Teaching & Learning Guide for: Politics, Print Culture and the Habermas Thesis Cluster

Abstract

Author's IntroductionThe articles in this cluster deal with aspects of an enormously rich and complex historical problem: the role of print and other media in political communication in Britain, from the Tudor period through the nineteenth century. They might be employed together in a course covering this large subject; but equally they lend themselves to separate use in other kinds of courses, dealing with problems ranging from conventional political history to the role of literacy in early modern society, the nature of early modern public culture or the rise of more open and ‘democratic’ forms of politics. Rather than trying to tailor this guide to a single course design I have tried to suggest a range of possibilities.The full cluster is made up of the following articles:1. Mark Knights, ‘History and Literature in the Age of Defoe and Swift’, History Compass, 3/1 (2005), DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2005.00131.x. URL http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subject/history/article_view?article_id=hico_articles_bsl131.2. Joad Raymond, ‘Seventeenth-Century Print Culture’, History Compass, 2/1 (2004), DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2005.00131.x. URL http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subject/history/article_view?article_id=hico_articles_bsl123.3. Mark Hampton, ‘Newspapers in Victorian Britain’, History Compass, 2/1 (2004), DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2004.00101.x. URL http://www.blackwellcompass.com/subject/history/article_view?article_id=hico_articles_bsl101.4. Jason Peacey, ‘Print and Public Politics in Seventeenth-Century England’, History Compass, 5/1 (2007), 85–111, DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2006.00369.x. URL http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subject/history/article_view?article_id=hico_articles_bpl369.5. Alastair Bellany, ‘Railing Rhymes Revisited: Libels, Scandals, and Early Stuart Politics’, History Compass, 5/4 (2007), DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2007.00439.x. URL http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subject/history/article_view?article_id=hico_articles_bpl439.6. Brian Cowan, ‘Publicity and Privacy in the History of the British Coffeehouse’, History Compass, 5/4 (2007), DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2007.00440.x. URL http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subject/history/article_view?article_id=hico_articles_bpl440.7. Andrew Walkling, ‘Politics and Theatrical Culture in Restoration England’, History Compass, DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2007.00453.x. URL http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subject/history/article_view?article_id=hico_articles_bpl453.8. Joseph Black, ‘The Marprelate Tracts (1588–89) and the Public Sphere’, History Compass, (forthcoming).Author RecommendsThe relevant secondary literature is enormous but the following are suggested as surveys or preliminary guides to particular topics.1. Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Lawrence Burger with the assistance of Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989).A translation of Habermas's deeply controversial but highly influential theoretical study, first published in German in 1965. An extensive literature exists debating Habermas's theories and their usefulness to historical investigations.2. Alastair Bellany, The Politics of Court Scandal in Early Modern England: News, Culture and the Overbury Affair, 1603–1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).A study of how the involvement of high-ranking courtiers in a murder became the subject of a famous scandal, through the ways in which it was reported and discussed in print and especially manuscript sources.3. Brian Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005).A wide ranging survey of the development of coffeehouses and their role as centres of social interaction and political discussion.4. Adam Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England, 1500–1700 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000).A masterful survey of relations between oral culture, writing and print.5. Mark Hampton, Visions of the Press in Britain, 1850–1950 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2004).An account of the changing ways in which the British elite – politicians, industry moguls and the educated public generally – regarded the press.6. Anne Hughes, Gangraena and the Struggle for the English Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).A thorough study employing an interdisciplinary methodology of the most important printed attack on sectarian heresy during the English Civil War.7. Peter Lake and Steven Pincus, ‘Rethinking the Public Sphere in Early Modern England’, Journal of British Studies, 45 (2006): 270–92.An attempt to provide a broad conceptual overview for the period between the Reformation and the early eighteenth century.8. Harold Love, Scribal Publication in England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993; paperback Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998).A pioneering study of how scribal publication – the production of multiple manuscript copies – worked in the seventeenth century, especially in disseminating controversial political tracts.9. Jason Peacey, Politicians and Pamphleteers: Propaganda during the English Civil Wars and Interregnum (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004).A study of the production and dissemination of printed controversial tracts during the Civil War and Interregnum, particularly good on how politicians sought to use the press by recruiting authors to support their positions and subsidizing publications.10. Joad Raymond, The Invention of the Newspaper: English Newsbooks, 1641–1649 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996).A study of the emergence of the earliest newsbooks – precursors of the newspaper – during the English Civil War.11. Joad Raymond, Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in Early Modern Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).An examination of the emergence and evolution of the pamphlet or short controversial tract from the late sixteenth to the late seventeenth century.12. Tessa Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).A wide ranging study of different forms of cheaply printed materials and their interaction with religious culture.13. David Zaret, Origins of Democratic Culture: Printing, Petitions and the Public Sphere in Early Modern England (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000).A work by an historical sociologist, arguing for the importance of petitioning campaigns in England in the 1640s in generating wider public participation in politics.14. Joseph Black (ed.), The Martin Marprelate Tracts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).A fully annotated edition of the seven extant Marprelate tracts, the most notorious pamphlets of the Elizabethan period, with an extensive introduction that discusses their authorship, production, distribution, reception and influence at the time and subsequently.Useful Links1. The Anglican Library, The Marprelate Tracts 1588–1589http://www.anglicanlibrary.org/marprelate/index.htmOnline copies of several Marprelate tracts.2. Early Stuart Libels; British Library Collectionshttp://www.uk.olivesoftware.com/Default/welcome.asp?skin=BL&QS=Skin%3DBL%26enter%3DtrueA searchable database of several leading British newspapers for the period beginning 1851.3. Making Publics 1500–1700: Media, Markets & Association in Early Modern Europehttp://makingpublics.mcgill.ca/The Web site for a major research project on early modern publics.Sample SyllabusHonours Seminar – Topics: ‘Tudor and Stuart England’: Media and Politics in Early Modern BritainIntroduction to the use of early modern source materials such as books, manuscripts, prints and performances. Topics may include literacy and orality; the print revolution; censorship; readers and reading practices; newspapers and journalism; the origins of scientific persuasion and intellectual property rights.RequirementsFall: A 7–10-page paper (12–15 pages for graduate students) worth 15% and a research prospectus (7–10 pages + bibliography and oral presentation), worth 15%, for a combined total of 30%.Winter: 20–25-page research paper (30–40 pages for graduate students), worth 60%, by the end of the Winter semester.Class participation and two oral presentations in the first semester will make up the remaining 10%.Readings for the first term will be determined individually by each student and there are no required texts. It would be useful to purchase one or both of the following, however, as many of our readings will be derived from:Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998).R. A. Houston, Literacy in Early Modern Europe (London: Longman, 2002).You may also find it useful to own John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (London: University of Chicago Press, 1997). The book is unfortunately out of print at the moment, but many copies can be found used at various bookshops or online. Brewer's book touches on the eighteenth-century dimension of many of the issues we will discuss and could be read profitably to supplement our discussions throughout the first semester.Fall Term Course OutlineI. METHODS* 1Introduction* 2Oral and Aural Culture* 3Ritual and Visual Culture* 4Grub Street: The History of Authorship* 5Print Culture: The History of Books* 6Marginalia: The History of Reading* 7Scribal PublicationFirst Paper Due: In seminar on 20 October 2004II. GENRES* 8Library Research Seminar* 9Sermons, Prophecy and Print* 10Public and Private Subjectivity: Letters and Diaries* 11Theatre and Performance in Early Modern Culture* 12The New Rhetoric of Science* 13News Culture and the Public Sphere* 14Conclusion and Research Paper Prospectus ReportsResearch Paper Prospectus Due: In seminar on Wednesday, 1 December 2004I. METHODS1. IntroductionFor background information, it would be helpful to read R. A. Houston, Literacy in Early Modern Europe (London: Longman, 2002), chs 1–5.