Chestertown, MD — What was literary culture like before the printing press, and how does it relate to the literary culture of today? Join Corey Olsen, Assistant Professor of English at Washington College, when he presents "Breaking the Silence: Literature Before the Book," at the Rose O'Neill Literary House on Tuesday, November 6, at 11:30 a.m.
Olsen will be talking about what kinds of things (punctuation, for instance) people take for granted today that did not exist in a primarily oral community. Medieval manuscript images will be presented to the audience and Olsen will discuss the transition of literary art from the spoken word to the printed page.
Olsen taught at Temple University, Columbia University and Nyack College before coming to WC in the fall of 2004. He is the treasurer for the WC Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, faculty advisor for Sigma Tau Delta and the Writer's Union, and humanities editor for the Washington College Review.
He is involved in the scholarly recording of medieval texts and is at work on an interactive web project. "The Medieval Reading Experience" will be a web site, based on the Winchester manuscript of Sir Thomas Malory, designed to introduce modern readers to reading medieval texts in their original forms.
Admission to "Breaking the Silence: Literature Before the Book" is free and open to the public.
November 4, 2007
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