Poetiken des Blätterns

Anyone who reads, browses. Since the establishment of the codex as the standard form of book in late antiquity, browsing as a cultural technique has been reflected and practiced in religious, academic, social and literary contexts. This study examines aesthetic representations and choreographies of browsing, from the literature of the early modern, baroque and romantic periods to recent artists’ books and current literature. The focus also falls on books outside the literary canon and those intended for browsing rather than reading: oracle books, flick books and blow books, dos-à-dos and other multi-fold bindings, pop-up books and flip books. The study of different traditions and strategies of browsing also offers interesting insights into the function and significance of books as repositories of knowledge, the processes of generating knowledge, the changing conceptions of the book as a data-carrier and a medium for the distribution of literary works, the role of the book in literature and, not least, the early and modern interaction with literary works as a haptic experience. "Proceeding from the premise that the book as object conditioned the presentation and consumption of text, Schulz offers a diachronic exploration of the phenomenon of leafing, discussing both historical uses of the codex predicated on the practice and literary representations of the phenomenon. The result is a rich and intriguing overview of the forms and functions of flicking through books, ranging from antiquity to the late twentieth century. (.) Poetiken des Blätterns offers a treasure trove of examples of the uses of leafing, illuminating both practices and literary explorations of this important quality of the codex." Arnoud Visser, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 69, No.4/2016)