Description
Book SynopsisBookshelves in the Age of the COVID-19 Pandemic provides the first detailed scholarly investigation of the cultural phenomenon of bookshelves (and the social practices around them) since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. With a foreword by Lydia Pyne, author of
Bookshelf (2016), the volume brings together 17 scholars from 6 countries (Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the USA) with expertise in literary studies, book history, publishing, visual arts, and pedagogy to critically examine the role of bookshelves during the current pandemic. This volume interrogates the complex relationship between the physical book and its digital manifestation via online platforms, a relationship brought to widespread public and scholarly attention by the global shift to working from home and the rise of online pedagogy. It also goes beyond the (digital) bookshelf to consider bookselling, book accessibility, and pandemic reading habits.
Table of Contents1 Introduction2 An Examination of Bookshelves in the Age of the COVID-19 Pandemic as a “Liminal Space”3 Crisis Book Browsing: Restructuring the Retail Shelf Life of Books4 “Your Bookshelf Is Problematic”: Progressive and Problematic Publishing in the Age of COVID-195 Old Books and New Media: Reader Response to The Thorn Birds and Late Night with Seth Meyers6 Videoconferencing as a Digital Medium: Bookshelves in Backgrounds Throughout History7 Digital Masks of Printed Books: On-Screen Representations of the Materiality of the Codex8 Bookish Objects on the Bookshelf9 Writing with Spines: Bookshelf Art, Found Poetry, and the Practice of Assemblage10 Elmer the Elephant in the Zoom Room? Reflections on Parenting, Book Accessibility, and Screen Time in a Pandemic11 A Bookshelf of the World: Bringing Students’ Books Inside the Classroom—A Means for Epistemic Equality?12 Online Learning, Library Access, and Bookcase Insecurity: A German Case Study13 “Ummmmm, guys? Don’t microwave your books”:Readers, Authors, and Institutions in #PandemicReading Tweets
