Illegibility
<p>Where the rituals of academic life are concerned, there are few exercises as rudimentary, at once essential and banal, as taking notes. A student goes to class and reflexively pulls out a spiral-bound notebook, scribbling furiously to keep pace with the lecture. A scholar produces copious marginalia in an essay or book: in this sense, his or her library is not so much a collection of volumes on a shelf as an archive of palimpsests. Field notes are the preferred literary genre of anthropologists, linguists, and sociologists venturing beyond the walls of the ivory tower; art historians visit museums and galleries with notepads at the ready. Over the course of a lifetime, a professor goes through hundreds of reams of paper in an effort to “get it all down,” whether “it” is registered through pencil, pen, or keystroke…</p>
Authors: Pamela M. Lee
Series Editor: Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Chus Martínez, Bettina Funcke
Editors: Katrin Sauerländer, Cordelia Marten
Proofreader: Sam Frank
Translators: Barbara Hess
Designer: Leftloft
Part of: dOCUMENTA (13): 100 Notes, 100 Thoughts
ISBN: 9783775730594