Book Manuscript Workshop Grant

Thanks to a Manuscript Workshop Grant from the GHI, as well as support from the English Department, on November 14, 2025 Prof. Seth Perlow (English Department) held a six-hour workshop of his book manuscript, The Digital Hand: Electronics and Literary Manuscripts. In this project, Prof. Perlow argues that electronics have transformed the study of literary manuscripts and made the appearance of handwriting a powerful token of literary quality. Most histories of textual media privilege the printing press, the typewriter, and their electronic successors, but this project builds a quirkier genealogy of equipment for working with manuscripts. The Digital Hand finds handwritten literature in online manuscript archives and in the feeds of Instagram poets, in the labs of forensic handwriting examiners and machine learning researchers, and even under the arms of pen-wielding robots. Through close readings of literature both canonical and contemporary—by Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Renee Gladman, Robert Grenier, and others—Prof. Perlow demonstrates that the meaning of a manuscript depends upon the equipment used to capture, analyze, and reproduce images of it. By situating handwritten literature in its electronic contexts, The Digital Hand confronts longstanding uncertainties about what literary scholars can learn from handwriting and how.

The GHI grant enabled Prof. Perlow to bring two visiting scholars to campus for this workshop. Lisa Gitelman, Professor of English and Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, is a media historian whose research focuses on book history, inscription and documentation technologies, and new media. Matthew Kirschenbaum, Distinguished University Professor of English at the University of Maryland, researches comparative textual media, archival technologies, and artificial intelligence. In addition to Gitelman and Kirschenbaum, a few English Department colleagues were invited to join the workshop. 

The Digital Hand is under contract with Stanford University Press and will be completed in 2026. Congratulations to Prof. Perlow!