Readings · Lecture Notes
MIT OpenCourseWare
From Print to Digital: Technologies of the Word, 1450-Present
Art: Matilda of Flanders, Bayeux Tapestry 4 variant, 1070 · Public domain
- Instructor
- Prof. Jeffrey S. Ravel
- Term
- Fall 2005
- Level
- Undergraduate
- What's inside
- 1 reading · 12 other files · 4 web pages
- Materials open
- MIT OCW
About this course
Source: MIT OpenCourseWare 21H.418 From Print to Digital: Technologies of the Word, 1450-Present, Fall 2005, Prof. Jeffrey S. Ravel — original course page on ocw.mit.edu ↗. License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Study order: MIT's own listing order, section by section. Taken from MIT's published course files, downloaded from ocw.mit.edu on September 23, 2026. How RedLectern is built.
Materials are grouped the way MIT organized them. A verified, course-wide order has not been established here.
Before you start
Prerequisites are not listed here. Check MIT's own syllabus for this course.
How this course was organized
What's here, and what isn't
- A lecture sequence of 13 items is confirmed. Assignment and exam materials exist too, but MIT's own order for them could not be verified, so they're shown as materials below rather than a sequence.
Not included here
22 items from the source could not be safely included:
- MIT's page format for this item wasn't recognized clearly enough to place it safely. (21 items)
- Referenced in a table, but without MIT's own verified order, so it isn't used to claim a sequence.
Materials by section
Grouped by section, as MIT organized them. Not sequenced or ordered.
Assignments
12 files
- Homework 1: Ong, Orality and Literacy Download
- Homework 2: Was There a Printing Revolution? Download
- Homework 3: English Chapbooks Download
- Homework 4: Eisenstein’s Printing Revolution Revisited Download
- Homework 5: Inkan Khipus Download
- Homework 6: Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines Download
- Homework 7: Book Clubs: Women and the Uses of Reading in Everyday Life Download
- Homework 8: Digitizing the News: Innovation in Online Newspapers Download
- First paper: Ten page paper Download
- Second paper: Five page paper Download
- Proudfoot_paper_2.pdf Download
- This resource contains the student paper by David Proudfoot in which he's presented the journal of… (proudfootpaper_2.pdf) Download
Course outline
Readings · Lecture Notes
Lecture 2: Theorizing Orality and Literacy
Readings · Lecture Notes
Lecture 3: Was There a “Printing Revolution”?
Readings · Lecture Notes
Lecture 4: English Chapbooks
Readings · Lecture Notes
Lecture 5: A Visit to the Burndy Library
Readings · Lecture Notes
Lecture 6: Critiquing Early Printing Assignments
Readings · Lecture Notes
Lecture 7: Typesetting
Readings · Lecture Notes
Lecture 8: An Alternative to the Technologized Word: The Inkan Khipu (Guest: Prof. Gary Urton, Anthropology, Harvard)
Readings · Lecture Notes
Lecture 9: The Technologized Word in the Nineteenth Century
Readings · Lecture Notes
Lecture 10: Consultations with Instructor
Readings · Lecture Notes
Lecture 11: Reading Communities Today
Readings · Lecture Notes
Lecture 12: Reading Online
Readings · Lecture Notes
Lecture 13: Conclusion
MIT OpenCourseWare, Prof. Jeffrey S. Ravel, 21H.418 From Print to Digital: Technologies of the Word, 1450-Present, Fall 2005.
License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · Edition: Fall 2005 · Open the original course on OCW ↗
Organized by RedLectern, independent of MIT and not endorsed by MIT.
Per-resource rights are recorded on each resource; All-Rights-Reserved items are link-only, never mirrored.
