English Department Book Studio

Welcome to the Book Studio webpage. Since 2020, the Book Studio has been a creative space for exploring the materiality of the book. As Josef Berry has stated in Teaching the History of the Book: “Time spent working with letterforms, illustration, and page building, as well as printing and binding techniques, immerses students in the story of the book” (Berry 2023, 108). Through a range of different workshops and events, we offer staff and students the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in the areas of binding, paper marbling, printing, and more.

For information on upcoming workshops hosted by the Book Studio, please register on the Book Studies mailing list or follow us on Instagram.

Book Studio workshops in the first half of 2025 are generously supported by the Universitätsgesellschaft.

Past workshops (selection)

Erasure poetry, co-organized with Satura (2025)

“Erasure poetry, also known as blackout poetry, is a form of found poetry wherein a poet takes an existing text and erases, blacks out, or otherwise obscures a large portion of the text, creating a wholly new work from what remains” (Academy of American Poets). Similar to how a palimpsest shows evidence of multiple layers of use, erasure poetry differs in that poets intentionally use erasure to bring texts into conversation. For this workshop, students were inspired by the theme of Satura volume 7: Deformed.

Origami Bottari books with Simon Morris of Inscription (2024)

Inspired by the Korean artist Kimsooja and her Bottari (‘bundles’) sculptures, Simon Morris used origami folding techniques to guide students in creating their own Bottari books. Using artwork featured in Inscription: The Journal of Material Text – Theory, Practice, History, and made up of many folded sheets of paper, the sculptural Bottari books artistically and playfully engaged with ways books can be seen as art objects and vessels.

Handlettering with Annika Klempel (2024)

Decorated Initials, from manuscripts to twentieth-century little magazines (2022)

Papermaking (2022)

Pamphlet construction, with text from Mina Loy (2021)

Hands-on in the classroom

Rn Image Picker Lib Temp 9231d602-fe34-4dd7-9912-bbaf02ae77be — © C. Norrick-Rühl

Book and publishing studies scholars have underscored the importance of “experiential learning” (Maruca 2023, 88). In our teaching, we endeavor to bring material practice into conversation with historical context.
Zine Library

Zine Library

Zines are “self-published, do-it-yourself (DIY) booklets made of inexpensive materials and which typically address topics located outside of the mainstream” (Barth 2021, 13). Created, distributed, and read in ways that differ from—and often comment on—commercial publishing, zines are accessible and creative way to engage with such topics as self-publishing and theories of publishing. Since 2020, the Book Studio has offered a number of zine workshops (for example, with Dr. Louisa Preston). In addition to these workshops, students can browse and add their own zines to the Minizine Library, found on the second floor of the English Department Library.