the Caspersen School. All candidates for the M.A. degree must demonstrate their competence by examination.