The Book

Amaranth Borsuk

Jul 2018 · Gildan Media · Kuchazwe ngu-Sarah Mollo-Christensen

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In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Amaranth Borsuk considers the history of the book, the future of the book, and the idea of the book. Tracing the interrelationship of form and content in the book's development, she bridges book history, book arts, and electronic literature to expand our definition of an object we thought we knew intimately. Contrary to the many reports of its death (which has been blamed at various times on newspapers, television, and e-readers), the book is alive. Despite nostalgic paeans to the codex and its printed pages, Borsuk reminds us, the term "book" commonly refers to both medium and content. And the medium has proved to be malleable. Rather than pinning our notion of the book to a single form, Borsuk argues, we should remember its long history of transformation. Considering the book as object, content, idea, and interface, she shows that the physical form of the book has always been the site of experimentation and play. Rather than creating a false dichotomy between print and digital media, we should appreciate their continuities.

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Amaranth Borsuk is Assistant Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell, where she also teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics. She is the author of Between Page and Screen, a digital pop-up book of poetry, and other hybrid print/digital books.

A stage and voice actor, Sarah Mollo-Christensen received her BA from Dartmouth College and graduated from the Atlantic Theater Company's Acting Conservatory in New York City. As an actress, she has appeared on prestigious regional stages, including the Folger Shakespeare Theatre in Washington DC.