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Title Book destruction from the medieval to the contemporary / edited by Adam Smyth, Gill Partington.

Publication Info. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Item Status

Description 1 online resource.
Physical Medium polychrome
Description text file
Series New directions in book history
New directions in book history.
Summary The book is a common, everyday object, yet its destruction has become overloaded with potent symbolism. 'Book burning' has become a shorthand for barbarism, philistinism and intolerance. But is there another story to be told here, which is lost amid the overheated rhetoric and knee-jerk responses? Book Destruction, a collection of essays by scholars and interviews with artists, approaches the fraught topic from a new angle. It sets such dominant attitudes and platitudes alongside an important but occluded counter-narrative, addressing the cutting, burning, pulping, defacing and tearing of books from the medieval period to our own age. What are the motivations and reasons for these acts, and what cultural meanings have been attached to them? How does destruction relate to recycling, reuse, to collage and quotation? When do acts of destruction become moments of creativity? A surprising new picture emerges of a wide range of practices, undertaken in diverse contexts and for different ends.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents Burning sex subjects : books, homophobia and the Nazi destruction of the Institute of Sexual Sciences in Berlin / Heike Bauer -- Burning to read : Ben Jonson's library fire of 1623 / Adam Smyth -- From books to Skoob, or, Media theory with a circular saw / Gill Partington -- The complete works of Franz Kafka burned : an interview with Ross Birrell / Adam Smyth, Gill Partington and Ross Birrell -- Belligerent literacy, bookplates, and graffiti : Dorothy Helbarton's book / Anthony Bale -- Doctoring Victorian literature -- A Humument : an interview with Tom Phillips / Adam Smyth, Gill Partington and Tom Phillips -- Miss Cathy's riven th' back off 'Th' helmet uh salvation' : representing book destruction in mid-Victorian print culture / Stephen Colclough -- Waste matters : Charles Dickens's Our mutual friend and nineteenth-century book recycling / Heather Tilley -- Aesthetics of book destruction / Kate Flint -- Kindle : recycling and the future of the book : an interview with Nicola Dale / Adam Smyth, Gill Partington and Nicola Dale.
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Language English.
Subject Book burning -- History.
Book burning.
History.
Books -- Mutilation, defacement, etc. -- History.
Books -- Mutilation, defacement, etc.
Libraries -- Destruction and pillage -- History.
Libraries -- Destruction and pillage.
Altered books -- History.
Waste books -- History.
Books -- Psychological aspects.
Altered books.
Waste books.
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Infrastructure.
Books -- Psychological aspects.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- General.
Bokbål -- historia.
Plundringar.
Bibliotek -- historia.
Genre/Form Electronic books.
Electronic books.
History.
Added Author Partington, Gill, 1970- editor.
Smyth, Adam, 1972- editor.
Other Form: Print version: Book destruction from the medieval to the contemporary 9781137367655 (DLC) 2014022061 (OCoLC)881655933
ISBN 9781137367662 (electronic book)
1137367660 (electronic book)
9781137367655
1137367652
1322107084 (e-book)
9781322107080 (e-book)
134947455X
9781349474554
Standard No. 10.1057/9781137367662.
40024209759