Events

Past Event

"Inherent Vice: Texts and Textiles"

November 7, 2019
12:00 AM - 1:00 AM
America/New_York
TBD
Used by lawyers and insurers as well as archivists and conservators, “inherent vice” is a term that describes the entropic quality of material objects. This talk examines how the question of material stability and transformation is central to the relationship between textiles and books. Throughout the early modern period, linen was a commodity that underwrote both media and authors often saw their works as threatened by the possibility their printed pages would be pulped and reused. The materiality of texts— whether the form and embodiment of words matters— became a theoretical touchstone for 20th century literary theorists long after the invention of wood pulp paper made material scarcity no longer an everyday concern for authors. And yet the material history that links text and textile, turning on the disintegration of both objects, continues to influence how we conceptualize textual consumption.

Contact Information

Sean Quimby
212-852-2232