15th ANNUAL BRESLAUER LECTURE: Race, Ethnicity, Type: Typography and Ethnobibliography

Ethnobibliography has been at the center of Jesse R. Erickson’s study of the book as an object for nearly a decade. Introduced by Houghton Library cataloger, Hugh Amory (1930–2001), in the late 1990s as a new avenue for bibliographical research, Erickson has shifted its methodological parameters to encompass a range of different and at times countervailing ideas. Looking at the intersection, then, between the social construction of race and ethnicity and the many typefaces of alphabetic textuality, this talk will move us through the broad historical strokes of typographical development as both a passive and an interactive instrument of ethnic identity formation. The broader overview will help situate historically-rooted typographical letterforms as an indelible feature of contemporary graphic design. An exposition on the rationale underpinning the more specific case studies Erickson has explored in previous and ongoing projects, this talk will elucidate the overall framing for seeing typographic design as deeply interwoven with the concept of ethnos.

Jesse R. Erickson is the Astor Curator of Printed Books and Bindings at the Morgan Library & Museum. Along with Sarah Werner, he is coeditor of the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. He worked previously in a joint appointment as Coordinator of Special Collections and Digital Humanities and Assistant Professor in the Department of English in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Delaware. And he has served as the Vice President for Programs for the American Printing History Association, on the Board of Directors for the Center for Book Arts in New York City, and on the editorial boards of the University of Delaware Press and Birmingham City University Centre for Printing History and Culture’s journal, Publishing History. His research specializations are in ethnobibliography, alternative printing, Black print culture, and the transnational publishing history of the works of the Victorian period author Ouida (1839–1908).

FREE, IN PERSON, and OPEN TO ALL. Reception to follow.

To register for the ZOOM format, click here.

April 6, 2023 3:00 pm Room 111, SEIS (GSEIS) Building