ATNU Virtual Speaker Series - Kirstyn Leuner - 2022-01-27

Our next speaker in the ATNU Virtual Speaker Series is Kirstyn Leuner, from the English Department of Santa Clara University. Kirstyn will talk to us about how colour matters in digitization projects using Anne B. Poyntz’s Je ne sçai quoi (1769), a collection of letters and odes, as a case study. Join us on Thursday 27 January 2022 via Zoom at 5pm UK time. (We will send the zoom link to all registered attendees a day or so before the event.) 

If you missed this talk, there is a recording of it here.

Color Matters: How Will 18th-Century Color Print and Textual Meaning Survive Mass Digitization?

Kirstyn Leuner

Thursday 27 January 2022
5pm (GMT)



Projects that digitize collections of 18th-century texts at scale have repeatedly sacrificed ink color fidelity for efficiency and financial savings, which I argue, is a loss of significant textual content and meaning. My talk will explore Anne B. Poyntz’s Je ne sçai quoi (1769), a collection of letters and odes, as a case study. Poyntz printed two special wishes for her book within her book. First, she wanted her by-line to read "by a Woman". Second, she states in the dedication that it should be printed in red ink. No existing print or e-books contain the by-line "by a Woman". While print copies and some e-books do have a red dedication, most digital editions fail to accurately represent ink color, a crucial textual facet that conveys the book’s meaning and the author's identity as a woman writer.

My talk will draw together the book history and digital histories of Je ne sçai quoi to show that we have mottled print histories of color printing.

Last modified: Wed, 11 May 2022 14:10:35 BST