This course will introduce students to the history of the book and other technologies of human record. Focusing on the pre- and early modern periods, the course asks the question--what material substances and objects do people use to share imaginative stories? And, what difference can knowing about these make to the history of literature, including literatures in English? The course is partly experiential and collaborative in design. We will learn from one or more present-day book makers: e.g. an Ojibwe maker of birch bark scrolls; or a modern parchment maker or bookbinder. We will visit the Fisher Rare Book Library to see, among others books, one made in 1474 by William Caxton, England’s first printer. And we will collaborate with students working in Forensic Science and Chemistry to use scientific techniques--from advanced microscopy to x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy--to develop and answer humanistic questions about books: e.g. Where did book makers obtain their materials? How have book making technologies--and with them literary texts and traditions--travelled around the globe? What evidence have readers of old books left behind? Underpinning the course is a critical approach to the so-called “Toronto School”--that is, “the theory of the primacy of communication in the structuring of human cultures and the structuring of the human mind.” Is the work of e.g. Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan relevant to the 21st study of literature? What messages are still readable in the media used by the literary communities of the past?