The Battle for Books
26-29 June 2012
Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

Submissions are invited for the twentieth annual conference of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing (SHARP) to be held in Dublin, Ireland between 26 and 29 June 2012

The Theme
In a city like Dublin, which has been home to Swift, Wilde and Joyce one naturally thinks of ‘The Battle for Books’ in terms of censorship, constraint and restraint. While the organisers of this conference envisage that these offer significant topics for individual papers and groups of papers within panels, we encourage participants to interpret the theme as broadly as possible.

On the production side of the industry one might consider the financial, emotional and organisational struggles of authors, printers and publishers to bring books to market. Papers are also welcome from scholars who wish to analyse the distribution, sale and reception of books across a range of time periods and geographical locations.

There is plenty of scope to develop ‘The Battle for Books’ in a historical context, but we also invite papers from scholars who wish to examine the future for books, the book-trade and the printing industry in the context of current and future technological innovations.

As always, proposals dealing with any aspect of book history are welcome. However, topics of particular importance to the themes of the conference include (but are not limited to):

* Lost and endangered skills related to the printing industry and book-trade
* Battles between/among authors, printers and publishers
* Censorship, constraint and restraint
* Contestation and cultural struggle
* Constructions and deconstructions of national and local identities
* The digital book and digital futures
* Library futures