Cross-listed with CLAS309N; Credit only granted for CLAS309N or RELS319D.

From the Bible and the Qur an to the Greek and Latin Classics, the books that have shaped the modern world were written thousands of years ago and we almost never possess the ancient originals themselves. So how have these texts reached us? How were they produced, accessed, read, and copied in the ancient world? And are the versions we read today faithful to their originals? This course explores the long journey of texts from antiquity to the present. Through selections from ancient literature andmodern scholarship, students will learn how books are shaped not onlybytheir authors but by their copyists, editors, translators, and readers. Our exploration of the history of written texts will take us tothe UMD special collections, the Hornbake Library Letterpress Studio, and other collections in the D.C. area.