Places, spaces and the printing press: imprinting regional identities

BOOKING IS OPEN for a free one-day conference on the theme of

Places, spaces and the printing press: imprinting regional identities

Jointly organised by the Centre for Printing History and Culture and the National and University Library, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Central European Standard Time (CEST)

The conference theme

‘Place’ is a physical entity and relates to specific locations—geographical or architectural—where particular activities are conducted. ‘Space’, on the other hand, is abstract; it is the intellectual, cultural and experiential environment in which individuals or groups congregate and collaborate. Place and space are significant to the progress of all trades, but, with the exception of the James Raven’s Bookscape: geographies of printing and publishing in London, these concepts have generally been overlooked when it comes to printing and the products of the press. Place and space are, however, instrumental to the creation of a printed vernacular aesthetic; important elements in dictating print’s local working practices and the development of trade specialisms; crucial to facilitating print’s relations with other industries; fundamental to forging connections between people both inside and outside the trade; and central to the transfer of knowledge, materials and techniques necessary for technological advancement. The purpose of this conference is, therefore, to consider how the places and spaces associated with printing may have affected the development of the press and its products; and, conversely, how the press and its products may have helped shape the places it occupied and assisted in the creation of regional identity. The conference will look at the subject from multiple perspectives including, but not limited to aesthetics, culture, design, distribution, technology, trade networks, and the social and economic aspects of regional printing. It will cover printing and print in all regions, all eras and all genres including books, magazines, newspapers, and printed ephemera.

Provisional programme and speakers

Welcome | 09:00-09:30

Panel 1 | 09:30-10:30

  • Fiona Black, Methods and frameworks for exploring print culture’s places and spaces

  • Amy Lidster, Inscribing identity: the overlooked significance of the imprint in early modern texts

  • Laura Onions, Printing otherwise: printing press as boundary object

  • Question time

10:25-10:30 | comfort break / show films

Panel 2 | 10:30-11:25

  • Kirsteen MacKenzie, Actions rather than words: classical presbyterianism in the north-west of England and the printing press c.1647-1660

  • Joe Saunders, Environments of the English print trade c.1600-41, evidence from wills

  • Marija Klobčar, Singing at fairs: broadsides in Slovenian lands

  • Question time

11:25-11:30 | comfort break / show films

Panel 3 | 11:30-12:25

  • Debbie Baishya, The printing press in the nineteenth century and Assamese linguistic regionalism

  • Swati Moitra, Shaping the ‘Neighbourhood of Books’: the Sanskrit Press and the making of Calcutta’s College Street

  • Kanu Priya Dhingra, The Pirates of Daryaganj Sunday Book Market

  • Question time

12:25-1330 | Lunch break

Panel 4 | 13:30-14:25

  • Persida Lazarevic, Out of space, out of time: Venetian Greek typography with Illyrian characters

  • Dermot McGuinne, Towards a typographic national identity in Ireland

  • Jade Piaia, Priscila Farias, Typographia Hennies Irmãos: printing for migrating cultures in São Paulo city

  • Question time

14:25-14:30 | comfort break / show films

Panel 5 | 14:30-15:25

  • Renata Šolar, Map as expression of regional identity: Ducatus Carnioliae Tabula Chorographica by Janez Disma Florjančič, 1744

  • Barry McKay, Printing for a small northern town: Books for Whitehaven in the eighteenth century.

  • Irena Eiselt, ‘Greetings from Bled’: picture postcards as a nineteenth-century mass communication media

  • Question time

15:25-15:30 | comfort break / show films

Panel 6 | 15:30-16:25

  • Andrew Walker, Pillars of the community? housing the English local and regional newspaper in the townscape, c. 1850-1980

  • Andrew Jackson, The 1918-19 ‘pandemic’, the provincial press and place: ‘influenza column’ content

  • Andrew Hobbs, How a Victorian newspaper lost its local touch: Anthony Hewitson’s Preston Chronicle, 1868-90

  • Question time

16:25-16:30 | comfort break / show films

Panel 7 | 16:30-17:25

  • Patrick Goossens, Columbian versus Albion, the fight of dragons and dolphins

  • Luciana Mattar & Marcos Braga, Book design in independent publishers from São Paulo, Brazil

  • J. P. Ascher, The Influence of desktop publishing on office spaces from SGML to AirSpace

  • Question time

17:25-17:30 | conclusion