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We invite submissions for the 21st annual conference of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP), to be held in Philadelphia from July 18-21, 2013. The program will take place primarily on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. Sponsors include the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and the Library Company of Philadelphia, among other local institutions.

The theme for the 21st annual SHARP conference is “Geographies of the Book.” It can be approached from at least three perspectives:

1. Recent developments that take particular texts and use them to construct multiple histories including, but not limited to, the circulation of books, the plurality of interpretations and uses of the texts, and the forms of domination and resistance within the political and social spheres made possible by the written word.

2. Case studies exploring geographies of books and geographies within books. Geographies of books can refer to the role of the author, the history of publishing (including pirated editions and false imprints), the book trade (circulation of print, within cities, countries, and across continents), and the translation/transformation of texts into other languages, other forms (adaptations, abridgements, epitomes), and other genres (histories into plays, poetry into prose). Or the subject of the geography of reading might also be contemplated.

3. Geographies within books may invoke imaginative topographies or journeys within fictional works, the place of maps and images in travelogues and novels, or the circulation of type and ornament between print shops and cities, and variations or similarities in the regional or national habits of printers and compositors. Tensions between the universal diffusion of printing and its local instantiation might here be considered.