Inventing the alphabet : the origins of letters from antiquity to the present
Drucker, Johanna, 1952-2022
Book
"Though there are many books about the history of the alphabet, virtually none address how that history came to be. In Inventing the Alphabet, Johanna Drucker guides readers from antiquity to the present to show how humans have shaped and reshaped their own understanding of this transformative writing tool. From ancient beliefs in the alphabet as a divine gift to growing awareness of its empirical origins through the study of scripts and inscriptions, Drucker describes the frameworks-classical, textual, biblical, graphical, antiquarian, archaeological, paleographic, and political-within which the alphabet's history has been and continues to be constructed. Drucker's book begins in ancient Greece, with the earliest writings on the alphabet's origins. She then explores biblical sources on the topic and medieval preoccupations with the magical properties of individual letters. She later delves into the development of modern archaeological and paleographic tools, and she concludes with the role of alphabetic characters in the digital era. Throughout, she argues that, as a shared form of knowledge technology integrated into every aspect of our lives, the alphabet performs complex cultural, ideological, and technical functions, and her carefully curated selection of images demonstrates how closely the letters we use today still resemble their original appearance millennia ago"-- Provided by publisher.
Main title:
Author:
Drucker, Johanna, 1952-, author
Imprint:
Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2022.©2022
Collation:
380 pages : illustrations, facsimiles ; 25 cm
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:
When Did the Alphabet Become "Greek"?Divine Gifts: Original Letters, Moses, and the Tablets at Mount SinaiMedieval Copyists: Magical Letters, Mythic Scripts, and Exotic AlphabetsThe Confusion of Tongues and Compendia of ScriptsAntiquity Explained: The Origin and Progress of LettersThe Rhetoric of Tables and the Harmony of AlphabetsModern Archaeology: Putting the Evidence of the Alphabet in PlaceReading the Early Alphabet: Epigraphy and PaleographyAlphabet Effects and the Politics of ScriptCodaAlphabetic Agency and Global Hegemony.
ISBN:
9780226815817 (hbk)9780226815817 (hardback)
Dewey class:
411
LC class:
P211
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
782172
| Location | Collection | Call number | Status/Desc |
|---|---|---|---|
| narrm ngarrgu Library and Family Services | -Literature | LITER 411 DRUC | Available |