Book Studies Centers Craft of Physical Media

Held together by professors across different departments who value physical objects as meaning makers, Oberlin Book Studies is one of the only programs of its kind at the undergraduate level. It began in 2011, when Donald R. Longman Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Chair of English Wendy Beth Hyman and Senior Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Associate Professor of English Laura Baudot held a Mellon Foundation-funded workshop called Book Studies in the Liberal Arts. This eventually led to the creation of the Book Studies concentration, now minor. “The idea behind it was, ‘How do we use the incredible physical objects and … teachers we have, the resources that are here, and offer something that usually would only be offered at a research one institution, a place that has much larger collections?’” Hyman said.

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