The History of Text Technologies is a series of workshops to be held in the Vitale II Lab for Book History and Digital Humanities during the 2026-2027 academic year.
What many and varied ways have humans used to write over the years? Through a series of workshops, scheduled over the 2026-2027 academic year, we will investigate this question. Over the course of the year we will look at books from the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts, and we'll make some of our own.
The workshops will all be held in the Vitale II Lab for Digital Humanities and Book History (Van Pelt 623, in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts).
Come and make your own illuminated initial on parchment, using gold leaf and paint!
Come write with quills, on paper and parchment!
Examine representations of automata, mechanical devices, computational objects, humanoid robotic sentience, cryptography, and more, in relation to gender, labor, multilingualism, and environmentalism.
Come learn about what texts work better as rolls, which work better as books, and why.
Come print some text on our Book Beetle tabletop press.
Come learn about how you can "lock" your notes so only your friends can read them!
