On Print Culture: the State We're In

Brake, Laurel

doi:10.3366/jvc.2001.6.1.125

Cited by 12 publications

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“…In 2001, Laurel Brake’s essay ‘On Print Culture: The State We’re In’ took measure of a field of research that had emerged following the diminution of numerous disciplinary boundaries and the development of new forms of digital technology. Although the appropriate name for this multidisciplinary field was matter for debate (Periodical studies?…”

Section: Print Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The attention given to periodicals as worthwhile objects of study in their own right sought to undo the retrospective construction of Victorian culture by 20th-century writers with a distaste for commercial forms of art. Brake's essay marked the culmination of several decades of recovery work initiated by such collections as The Victorian Periodical Press: Samplings and Soundings (Shattock 1982), Investigating Victorian Journalism (Brake 1990) and Nineteenth-Century Media and the Construction of Identities (Brake 2000). If these collections succeeded in establishing why it was necessary to recognize the press as the discursive context for the major works of Victorian literature, the debate continues over how to define the exact nature of the relationship between the period's journalism and its literature.…”

Section: Print Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

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Victorian Print Culture, Journalism and the Novel

Rubery

2010

Literature Compass

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A number of studies have challenged the divide between Victorian literature and journalism in recent years by rethinking the relationship between enduring literary genres such as the novel and ephemeral forms of print including newspapers and magazines. This essay identifies the key ways in which studies in print culture and book history have revised our understanding of the 19th‐century literary marketplace by identifying a high degree of interaction between the era’s literature and journalism. The essay begins with an introduction to print culture as a field of research that has challenged the narrow literary focus of Victorian studies by expanding its borders to include the eclectic assortment of journalistic writing representative of the 19th century. It then considers how the development of digital archives has improved access to the full range of reading materials once available to audiences. The essay concludes with an assessment of how attention to the entire spectrum of print consumed by the reading public has inspired a critical revaluation of the relationship between journalism and the Victorian novel.

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Section: Print Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Print Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

Victorian Print Culture, Journalism and the Novel

Rubery

2010

Literature Compass

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“…In this judgment, I disagree with Laurel Brake who as recently as 2001 announced that the academy was witnessing the genesis of what she called "print culture," in which she included both the press and the book. 5 Perhaps inadvertently, she demeaned the study of the press as a segment of that culture by constantly affirming the media as relational. And here is where I dispute the hypotheses of postmodernism.…”

Section: Re-constructing Media Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-Constructing Media History

Palmegaino

2005

American Journalism

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On Print Culture: Mediation, Practice, Politics, Knowledge

Leckie

2015

Victorian Literature and Culture

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IN 2001 LAUREL BRAKE wrote an article entitled "On Print Culture: The State We're In." Now, almost fifteen years later, where does the term "print culture" stand in relation to Victorian studies? 1 Brake was both brave and wise in her speculations. She knew very well that terminology -and fields and theories -have lives of their own and yet that sometimes someone has to step forward and try on certain names for size, make a pitch for style and fit and function. Brake took that risk in her endorsement of print culture. This essay considers the ways in which print culture has resonated in the intervening years by reviewing both books that have engaged productively with the term and books that have not used the term and yet are working under its umbrella.This essay is less a stock taking, however, than a review article that bears in mind -and keeps at the forefront -the critical purchase of the term "print culture." At the same time, it is by no means a comprehensive review essay. I hope that the result is not an inadequate treatment of both areas of focus -the salience of print culture as a category and the books under review -and I hope that it can begin to give some parameters to a term that is often loosely defined. This essay, then, is not a survey of the field. Indeed, when I was asked to do a review essay with a focus on print culture, I hesitated because I found the term too capacious. What, after all, does it not include? I thought that I would likely narrow my discussion, say, to periodicals. But as I scrutinized recent books with an eye to their engagement with print culture, I began to realize that it might be useful to articulate some aspects of the term that are not always articulated and think about its value, not in my kneejerk response to its capaciousness, but rather in the many ways in which the term is, in fact, delimited and productive in relation to those limits.My first sense of the capaciousness of print culture relates to its affiliation with book history. Initially, I thought a review essay on book history would be more useful than an essay on print culture. Book history is a new field with relatively clear demarcations, whereas print culture includes book history and so much else. If book history leans toward (but is not defined by) material culture and print culture leans toward (but is not defined by) political culture, there is no question that print culture also embraces material culture. Indeed, there is no question that print culture gains its energy, in part, from the very "communications circuit" -Darnton's oft-cited phrase -that book history embraces. 2 Book history's society SHARP, after all, captures the network of interrelated aspects of print in its acronym: the 895

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On Print Culture: the State We're In

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

Victorian Print Culture, Journalism and the Novel

Victorian Print Culture, Journalism and the Novel

Re-Constructing Media History

On Print Culture: Mediation, Practice, Politics, Knowledge

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