Summer Seminar in the History of the Book

A signature program at AAS since 1985, the annual PHBAC seminars have gathered instructors and participants at the Society, putting them in touch with the AAS collections, the curatorial staff, and, just as importantly, with one another. The seminars have investigated topics such as Indigenous book history, nineteenth-century African American print culture, material religion, the economics of printing and publishing, the American Revolution, and hemispheric, and multilingual approaches to the book in the Americas. The seminars are often led by two co-instructors. Past seminar leaders include Derrick Spires and Benjamin Fagan, Kirsten Silva Gruesz and Anna Brickhouse, Lara Langer Cohen and Jordan Alexander Stein, Meredith McGill and Lisa Gitelman, Scott Casper and Jeff Groves, and Peter Stallybrass, and Michael Warner.

Year Presenter or Co-leaders Title
2025 Jordan Alexander Stein , Greta LaFleur Sex, Gender, and Print
2024 Rodrigo Lazo , Patrick Erben Comparative Migrations and Multilingual Cultures of Print
2023 Christopher Allison , Sonia Hazard Material Religion: Objects, Images, Books
2022 Derrick R. Spires , Benjamin Fagan Black Print, Black Activism, Black Study
2017 Anna Brickhouse , Kirsten Silva Gruesz Other Languages, Other Americas
2016 Michael B. Winship Subscription Publishing in America
2015 Patricia A. Crain Reading Children
2014 David Brewer , Lynn Festa Books in the Larger World of Objects
2013 Phillip Round Indigenous Cultures of Print in Early America
2012 Lara Langer Cohen , Jordan Alexander Stein African American Cultures of Print
2011 Edward J. Larkin , Philip B. Gould Encountering Revolution: Print Culture, Politics, and the British American Loyalists
2010 Jeannine M. DeLombard , Lloyd P. Pratt The Global American South and Early American Print Culture
2009 Lisa L. Gitelman , Meredith L. McGill Book History and Media History
2008 David Paul Nord , John Nerone The Newspaper and the Culture of Print in the Early American Republic
2007 Wayne S. Franklin , Jeffrey B. Walker , Lance E. Schachterle Re-Reading the Early Republic: From Crevecoeur to Cooper
2006 Leah Price , Jay Fliegelman Books and Their Readers to 1800 and Beyond
2005 Peter B. Stallybrass , Michael D. Warner Publishing God: Printing, Preaching, and Reading in Eighteenth-Century America
2004 Philip F. Gura , James N. Green , Eliza Richards Enriching American Studies Scholarship through the History of the Book
2003 Barbara A. Hochman , David Stewart Reading and Everyday Life: Books, Texts, Histories
2002 Louise L. Stevenson Books in American Lives, 1830-1890
2001 Louis P. Masur , Georgia Brady Barnhill Using Graphic Arts as Primary Sources
2000 Scott E. Casper , Jeffrey D. Groves Teaching the History of the Book
1999 Ann V. Fabian Telling Lives, Telling Lies?: Biography, Autobiography, and Personal Narrative
1998 David D. Hall Readers, Writers, and the Book Trades in Early America
1997 Joan Shelley Rubin , Meredith L. McGill Getting into Print
1995 William Pusey Barlow Jr. The Business of Publishing: Reading Financial Records as a source for the History of the Book
1995 Mary C. Kelley Reading Culture, Reading Books
1994 William J. Gilmore-Lehne Regional Cultures of the Book, 1783-1861
1994 Michael B. Winship Critical Methods in Bibliography and the History of the Book in the United States
1993 Michael B. Winship Critical Methods in Bibliography and the History of the Book in the United States
1992 Michael B. Winship Critical Methods in the History of the Book in the United States
1992 Michael B. Winship Bibliographical Approaches to the Nineteenth-Century Book in the United States
1991 William Moffett Iconography and the Culture of the Book
1990 David S. Reynolds , Michael B. Winship The American Renaissance: Critical and Bibliographical Perspectives
1989 David Watters "Work in Progress" Conference
1988 David D. Hall The Politics of Reading, Writing, and Publishing in Nineteenth-Century America
1986 Stephen Botein The American Common Reader: Printing, Entrepreneurship, and Cultural Change, 1759-1840
1985 Stephen Botein The Making of Literate America: Diffusion of Culture Based on Printing, 1759-1850