Events

The Rutgers Book Initiative invites you to a launch party for our new humanities makerspace, THE SCARLET LETTERPRESS

5:15 PM Roundtable on media history through/as making: Ryan Cordell, Matthew Kirschenbaum, Christy Potroff, Olivia Moy, Katherine Ruffin

6:45 PM Print your own broadside of a poem by Professor Evie Shockley

All are welcome to talks, printing, and dinner. RSVP to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.,

The Book Initiative is designed to introduce a diverse group of undergraduate and graduate students to the intersections of media history with book arts. We offer talks and workshops on the history of print and digital media, along with field trips and studio sessions; a book arts makerspace with facilities for printing and binding and a collection of books for reference, study and dissection. We also offer tuition fellowships for extramural training as well as internships at libraries and presses.

In its first year, the Book Initiative hosted inaugural lectures by Isabel Hofmeyr and Jill Lepore. Since then, we have co-organized transcribe-a-thons with the Colored Conventions Project and Alexander Library, sponsored graduate student field trips to area libraries and letterpresses, granted graduate student fellowships to Rare Book School, sponsored an undergraduate class in bookmaking as well as co-sponsored a rare book exhibition. Recent events include talks, bookbinding studios, and scavenger hunts with Javiera Barrientos, Jesse Erickson, Denise Gigante, Melina Moe, Heather O’Donnell, Matt Rubery, Andrew Stauffer, Corinna Zeltsman, Kari Kraus, Matthew Kirschenbaum, Tia Blassingame, Jonathan Senchyne and Priyasha Mukhopadhyay. As of fall 2023, the Scarlet Letterpress will be open to print announcements, student creative writing, and extracurricular projects.