A Literary Critic Discovers Letterpress: How Book Arts Reshaped My Scholarship
Thursday, April 29, 2021, 4:00 PM
Join with this link: https://go.uvm.edu/gatheringleaves

Our digital series," Gathering Leaves: Conversations about Book Arts," continues with a presentation by UVM English professor Liz Fenton. Professor Fenton will discuss how an interest in the history of printing first emerged out of and then revitalized her work as a literary critic. Beginning with a tour of her at-home print studio, Professor Fenton will describe how she entered the world of letterpress after spending the first fifteen years of her career analyzing literature apart from the circumstances of its material construction. She will tell the stories behind the presses she has purchased over the years and offer brief demonstrations of their particular operations. She also will show some examples of pieces she has made using letterpress and explain how working to create texts and images using old techniques has changed the way she approaches literature. The talk will conclude with a short discussion of her current project, a study of documents produced and preserved by members of the early Mormon Church, which has been deeply shaped by her work in Book Arts.