Print Technologies and the Emergence of American Literary Cultures

Explores the intersections of print, writing, and media in early American literary cultures

Print Technologies and the Emergence of American Literary Cultures traces the complex dynamics that shaped literary production in North America from pre-Columbian times through the early nineteenth century. Oliver Scheiding’s in-depth study demonstrates how literary cultures emerged not from isolated acts of authorship, but through a network of human and non-human mediators, diverse material surfaces, and intersecting media forms. By bringing into dialogue oral, aural, visual, and print practices, the book reveals how literary histories were assembled across cultural, material, and linguistic boundaries in the circum-Atlantic world.

Balancing original archival recovery with theoretical insights, Scheiding situates American literature within a broad ecology of media and material practices. The book examines Indigenous writings, the circulation of texts in periodicals, and the literary work of figures such as Anne Bradstreet, Samson Occom, Phillis Wheatley, Susanna Rowson, Charles Brockden Brown, and Washington Irving. It also considers how these early practices resonate in contemporary forms of visual storytelling and collaborative texts. Offering fresh interpretations that combine literary analysis, anthropology, material culture studies, and media history, Scheiding reframes American literary history as a multilayered set of media events rather than a linear narrative of print dominance.

Investigating how literature, media technologies, and material practices converge to shape cultural expression across time, Print Technologies and the Emergence of American Literary Cultures:

• Provides exemplary close readings that merge literary history with media theory and material analysis
• Introduces the concept of “deep surfaces” as a method for reading literary cultures across material contexts
• Presents innovative archival recovery of overlooked Indigenous and colonial writing practices
• Demonstrates the entanglement of oral, visual, and print traditions in shaping literary production
• Employs interdisciplinary approaches, drawing from anthropology, sociology, and material culture studies

Extending the field of American literary history beyond linear narratives of print dominance, Print Technologies and the Emergence of American Literary Cultures is ideal for upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars in courses such as Early American Literature, Indigenous Studies, Book History, and Print Culture Studies, fitting within English, American Studies, and Media Studies degree programs. It is also a valuable reference text for researchers in transatlantic and cultural studies.

OLIVER SCHEIDING is Professor of North American Literatures and Early American Studies at the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University, Germany. He has published more than thirty articles that cover the entire range of American writing, and is the author or editor of ten books, among them Worlding America: A Transnational Anthology of Short Narratives before 1800. He has contributed to numerous publications, including the Oxford Handbook of Charles Brockden Brown, the Cambridge History of Native American Literature, and co-edited a special issue on Indigenous periodicals for American Periodicals.