Dr. Laurence Roth
Office: Fisher 243
Tel.: x4202; e-mail: roth@susqu.edu
ENGL: 390:01
MWF 10:00-11:05, STLE 7
Office Hours: TTh 1:00-4:00
Unpacking the Bookstore
Required Texts:
Lewis Buzbee
Greg Ketter
Laura Miller
Robin Sloan
On Blackboard:
[Anonymous]
Walter Benjamin
Barabara Brannon
Bill Brown
James Clifford
Tim Cresswell
Harvey Dong
David Emblidge
Madge Jenison
Bruno Latour
Archibald MacLeish
Karla Mantilla
Christopher Morley
Jack Perry
W.G. Rogers
John Tebbel
Raymond Williams
Michael Winship
The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop
Shelf Life: Fantastic Stories Celebrating Bookstores
Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore
“Jewish Bookstores of the Old East Side”
“Unpacking My Library”
“The Bookshop as ‘An Arsenal of Democracy’”
“Thing Theory”
“On Collecting Art and Culture”
“Defining Place” and “Reading ‘A Global Sense of Place’”
“A Bookstore for Everybody”
“Rallying Point: Lewis Michaux’s National Memorial African Bookstore”
Sunwise Turn: A Human Comedy of Bookselling (excerpt)
“Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam?” (excerpt)
A Free Man’s Books
“Feminist Bookstores: Where Women’s Lives Matter”
“Escaped Into Print”
“Bookstores, Communist and Capitalist”
Wise Men Fish Here (excerpt)
“A Brief History of American Bookselling”
“Literature”
“‘The Tragedy of the Book Industry’? Bookstores and Book Distribution in the
United States to 1950”
Objectives:
This course explores the history and cultural functions of bookstores in the U.S. in order to understand better how
they shaped, and continue to shape, public conceptions and meanings of “literature.” Using my investigation into
and memoir of my father’s Jewish bookstore as a model, students this semester will analyze these five significant
bookstores that exemplify the issues the course raises: Powell’s Books, Eso Won Books, Strand Book Store, J.
Levine Books & Judaica, and Mile High Comics.
Over the past twenty years there’s been a great deal of press devoted to the dire state of bookstores and bookselling
in the U.S. At first, the battle to maintain the bookstore as a culturally and commercially viable retail operation
appeared to pit independents against corporate chain bookstores that were accused of valuing profits over literature.
More recently, with the demise of Borders and the rise of Amazon and e-books, the battle seems to be over the very
concept of a brick and mortar bookstore that’s wedded to a supposedly obsolete literature delivery system, the book.
The cultural, social, and technology conflicts these battles highlight, distressing as they may be to those who care
deeply about books and literature, also invite important and timely questions about readers as consumers, writers as
products, and literature as an activity, constituted not only by authors and texts but also through commerce and
within social space.
We’ll consider such questions using both the traditional tools of classroom instruction and those now available
through new media and digital technology. After all, if the bookstore and literature are changing under the pressure
and allure of new media, then it seems only appropriate to consider how researching and writing in/through new
media enables us to track and analyze such changes. That component, in tandem with the project-based emphasis of
the class assignments, underlines this course’s heuristic approach to teaching and learning about the bookstore.
Course Requirements/Grading:
For this course you’ll be divided into five groups corresponding to the five bookstores that we’re studying.
Information about each bookstore will be available through the library in a curated archive managed by Kathy
Dalton, reference librarian at the Blough-Weis Library. Your grade in the course will be determined by four
assignments that ask you to write blog posts, and create a final group blog, about the bookstore you’re researching,
and by your class participation. Posts must include visual materials such as photographs, maps, timelines, floor
plans, slide shows, videos, and the like, and Marie Wagner, instructional technologist in the IT office, will provide
IT support throughout the course. The course website was built on WordPress and is a publicly accessible site.
These are the graded course requirements and their grade weight:
Assignment #1: Place and People, Present (20%): In this fist blog post each of you will provide a brief survey and
description of the neighborhood of the bookstore that you’re researching, as it presently appears.
Assignment #2: Place and People, Past (20%): In this second blog post each of you will create a timeline and
provide a brief history of the bookstore that you’re researching and of the neighborhood in which it thrives/thrived.
Assignment #3: Space and Objects (20%): In this third blog post each of you will describe the interior space of the
bookstore that you’re researching—incorporating into your post a floor plan that also maps the placement of the
store’s genre and subject categories—and consider ways of reading that space and the objects contained within it.
Assignment #4: Space and Place, People and Objects: Final Group Blogs (20%): In this final assignment everyone
will work with their respective bookstore group to reflect collectively on all the information gathered in the first
three assignments. Each group will interpret how that information describes the cultural function(s) of the bookstore
the group has researched and that bookstore’s configuration of “literature.”
Blog Post Reviews/Class Participation (20%): Your class participation grade will be determined not only by your
participation in class discussion of the assigned readings, but also by your active participation in blog post reviews
on the days the first three assignments are due and in the class review of the final blog drafts.
Academic Culture/Personal Responsibilities:
—All texts must be read by the scheduled deadlines, and you must be prepared to discuss the texts or
materials assigned for class. If you haven’t read the texts and cannot contribute to class discussion there is no
need to explain or provide an excuse; it’s up to you to monitor your class participation.
—Three to five absences will lower your course grade significantly. You cannot pass this course with five or
more absences. If you must miss class for any reason there’s no need to explain or provide an excuse for your
absence; it’s up to you to monitor your class attendance.
—Everyone must attend class for the labs and on the assignment due dates/review sessions. You cannot pass this
course if you miss a lab or an assignment due date/review session.
—All assignments must be posted no later than 9:30 AM on the due date. No late assignments will be accepted,
and missing an assignment will lower your grade significantly.
—All cell phones and electronic devices must be turned off during class. Text messaging during class will be
treated as a form of class disruption and students who do so will be asked to leave class; ejection from class will
count as an absence. Students who wish to use a laptop in order to take notes must first ask for instructor
permission. No email or Internet surfing is allowed while the laptop is in use; students who do so will be asked to
leave class and ejection from class will count as an absence.
—Note: There will be no incompletes given for this course.
Plagiarism:
The Department of English and Creative Writing reports every violation of academic honesty (plagiarism or
cheating on an exam) to the dean of student life. No English or Creative Writing major who has violated academic
honesty is eligible for academic honors in the Department. In addition, students in my courses who plagiarize or
cheat in any way will be severely punished, up to and including failing the class. If you use someone else's words or
ideas—whether from a speech, an article, a book or any site on the Internet—either footnote it, if the language is
yours, or enclose it in quotation marks and acknowledge your source.
Communications:
I will always be available during office hours in order to talk, answer questions, or address any difficulties you may
have with the course. You can leave messages for me via e-mail, phone, or by dropping a note in my mailbox in
Fisher 236.
Schedule
Week 1
Mon. 1/12:
Introductions
Critical Contexts and History
Wed. 1/14:
Fri. 1/16:
Week 2
Mon. 1/19:
Wed. 1/21:
Fri. 1/23:
Williams, “Literature”
Tebbel, “A Brief History of American Bookselling;” Winship, “‘The Tragedy of the
Book Industry’? Bookstores and Book Distribution in the United States to 1950”
Miller, RC Chapters 1 and 2
Cresswell, “Defining Place” and “Reading ‘A Global Sense of Place’”
Lab—meet in The Letterbox
Using WordPress and other course IT issues (Marie Wagner)
Week 3
Mon. 1/26:
Wed. 1/28:
Fri. 1/30:
Miller, RC Chapters 4 and 5
Morley, “Escaped Into Print”
Assignment #1 Due: Place and People, Present
Week 4
Mon. 2/2:
Wed. 2/4:
Morley, Parnassus on Wheels (1917 edition; online at HathiTrust Digital Library)
Morley, Parnassus on Wheels
Consumers and Communities
Fri. 2/6:
Week 5
Mon. 2/9:
Wed. 2/11:
Fri. 2/13:
Week 6
Mon. 2/16:
Wed. 2/18:
Miller, RC Chapter 3
“Jewish Bookstores of the Old East Side; ” excerpt from Jenison, Sunwise Turn;
excerpt from Rogers, Wise Men Fish Here
MacLeish, A Free Man’s Books; Brannon, “The Bookshop as ‘An Arsenal of
Democracy’;” Perry, “Bookstores, Communist and Capitalist”
Lab—meet in The Letterbox
Assignment #2 Due: Place and People, Past
Emblidge, “Rallying Point: Lewis Michaux’s National Memorial African Bookstore;”
Dong, “A Bookstore for Everybody;” Mantilla, “Feminist Bookstores: Where
Women’s Lives Matter”
Collection, Objects, Politics
Fri. 2/20:
Week 7
Benjamin, “Unpacking My Library”
Mon. 2/23:
Wed. 2/25:
Fri/ 2/27:
Clifford, “On Collecting Art and Culture”
Excerpt from Latour, “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam?;” Brown, “Thing Theory”
Miller, RC Chapter 7
Week 8
Mon. 3/2:
Wed. 3/4:
Fri. 3/6
Spring Recess
Spring Recess
Spring Recess
Week 9
Mon. 3/9:
Wed. 3/11:
Fri. 3/13:
Lab—meet in The Letterbox
Miller, RC Chapter 8
Assignment #3 Due: Space and Objects
Contemporary Representations
Week 10
Mon. 3/16:
Wed. 3/18:
Fri. 3/20:
Buzbee, The Yellow Lighted Bookshop 3-81
Buzbee, The Yellow Lighted Bookshop 83-146
Buzbee, The Yellow Lighted Bookshop 146-216
Week 11
Mon. 3/23:
Wed. 3/25:
Fri. 3/27:
Ketter, Shelf Life: Fantastic Stories Celebrating Bookstores ix-85
Ketter, Shelf Life: Fantastic Stories Celebrating Bookstores 87-194
Ketter, Shelf Life: Fantastic Stories Celebrating Bookstores 195-285
Week 12
Mon. 3/30:
Wed. 3/1:
Fri. 4/3:
Curatorial Plan for Final Group Blog Due
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore
Easter/Passover Break
Week 13
Mon. 4/6:
Wed. 4/8:
Fri. 4/10:
Easter/Passover Break
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore
Lab—meet in The Letterbox
Week 14
Mon. 4/13:
Wed. 4/15:
Fri. 4/17:
Draft of Final Group Blog Due
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore
Selections from You’ve Got Mail, Stacked, Black Books, and other visual media
Week 15
Mon. 4/20:
Wed. 4/22:
Fri. 4/24:
Conferences
Conferences
Lab—meet in The Letterbox
Week 16
Mon. 4/27:
Tues. 4/28:
Conferences
Assignment #4 Due: Space and Place, People and Objects
Note: Schedule is subject to change. All changes will be announced in class.