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HIST 490C: Written Worlds (Fall 2024)

Searches

  1. Start by writing out your question or topic.
  2. identify key terms
  3. identify potential synonyms
  4. Use AND OR NOT to create search phrases. 
  5. Conduct several searches, revising keywords backed on subject terms & commonly used language in the articles/books.

Examples

  • Calendars - how they shaped the conceptualization of time and labor.
    • Calendar* AND labor
  • Signals. This topic can take a few different forms, but one idea that I have is to consider maritime signal flags. This could examine the historiography of flags as visual communication at sea, the standardization of flag signals, and how the code compares to other both old and new forms of visual communication and writing.
    • (flag OR flags) AND communication 
    • maritime AND flag* AND signal*
  • Libraries- The first libraries would be important to understanding how writing impacted scholarship in early periods. How did chroniclers, historians, leaders, and scholars collect writing to enhance their decisions?
  • . Emojis a. Form of expressing via text messaging i. Altered the way we structure our text messages, and even how we read text. Emojis allow people to bridge gaps between the written word and non-verbal communication.
  • The printing press as a tool that modified and enhanced the written word, probably more specifically in the context of Luther, the Reformation, and his pamphleteering campaign, which, enabled by the new printing press, allowed him to spread his message much more widely, while at the same time that message was being shaped by the pamphlet/printed format.
    • "Printing press" AND luther
    • "Printing press" AND pamphlet* 
  • The camera-look at histories of science exploring the impact of the camera on the development of mechanical objectivity, the development of mechanical objectivity in science on historians as objective scholars
  • Printing Press would be an interest topic because it revolutionized how people perceive written work. While it didn’t create text, it did increase the public access to it. It had major effects in the context of religion spreading and indulgences but also political protest and the spread of knowledge.
  • One topic I may explore includes the influence of the phonograph's invention, either broadly or specifically regarding song recordings. I briefly covered this topic in one of my freshman classes and would like to possibly examine the intersection of recording previously orally composed and transmitted folk songs/ballads.
  • 1. The creation of digital libraries (Project Gutenberg, The Uncensored Library Minecraft)
  • The modern Chinese spelling system, Pinyin, modified the relationship between spoken and written Chinese in the 1950s. As Pinyin only existed for less than a hundred years, what other ways did China use to modify the writing process? Why did China borrow the Roman letters to aid with its transliteration instead of adopting the Zhuyin system that Taiwan uses today?
  • One idea is how Incan culture, then leading to modern day indigenous cultures of South America, changed with the introduction of the Spanish written language. Questions include how were the Inca impacted with the introduction of writing? What were Incan perceptions of writing? How was the Quechua language impacted? How did they and their language adapt?
  • So far my favorite idea I have come up with is the evolution of the typewriter and its implications regarding the rapidization of writing. I could envision a fascinating paper focused on the cross-cultural attempts to create and use typewriters, and how it altered society once they became more mainstream while also tying in how its modernized version of a computer (or laptop, specifically) has revolutionized our society. I know printing/the printing press also allows people to share a large volume of ideas at once, so I could perhaps incorporate that somehow if it was deemed relevant and useful, but I'd rather focus on typewriters and laptops.
  • letter writing in early modern America (the ideas conveyed in letters, the material culture that developed around it --> specific letter writing supplies)

  • 1. Why are some languages read left to right, and others right to left? What led to this development?