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Organized and hosted by the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (CMEMS).

Noah Millstone (University of Birmingham) will give a talk titled Sites of Book Talk and the Nouvelles LibrairiquesÌýin Early Modern Europe.

Please note this is a precirculated paper.ÌýèצӰÏñ users may access itÌý.ÌýNon-èצӰÏñ users may reach out toÌýcmemsinfo [at] stanford.edu (cmemsinfo[at]stanford[dot]edu).

Response by .Ìý

This is a draft chapter from a book-in-progress. The Economy of Judgments will be the first studyÌýof early modern European ‘book talk’: the lively trade in book news, book rumor, book extractsÌýand judgments about books. Book talk filled the conversation and correspondence of the learned,Ìýthe semi-learned and observers of state affairs. It is one of the major forms of evidence used toÌýtrack intellectual controversies, study the reception of particular works or analyze the impact ofÌýradical pamphlets. But neither historians nor literary scholars have investigated book talk itself,Ìýeither as a family of genres or of forms of social practice; nor have they noticed how unmooredÌýmuch book talk was from anyone actually reading the books they were talking about. This studyÌýframes book talk as an object of enquiry, and draws on printed and archival sources from Italy,ÌýGermany, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and England to track the evolution ofÌýbook talk from the late Renaissance to the early Enlightenment. This is chapter 2, which followsÌýa synoptic introduction and is followed in turn by chapters on book lists (catalogues, indices,Ìýbibliographies) and on what exactly people were talking about (authorship, quality, reception,Ìýimportance, etc).

The CMEMS Workshop series meets most Wednesdays during the academic year. See the CMEMS website for the list ofÌý.