The Yale Program in the History of the Book brings together scholars across disciplines to explore the materiality of the written word over time and across cultures.  A collaboration between Yale’s Department of English and Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, the Program hosts a series of public lectures throughout the academic year and the annual Harvard-Yale Conference in Book History. We also organize the Book History Seminar Series, a workshop and reading group for Yale graduate students. 

Events are usually located in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.  Lectures take the form of a forty-five minute talk followed by brief Q&A; for our 2017-2018 schedule, please visit our website.

The Program is convened by David Scott Kastan, Chair (George M. Bodman Professor of English Literature, Yale Department of English); Kathryn James (Curator of Early Modern Books and Manuscripts & the Osborn Collection, Beinecke Library); Andrew S. Brown (Ph.D. candidate, Yale Department of English); and Trina Hyun (Ph.D. student, Yale Department of English).

Questions?  Please contact Kathryn James. You can also find us on Twitter, where we post updates and sometimes live tweet our events (@yalebookhistory), and you can listen to podcasts of some of our lectures on iTunes and SoundCloud. 

About the Program

To foster discussion across the many related fields practicing book history, the Yale Program in the History of the Book is organized around two events with each speaker: a public lecture and, on the following day, a seminar discussion centering on our guests’ work in progress. Papers are pre-circulated in the week preceding the seminar. To be added to the seminar list, please contact Kathryn James.