1.
The invention of writing in Mesopotamia, in China, or in Mesoamerica.
Mesopotamia:
Glassner, Jean-Jacques. 2003. The Invention of Cuneiform: Writing in Sumer. Translated by Aintab Bahrani
and Marc van de Myron. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Schmandt-Besserat, Denise. 1992. How Writing Came About. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
China:
Boltz, William G. 1994. The Origin and Early Development of the Chinese Writing System. American
Oriental Series 78. New Haven: American Oriental Society.
Hessler, Peter. 2006. Oracle Bones: A Journey between China’s Past and Present. New York:
HarperCollins.
Galambos, Imre. 2006. Orthography of Early Chinese Writing: Evidence from Newly Excavated
Manuscripts. Budapest: Department of East Asian Studies, Eötvös Loránd University.
Moore, Oliver. 2000. Reading the Past: Chinese. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Houston, Stephen D., ed. 2004. The First Writing: Script Invention as History and Process. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. Chapter by *** on Chinese.
Keightley, David N. 1996. Art, Ancestors, and the Origins of Writing in China. Representations, No. 56,
Special Issue: The New Erudition (Autumn, 1996), pp. 68-95
Mesoamerica:
Houston, Stephen D., ed. 2004. The First Writing: Script Invention as History and Process. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. Chapter by Houston on Mesoamerican writing.
Coe, Michael D. 1999. Breaking the Maya Code. Revised ed. London: Thames & Hudson.
Marcus, Joyce. 1992. Mesoamerican Writing Systems: Propaganda, Myth, and History in Four Ancient
Civilizations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
2.
The transmission and adaptation of scripts across cultures.
Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright. 1996. The World’s Writing Systems. New York / Oxford: Oxford
University Press. Part X, especially pages 633–762.
Habein, Yaeko Sato. 1984. The History of the Japanese Written Language. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.
Seeley, Christopher. 1991. A History of Writing in Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawa‘i Press.
3.
Spelling reform in English or another language.
Kessler, B. and R. Treiman. 2003. Is English Spelling Chaotic? Misconceptions concerning Its Irregularity.
Reading Psychology 24: 267–289. Blackboard > Course Documents > Week 11.
Essinger, James. 2007. Spellbound: The Surprising Origins and Astonishing Secrets of English Spelling. New
York: Bantam Dell.
Ives, Kenneth H. 1979. Written Dialects n Spelling Reforms. Chicago: Progresiv Publishr.
Haas, William. 1969. Alphabets for English. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Vachek, Josef. 1973. Written Language: General Problems and Problems of English. The Hague/Paris:
Mouton.
4.
The death of a writing system, or of writing systems in general.
Baines, John, John Bennet, and Stephen Houston, eds. 2008. The Disappearance of Writing Systems. London:
Equinox.
5.
The decipherment of a particular script.
Pope, Maurice. 1999. The Story of Decipherment, from Egyptian Hieroglyph to Maya Script. Revised ed.
London: Thames and Hudson.
Many sources for decipherments of individual scripts.
6.
The creation of new scripts in recent times.
Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright. 1996. The World’s Writing Systems. New York / Oxford: Oxford
University Press. Section ** on modern scripts.
Unseth, P. 2005. Sociolinguistic Parallels between Choosing Scripts and Languages. Written Language and
Literacy 8: 19–42.
Fishman, Joshua A., ed. 1977. Advances in the Creation and Revision of Writing Systems. Contributions to the
Sociology of Language 8. The Hague/Paris: Mouton.
7.
The social or historical impact of writing, in general or in a specific culture.
Goody, Jack. 2000. The Power of the Written Tradition. Washington: Smithsonian Institute.
Ong, Walter. 1982. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the World. London: Methuen; reissued
London/New York: Routledge, 2002.
Olson, David R. 1994. The World on Paper: The Conceptual and Cognitive Implications of Writing and
Reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Halverson, J. 1992. Goody and the Implosion of the Literacy Thesis. Man (n.s.) 27: 301–317.
Collins, J. 1995. Literacy and Literacies. Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 75–93.
8.
The differences between literate and nonliterate societies.
Goody, Jack. 1987. The Interface between the Written and the Oral. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goody, Jack. 2000. The Power of the Written Tradition. Washington: Smithsonian Institute.
Ong, Walter. 1982. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the World. London: Methuen; reissued
London/New York: Routledge, 2002.
Olson, David R. 1994. The World on Paper: The Conceptual and Cognitive Implications of Writing and
Reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Halverson, J. 1992. Goody and the Implosion of the Literacy Thesis. Man (n.s.) 27: 301–317.
Collins, J. 1995. Literacy and Literacies. Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 75–93.
Cook-Gumperz, Jenny, ed. 2006. The Social Construction of Literacy. 2nd ed. Studies in Interactional
Sociolinguistics 25. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gaur, Albertine. 2000. Literacy and the Politics of Writing. Bristol: Intellect.
9.
Illiteracy in a literate society.
Barton, David. 2007. Literacy: An Introduction to the Ecology of Written Language. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell.
Cook-Gumperz, Jenny, ed. 2006. The Social Construction of Literacy. 2nd ed. Studies in Interactional
Sociolinguistics 25. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Street, Brian V. 1984. Literacy in Theory and Practice. Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture 9.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Taylor, Insup and David R. Olson, eds. 1995. Scripts and Literacy: Reading and Learning to Read Alphabets,
Syllabaries and Characters. Dordrecht / Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Malatesha Joshi, R. and P.G. Aaron, eds. 2006. Handbook of Orthography and Literacy. Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
10. The origin of the alphabet.
Hamilton, Gordon J. 2006. The Origins of the West Semitic Alphabet in Egyptian Scripts. Washington: Catholic
Biblical Association.
Naveh, Joseph. 1982. Early History of the Alphabet: An Introduction to West Semitic Epigraphy and
Palaeography. Jerusalem: Magnes / Leiden: Brill.
Senner, Wayne M., ed. 1989. The Origins of Writing. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press. Chapter by
F.M. Cross.
11. “Proto-writing.”
12. Efforts (successful and not) to replace traditional scripts with Latin-based alphabetic scripts (e.g., Turkish,
Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese).
Unseth, P. 2005. Sociolinguistic Parallels between Choosing Scripts and Languages. Written Language and
Literacy 8: 19–42.
Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright. 1996. The World’s Writing Systems. New York / Oxford: Oxford
University Press. Sections 59, 67.
Hannas, Wm. G. 1997. Asia’s Orthographic Dilemma. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Hannas, Wm. G. 2003. The Writing on the Wall: How Asian Orthography Curbs Creativity. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
13. The effects of electronic communication on writing (text-messaging, etc.).
Crystal, David. 2006. Language and the Internet. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Crystal, David. 2008. txtng: the gr8 db8. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Baron, Dennis E. 2009. A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Baron, Naomi S. 2000. Alphabet to Email: How Written English Evolved and Where It’s Heading. London /
New York: Routledge.
14. The impact of printing and the book.
Febvre, Lucien and Henri-Jean Martin. 1976. The Coming of the Book. Translated by David Gerard. London:
Verso.
Finkelstein, David and Alistair McCleery. 2005. An Introduction to Book History. New York / London:
Routledge.
Johns, Adrian. 1998. The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
15. Writing and religion/ideology.
Unseth, P. 2005. Sociolinguistic Parallels between Choosing Scripts and Languages. Written Language and
Literacy 8: 19–42.
Sanders, Seth L., ed. 2006. Margins of Writing, Origins of Cultures. Chicago: Oriental Insitute. Online:
http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/ois/.
Gaur, Albertine. 2000. Literacy and the Politics of Writing. Bristol: Intellect.
Goody, Jack. 1986. The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Goody, Jack. 2000. The Power of the Written Tradition. Washington: Smithsonian Institute.
Graham, William A. 1987. Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Martin, Henri-Jean. 1994. The History and Power of Writing. Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Polastron, Lucien X. 2007. Books on Fire: The Destruction of Libraries throughout History. Trans. Jon E.
Graham. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions.
Sebba, Mark. 2007. Spelling and Society: The Culture and Politics of Orthography around the World.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
16. The relationship(s) between writing and language; or, How writing represents speech.
Coulmas, Florian. 2003. Writing Systems: An Introduction to Their Linguistic Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
DeFrancis, John. 1989. Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems. Honolulu: University of
Hawai‘i Press.
Harris, Roy. 1995. Signs of Writing. London: Routledge.
Rogers, Henry. 2005. Writing Systems: A Linguistic Approach. Oxford: Blackwell.
Sampson, Geoffrey. 1985. Writing Systems. London: Hutchinson.
Sproat, Richard. 2000. A Computational Theory of Writing Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
17. The impact of writing on consciousness.
Scribner, Sylvia and Michael Cole. 1981. The Psychology of Literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Goody, Jack. 1987. The Interface between the Written and the Oral. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goody, Jack. 2000. The Power of the Written Tradition. Washington: Smithsonian Institute.
Ong, Walter. 1982. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the World. London: Methuen; reissued
London/New York: Routledge, 2002.
Olson, David R. 1994. The World on Paper: The Conceptual and Cognitive Implications of Writing and
Reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Halverson, J. 1992. Goody and the Implosion of the Literacy Thesis. Man (n.s.) 27: 301–317.
Collins, J. 1995. Literacy and Literacies. Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 75–93.
18. The history of a particular script.
19. The relationship between script(s) and ethnic or national identity.
20. Attempts to create universal scripts (semantic or phonetic).
21. The history of reading.
22. Fictional scripts.
Adams, Michael. 2011. From Elvish to Klingon: Exploring Invented Languages. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Okrent, Arika. 2010. In the Land of Invented Languages: A Celebration of Linguistic Creativity, Madness, and
Genius. New York: Spiegel & Grau.
23. Graphic aphasia.
Dehaene, Stanislas. 2009. Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention. New York:
Viking.
Wolf, Maryanne. 2007. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. New York: Harper
Collins.
Sacks, O. 2010. A Man of Letters. The New Yorker, June 28, 2010: 22–28. Blackboard > Course Documents >
Week 12.
24. The history of English spelling.
Scragg, D.G. 1974. A History of English Spelling. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Vallins, G.H. 1965. Spelling. Revised by D.G. Scragg. London: Andre Deutsch.
Lepore, Jill. 2002. A Is for American: Letters and Other Characters in the Newly United States. New York:
Knopf.
Sebba, Mark. 2007. Spelling and Society: The Culture and Politics of Orthography around the World.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
25. The history of punctuation.
Nunberg, Geoffrey. 1990. The Linguistics of Punctuation. CSLI Lecture Notes 18. Stanford, CA: Center for the
Study of Language and Information.
Parkes, M.B. 1993. Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
26. How we learn to read and/or write.
Dehaene, Stanislas. 2009. Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention. New York:
Viking.
Wolf, Maryanne. 2007. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. New York: Harper
Collins.
Cook, V. 2004. The English Writing System. London: Arnold.
de Gelder, Beatrice, and José Morais, eds. 1995. Speech and Reading: A Comparative Approach. Hove:
Erlbaum Taylor & Francis.
27. The representation of numbers in one script, or in general; or, The history of the representation of numbers in
writing.
Chrisomalis, Stephen. 2010. Numerical Notation: A Comparative History. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Katz, Victor J., ed. 2007. The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam: A Sourcebook.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.