COP 3 PROPOSAL SUB QUESTIONS

1. What research needs to be undertaken into the general and specific contexts of your practice?

Try to answer this question by detailing any historical, political, social, cultural, technological, or other contextual determining factors that frame or lie „behind‟ your chosen subject and, in a nut shell, make it what it is. Thinking about this question should allow you to understand your subject in a deeper way. This may involve asking questions like:

What historical events have had a significant impact on your chosen subject? How? (imperialism, slavery, colonialism, war, diaspoara, natural disaster, human geography etc.)

• The Renaissance
• Reformation
• The age of enlightenment
• Scientific Revolution
• The basis for modern knowledge based economy
• The mass spread of learning
  

What political events are significant to your chosen subject? (legislation, political ideologies, political systems, revolutions etc.)

Netherlands Print Rebellion - shaped print culture - got rid of censorship of information.
Print - Also manipulates the masses - propaganda and the war.
Political Campaigns.

What cultural attitudes inform my subject?

Print is something which affects pretty much every culture and has i someway sculpted how it is today. 
Print made it easy for lay audiences to gain knowledge splitting the cultural barrier between the rich sholars and the working men. This had a huge impact on the human race resulting in a mass awakening, with information becoming more and more readily available on political matters, scientific and many other topics.

Is my subject culturally specific, and if so, how?

Not particularly

What are the economic factors that influence my chosen subject?

Print has made the economy boom, more and more people were becoming educated which in turn helped society change and develop, there was also the money being made from the mass production of books and also the new jobs needed to produce the amount of printed material.

The rapid economic and socio-cultural development of late medieval society in Europe created favorable intellectual and technological conditions for Gutenberg's invention: the entrepreneurial spirit of emerging capitalism increasingly made its impact on medieval modes of production, fostering economic thinking and improving the efficiency of traditional work-processes. The sharp rise of medieval learning and literacy amongst the middle class led to an increased demand for books which the time-consuming hand-copying method fell far short of accommodating

Is my chosen subject related to any technological advances in society?

Probably the biggest technological advancement since the invention of the wheel which has changed the world drastically.


The invention of the Gutenberg Press has influenced every printed or digital medium we have today. Including the internet.


What is the specific history of my subject and how has it developed over time?

Who are the key figures within my chosen subject? (This may include makers, practitioners, writers or thinkers.)

Johannes Gutenberg in 1450
Nicolas Jenson 1430-80
Elizabeth Eisenstein
Marshall McLuhan 

2. What approach(es) will you take and what processes, methods, materials and tools are to be involved in research into your practice?

Try to answer this question by thinking about how you will actually undertake your research. One aspect of this question is concerned with methodologies (see below) but also, try to think about the possibilities of „thinking through doing‟ and insights that can be gained through creative experiment or making.

Firstly, try to think about what overall methodological approach you will take for this study. The exact methodology that you will use will be unique to your particular project and you should discuss this carefully with one of your tutors. The methodology that you choose will have a great impact on your study and, as such, it is quite important to consider this early in the process. Put another way, the types of answers that you ask will determine the types of answers that you get.

You will have encountered some methodological approaches during your Level 4 and 5 study. For example, Historical, sociological, semiotic, psychological, feminist, Marxist, postcolonial, discourse analysis and gender studies are some, but by no means all, of the examples of theoretical methodologies that you may wish to apply to your research. For practical work, some of these may be relevant also but you should also consider more practically oriented methodologies such as hermeneutics, heuristics, empirical investigation, reflective practice (Schön) and data collection. Give the names of specific writers or theorists of particular relevance.
In addition, perhaps consider the following questions about your practice

 
What is the relation between the techniques that you use in your practice to other techniques in the sector?

I have a keen interest in print already and have been experimenting with different printing processes over the past 2 years. I am using this module as a chance to further my knowledge into something I am enjoying learning about. There are also other techniques that I will research into and experiment with.


How does changing the materials that you use affect your practice? What processes of creative practice are essential or integral?
 
Obviously when it comes to print there are numerous materials that you can work with and with different materials comes different processes. I will experiment printing on different materials at some point. As I'm sure I could use more interesting formats than paper. I will look at letter press and screen printing initially and see where my research takes me.


What factors could disrupt your creative practice? What are the barriers to creative practice? 

If I don;t stay on top of my time management this is something that could become a barrier. Traditional Printing is a long process which takes allot of concentration and planning. If I let the workload get on top of me I might find that this could cause my project to fail.

3. What preparation or investigations do you need to undertake for your creative practice to take place?

This section aims to get you thinking about the sort of techniques or methods that you need to employ to get the research process started. Immediate responses to this question will be answers like „find out information on...‟, „come up with ideas about...‟ or, even more abstractly, „Research...‟

Try to take these questions to the next level. Exactly how will you „find out information on...‟? How will you come up with ideas about...‟? How will you „research‟? Why?

Asking the question „how will I research?‟ might even involve having to undertake more research into the process of researching itself. For example, knowing that investigating your subject you will have to write a 9,000 word dissertation or case study might mean that you have to research what a 9,000 word dissertation or case study actually is, and how it is constructed.

Alternatively, an investigation into sustainable printing inks might involve research into how to source materials or pigments.

Other factors that you might consider here are:

What needs Researching?

Some of the Processes:
 
Letter Press
Wood Block Printing
Screen Printing
Lithography
Rotogravure
Ink Jet Printing

Effects print had on the modern Era
What print Influenced
The bad Side of print 
Capitalism

 

What techniques do I use to research? 

Contact print factorys
Design Studios
Museum Visit
Talks
Network Online

How can I improve my research skills? 

Need Primary & Secondary Research

Primary -  research collected be me.

Secondary Research - making use of the research and findings of others for corroboration, disagreement, triangulation and theoretical underpinning.

 

Research Methods

• Visual practice, experiment, interest & inquiry ( research and critical diaries)
• Questionnaires ( qualitative and quantitative ?   - always do a draft questionnaire and analyze results.
• Interviews - send the interview over first, so they have an idea of what they can say.
• Case Study - get permission.
• Site Visits

Literature Search 1

• Books
• Journals
• Websites / Blogs / On-Line Forums
• Videos / DVD's
• Cd's / Tape Cassettes / Vinyl Recordings
• TV / Radio
• Newspapers / Maps / Reports
• Printed Ephemera

Literature Research 2

•  Knowing where to look most effectively
• Effective use of catalogues

- Narrowing and broadening search terms
- Using related terms
- Browsing using Dewey Decimal Classification

• Use of contents page and index.

BOOK SEARCH

• www.library.leeds-art.ac.uk
• Leeds Met - www.leedsmet.ac.uk/lis 
• University of Leeds (SCONUL) 
• The British Library in Boston Spa www.bl.uk
• COPAC - combined library search www.copac.ac.uk

JOURNAL SEARCH

• Infotrac - online magazine article store
• JSTOR - only available in college.
• Artfull Text

INTERNET SEARCH

• Athens
• a store of password protected sites,
• each student who wishes to access this site will need to ask the librarian.
• Google Scholar

How do I generate ideas?

Brainstorming
Mini CritsSketches
Get Inspired
Look at Others Work




4. What research do you need to undertake regarding who your creativity is for?
 
This section is perhaps slightly more important than the last, but certainly no less important. It is basically asking you to consider who the audience for your study is.

The default answer to this question, from a large percentage of students, will no doubt be that “it is for the University! I am required to do this as part of my degree and I damn well want good marks for doing it! How do I get a 1st?”. Whilst there is definitely something in this statement that I have sympathy with, it is hoped that, as a Level 6 student, you are taking much more ownership of your research than this. Furthermore, as emerging practitioners, we would hope that your Level 6 research is significantly more „outward facing‟ than this. Try to consider which professional sectors your research might possibly be aimed at, how they might perceive it and, ultimately, how this audience might shape or change the direction or presentation of your research.
Questions to consider in this section might include:

What specific organisations could use your research and how?
 
Schools
Designers
People Interested in Print
Readers
Historians
People who like tactile products.


What are the specific „cultural codes‟ of the audience in question?

Use an educational tone of voice which is informative. For something that will be heavily infomrative it will be necsasery to produce it in a style which can be viewed in an academic way.

Do specific audiences place limits on your research in anyway?

No

Are there elements of collaboration in your research?

No

IMPACT OF GUTENBERG PRESS

Quantitative aspects

 

European output of books printed by movable type from ca. 1450 to 1800

 

It is estimated that following the innovation of Gutenberg's printing press, the European book output rose from a few million to around one billion copies within a span of less than four centuries.

Religious impact

Samuel Hartlib, who was exiled in Britain and enthusiastic about social and cultural reforms, wrote in 1641 that "the art of printing will so spread knowledge that the common people, knowing their own rights and liberties, will not be governed by way of oppression".Both churchmen and governments were concerned that print allowed readers, eventually including those from all classes of society, to study religious texts and politically sensitive issues by themselves, instead of having their thinking mediated by the religious and political authorities.

Replica of the Gutenberg press at the International Printing Museum in Carson, California

 

In the Muslim world, printing, especially in Arabic or Turkish, was strongly opposed throughout the early modern period, though sometimes, printing in Hebrew was permitted. Muslim countries have been regarded as forming a consistent barrier to the passage of printing from China to the West. According to an imperial ambassador to Istanbul in the middle of the sixteenth century, it was a sin for the Turks to print religious books. In 1515, Sultan Selim I issued a decree under which the practice of printing would be punishable by death.^{[citation needed]} At the end of the sixteenth century, Sultan Murad III permitted the sale of non-religious printed books in Arabic characters, yet the majority were imported from Italy.

Jews were banned from German printing guilds; as a result Hebrew printing sprang up in Italy, beginning in 1470 in Rome, then spreading to other cities including Bari, Pisa, Livorno, and Mantua. Local rulers had the authority to grant or revoke licenses to publish Hebrew books,and many of those printed during this period carry the words 'con licenza de superiori' (indicating their printing having been licensed by the censor) on their title pages.

It was thought that the introduction of the printing medium 'would strengthen religion and enhance the power of monarchs.' The majority of books were of a religious nature, with the church and crown regulating the content. The consequences of printing 'wrong' material were extreme. Meyrowitz^[18] used the example of William Carter who in 1584 printed a pro-Catholic pamphlet in Protestant-dominated England. The consequence of his action was hanging.

The widespread distribution of the Bible 'had a revolutionary impact, because it decreased the power of the Catholic Church as the prime possessor and interpretor of God's word.'

Social impact

Print gave a broader range of readers access to knowledge and enabled later generations to build directly on the intellectual achievements of earlier ones without the changes arising within verbal traditions. Print, according to Acton in his lecture On the Study of History (1895), gave "assurance that the work of the Renaissance would last, that what was written would be accessible to all, that such an occultation of knowledge and ideas as had depressed the Middle Ages would never recur, that not an idea would be lost".^[16]

Bookprinting in the 15th century

Print was instrumental in changing the nature of reading within society.

Elizabeth Eisenstein identifies two long term effects of the invention of printing. She claims that print created a sustained and uniform reference for knowledge as well as allowing for comparison between incompatible views. (Eisenstein in Briggs and Burke, 2002: p21)

Asa Briggs and Peter Burke identify five kinds of reading that developed in relation to the introduction of print:

1. Critical reading: due to the fact that texts finally became accessible to the general population, critical reading emerged because people were given the option to form their own opinions on texts
2. Dangerous Reading: reading was seen as a dangerous pursuit because it was considered rebellious and unsociable especially in the case of women, because reading could stir up dangerous emotions such as love and that if women could read, they could read love notes
3. Creative reading: printing allowed people to read texts and interpret them creatively, often in very different ways than the author intended
4. Extensive Reading: print allowed for a wide range of texts to become available, thus, previous methods of intensive reading of texts from start to finish, began to change and with texts being readily available, people began reading on particular topics or chapters, allowing for much more extensive reading on a wider range of topics
5. Private reading: became linked to the rise of individualism because before print, reading was often a group event, where one person would read to a group of people and with print, literacy rose as did availability of texts, thus reading became a solitary pursuit

The invention of printing also changed the occupational structure of European cities. Printers emerged as a new group of artisans for whom literacy was essential, although the much more labour-intensive occupation of the scribe naturally declined. Proof-correcting arose as a new occupation, while a rise in the amount of booksellers and librarians naturally followed the explosion in the numbers of books.

The Unacknowledged Revolution essay - Shannon E. Duffy

Elizabeth L. Eisenstein. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early-Modern Europe. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. xxi + 794 pp. $54.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-521-29955-8.

Reviewed by Shannon E. Duffy (Department of History, University of Maryland-College Park)
Published on H-Ideas (June, 2000)

The Unacknowledged Revolution

 

[Note: This review is part of the H-Ideas Retrospective Reviews series. This series reviews books published during the twentieth century which have been deemed to be among the most important contributions to the field of intellectual history.]

Elizabeth Eisenstein's comprehensively-researched 1979 book is a study of the first century of printing, particularly the period from 1460 to 1480, when printing presses went from rare to common, and as a consequence changed the way knowledge was preserved and conveyed. It is primarily a work of synthesis, although Eisenstein displays a masterful knowledge of the relevant primary materials. Her goal is to show how intellectual and social reactions to the new print technology had long-term and frequently unintended consequences, and, as a result, why this period marked a crucial turning point in western history.

Eisenstein's thesis is that the capacity of printing to preserve knowledge and to allow the accumulation of information fundamentally changed the mentality of early modern readers, with repercussions that transformed Western society. Ancient and Medieval scribes had faced tremendous difficulties in preserving the knowledge that they already possessed, which, despite their best efforts, inevitably grew more corrupted and fragmented over time. With the establishment of printing presses, accumulation of knowledge was for the first time possible. Rather than spending most of their energies searching for scattered manuscripts and copying them, scholars could now focus their efforts on revision of these texts and the gathering of new data. New observations from a widely scattered readership could be included in subsequent editions. According to Eisenstein, the shift to printing reversed the whole orientation of attitudes towards learning. The passage of time no longer inevitably brought with it a lessening of knowledge. Furthermore, at the new print shops, scholars, artisans and translators from various nations and religions found themselves working together, and cooperating in a new, more cosmopolitan environment which encouraged questioning and individual achievement.

The book has three main sections. In the first section, Eisenstein explains why print culture represented such a fundamental break with the past. In the other two sections, she examines the impact of printing on the Renaissance and its revival of classical literature, the Protestant Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution. Eisenstein stresses the interrelated nature of cultural developments within these three areas of study, which she believes are too often kept separate by modern historians. She also emphasizes her belief that historians have underestimated the role of the printing press, due to their focus on its impact only as it pertained to the dissemination of "new" ideas.

In the first century of printing, much of the printers' output was the same inherited texts that scribal work had produced. But the most important feature was not that the literature was new, but rather than readers for the first time could see multiple texts together and compare them. The body of knowledge preserved by scribes was scattered and incomplete, with authorship of specific texts obscured, magical incantations intermixed with scientific observations, and classical literature interspersed with Christian writings. Under such circumstances, it was possible for manuscript readers to imagine that the past minds of antiquity had possessed a much more complete understanding of the world, which had been fragmented and degraded over time. During the first century of printing, the collection and revision of this scattered corpus was the primary goal for most scholars. The assumption, both with regard to biblical writings and to classical treatises on science, was that each revised work that further sorted out the jumbled legacy would help make this wisdom clearer. But revised editions of scripture, which took increasing advantage of the greater linguistic learning available in printed language dictionaries, revealed inconsistencies and ambiguities in the texts which could not be easily resolved. Laying inherited scientific works side by side for the first time also pointed up discrepancies and contradictions. At the same time, the new ability to convey maps, charts, and pictures in a uniform and permanent way meant that older theories in cartography, astronomy, anatomy, and botany could be checked against new observations.

The use of this new technology produced unexpected results. How the differing reactions to the changes brought about by printing shaped subsequent European society is most clearly seen in Eisenstein's extended discussion of the role print culture played in shaping religious debates before and after the Protestant Reformation. There had been many earlier heretical movements within the Catholic Church before Luther's posting of his 95 theses. But the dissemination and greater permanence of print culture allowed his challenge to have a much greater impact. Moreover, the competitive nature of the printing industry, which was driven by a desire for sales, provided a new, more public outlet for controversies, and insured that what began as a scholarly dispute between theologians gained an international audience. Reformation impulses and the printing industry fed off and accelerated one another in an age where religious materials were popular sellers.

Differing Catholic and Protestant attitudes towards print culture resulted in two widely divergent historical paths. In Protestant lands, approval of vernacular bibles led to encouragement of greater lay literacy and a closer tying of biblical lore with developing national cultures. In Eisenstein's view, the differences in Catholic and Protestant reactions to printing were not due solely to theological differences, or to Protestants being more enlightened or trusting of their congregations. Some individual Protestant leaders were hostile to the changes wrought by printing, particularly the wider dispersal of controversial books to lay audiences. But areas under Protestant control were generally less able to implement censorship of the presses than the more centralized governments of Catholic areas. One of the most important events in the shaping of early print culture was the successful rebellion of the Netherlands. In their small, semi-autonomous provinces, numerous printing presses sprang up that operated relatively free of censorship, and provided an outlet for authors, even within areas held by the Counter-Reformation. Books coming off the clandestine presses proved impossible for the Counter-Reformation to block, with significant impact for both religion and science.

While the main focus of The Printing Press is limited to a relatively small group of already-literate elites, Eisenstein believes that the changes which print culture brought to the early modern world eventually transformed Western society at large. By focusing on a fundamental shift in mentality, which came about due to a basic change in communication and collective memory, and the advent of uniform duplication, Eisenstein's book anticipates many areas of interest in recent intellectual history. Her conception of a cosmopolitan "Republic of Letters" created by the new printing technology that transcended national borders has been carried on by historians of the Enlightenment and eighteenth-century thought such as Dena Goodman.[1] Her emphasis on the need to look at the impact of the clandestine book trade operating on the periphery of the Catholic dynasties has also figured prominently in the works of Robert Darnton and Jack Censor, and in her own more recent work on eighteenth-century France.[2]

On the other hand, Eisenstein in 1992 expressed frustration that many of the artificial borders in intellectual history that she had tried to bridge in The Printing Press still dominated discussions of European development. Studies of Renaissance and early European print culture generally remain unrelated to work on the Enlightenment tradition and eighteenth-century thought.[3] Furthermore, while she applauded the recent interest in the production and dissemination of books, including the investigation of printed materials which were formerly considered too "low-brow" to merit academic interest, she remained dissatisfied with the continuing split between the history of ideas and the history of book publication. According to Eisenstein, recent work on the printing industry, such as that done by Robert Darnton and Roger Chartier, has greatly expanded practical knowledge of book production, but these studies generally treat books chiefly as a commodity, with little reference to the ideas they contain, or the views held by their propagators.[4]

Eisenstein's approach in The Printing Press still holds potential as a promising approach to some of the more vexing questions of European early modern history. While her interpretation idealizes somewhat the figure of the early printer and his print-shop, looking at the differing reactions to this new mode of knowledge dissemination as well as the individuals engaged in this new business continues to provide a concrete and challenging starting point for discussing the cultural and intellectual transformations of the early modern era. As she noted in her conclusion, "[t]o ask historians to search for elements which entered into the making of an indefinite 'modernity' seems somewhat futile. To consider the effects of a definite communications shift which entered into each of the movements under discussion seems more promising. Among other advantages, this approach offers a chance to uncover relationships which debates over modernity only serve to conceal" (684).

Notes

[1]. Dena Goodman, The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994).

[2]. Jack Censor, and Jeremy Popkin, eds., Press and Politics in Pre-Revolutionary France (Berkeley, Calf., 987); Robert Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), and The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995); Elizabeth Eisenstein, Grub Street Abroad: Aspects of the French Cosmopolitan Press from the Age of Louis XIV to the French Revolution (Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press, 1992).

[3]. Eisenstein, Grub Street Abroad, p. 2.

[4]. ibid., pp. 22-32. Among the works cited by Eisenstein are Robert Darnton, The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopedie 1775-1800 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1979), and The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982); and Roger Chartier, The Cultural Uses of Print in Early Modern France, tr. Lydia Cochrane (Princeton, NJ: 1987); and ed., The Culture of Print_, trans. Lydia Cochrane (Princeton, NJ, 1989).

Copyright (c) 2000 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact H-Net@h-net.msu.edu.

SUMMARY NOTES

• Print changed the world through new social reactions.
• Before the invention of print medieval and ancient scholars had trouble documenting important information so it changed over years of remembering and passing on information.
• Print brought people of many languages together which encouraged questioning and individual achievement.
•  Print changed religion, science, astromony, atonomy, botany and many other practices as information was available to cross check and alter in order to find out the truth.
• This print revolution sent religion down 2 paths Catholic and Protestant who had different views on print. Protestants were less able to implement censorship of the presses than the more centralized governments of Catholic areas.
• One of the most important events for the print movement was the Netherlands Rebellion on Censorship of print. It shaped the print culture and had a significant impact on religion and science.
• Printing press was limited to a fairley small group of people that were already literate elites.
• Eisenstein believes that the changes which print culture brought to the early modern world eventually transformed Western society at large. By focusing on a fundamental shift in mentality, which came about due to a basic change in communication and collective memory, and the advent of uniform duplication