The Shape of Script: How and Why Writing Systems Change (School for Advanced Research Advanced Seminar Series) - Softcover
Synopsis
This book builds on earlier projects about the origins and extinctions of script traditions throughout the world in an effort to address the fundamental questions of how and why writing systems change. The contributors--who study ancient scripts from Arabic to Roman, from Bronze Age China to Middle Kingdom Egypt--utilize an approach that views writing less as a technology than as a mode of communication, one that is socially learned and culturally transmitted.
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About the Author
Stephen D. Houston has spent decades studying the nature of writing systems, which "are so very basic as nodes of connection among many aspects of human experience," such as language, communication, identity, technology, and the recording of memory. "One of the misconceptions about writing is that a particular system of script comes into existence, remains the same, and then `dies,'" said Houston."This notion radically and wrongly dehistoricizes systems of writing. We now know that scripts exist as fluid sets of practices, shifting over long periods of time and in response to changing historical circumstances, conditions of learning, and arenas of patronage and use."
Review
Having edited two valuable collections on how scripts are born (The First Writing) and how they die (The Disappearance of Writing Systems), Stephen Houston has now assembled a third, equally valuable collection, The Shape of Script.... Until quite recently, it was common for most scholars of writing to assume that writing systems must inevitably evolve towards greater efficiency or a more phonemic representation of the languages they express. This somewhat arid view is no longer tenable.... As Houston rightly argues in his Preface, The study of writing needs to be brought back into the fold of anthropology, not as a marginal or recondite specialty but because it is an indispensable tool by which knowledge is transmitted. The wide-ranging contributors to this collection respond to this brief with both erudition and imagination. --Andrew Robinson, author of The Story of Writing, Lost Languages, The Man Who Deciphered Linear B, and Cracking the Egyptian Code
This collection of essays addresses a rarely treated but strategic set of questions. It shows that the study of the evolution of script systems constitutes the best way to understand how aesthetics and script use can shape each other in a cultural tradition, and more generally, how the visual appearance of signs can influence the social use of language. In a very wide range of case studies from Maya and Mixtec to Latin, Egyptian, Arab, and Chinese each contributor demonstrates that the shape of script has its own levels of analysis from its minute constituents to its broader macro-settings. The Shape of Script is a great attempt to marry an amazing scholarship with an anthropologically-minded perspective on writing, seen as a culturally-shaped mode of communication and as one of the central cultural productions in human history. It certainly is a stunning achievement. --Carlo Severi, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris
This book completes a trilogy of books on scripts' origins, development and disappearance, of which its hard-working editor should feel justifiably proud. --Andrew Robinson, Antiquity, Dec. 2012
This book completes a trilogy of books on scripts' origins, development and disappearance, of which its hard-working editor should feel justifiably proud. --Andrew Robinson, London, UK
Writing is addressed in a broad perspective, not so much as a technology (for representing speech) but rather as a mode of communication that is socially learned and culturally shaped or transmitted.... The individual contributions present an impressive wealth of data and analyses.... This very important book delineates what amounts to a new domain of scholarly inquiry. --Andreas Stauder, Journal of Anthropological Research, vol. 69, 2013
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Paperback. Condition: New. Stephen D. Houston has spent decades studying the nature of writing systems, which "are so very basic as nodes of connection among many aspects of human experience," such as language, communication, identity, technology, and the recording of memory. "One of the misconceptions about writing is that a particular system of script comes into existence, remains the same, and then 'dies,'" said Houston."This notion radically and wrongly dehistoricizes systems of writing. We now know that scripts exist as fluid sets of practices, shifting over long periods of time and in response to changing historical circumstances, conditions of learning, and arenas of patronage and use." For this advanced seminar "The Shape of Script: How and Why Writing Systems Change," 10 specialists convened to address "the question of what happens between the origins of a writing system and the time of eventual 'script death,' or extinction." Although scholars are close to conceptualizing the way scripts emerge and pass into obsolescence, they are still far from explaining how scripts maintain themselves over time or how and why they change when they do. "This is unfortunate: writing is one of the central cultural productions in human history, yet its many modulations and shifts seem largely to be taken for granted, without need for explanation. Writing is a pivotal intermediary in many human transactions. But it needs to be brought back into the fold of anthropology, not as a marginal specialty but as an indispensable tool by which knowledge is transmitted." The seminar, conceived as a capstone to a 10-year project to resuscitate and renovate the study of past writing systems within anthropology, brought together experts in script traditions including Egyptian hieroglyphs, Latin writing and Mediterranean alphabets, cuneiform, South Asian scripts, ancient Roman script, and premodern Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, and Mesoamerican writing systems. Using cross-cultural comparisons, the participants sought to understand the forces that influence the courses of writing systems. Houston emphasized the importance of examining context:"What is the physical, temporal, social, and cultural setting for the way the message of writing is accessed? That is where history enters the picture, within a place of contingency, challenge, and opportunity." Among the questions driving the discussions were the following: What processes affected formal changes in scripts? What agents or actors were involved in such shifts, either actively or passively? How was literacy achieved, then futhered or restricted? How did aesthetics and the use of script shape each other? What influence did technologies have on script forms? How was writing "gendered" or "aged" or "classed"?And what are the linkages between images and script? Of particular interest was the issue of generational transfer. "This brings us to matters on the cutting edge of anthropology:What is the role of being a child, or an adolescent? What do we l. Seller Inventory # LU-9781934691427
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Paperback. Condition: New. Stephen D. Houston has spent decades studying the nature of writing systems, which "are so very basic as nodes of connection among many aspects of human experience," such as language, communication, identity, technology, and the recording of memory. "One of the misconceptions about writing is that a particular system of script comes into existence, remains the same, and then 'dies,'" said Houston."This notion radically and wrongly dehistoricizes systems of writing. We now know that scripts exist as fluid sets of practices, shifting over long periods of time and in response to changing historical circumstances, conditions of learning, and arenas of patronage and use." For this advanced seminar "The Shape of Script: How and Why Writing Systems Change," 10 specialists convened to address "the question of what happens between the origins of a writing system and the time of eventual 'script death,' or extinction." Although scholars are close to conceptualizing the way scripts emerge and pass into obsolescence, they are still far from explaining how scripts maintain themselves over time or how and why they change when they do. "This is unfortunate: writing is one of the central cultural productions in human history, yet its many modulations and shifts seem largely to be taken for granted, without need for explanation. Writing is a pivotal intermediary in many human transactions. But it needs to be brought back into the fold of anthropology, not as a marginal specialty but as an indispensable tool by which knowledge is transmitted." The seminar, conceived as a capstone to a 10-year project to resuscitate and renovate the study of past writing systems within anthropology, brought together experts in script traditions including Egyptian hieroglyphs, Latin writing and Mediterranean alphabets, cuneiform, South Asian scripts, ancient Roman script, and premodern Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, and Mesoamerican writing systems. Using cross-cultural comparisons, the participants sought to understand the forces that influence the courses of writing systems. Houston emphasized the importance of examining context:"What is the physical, temporal, social, and cultural setting for the way the message of writing is accessed? That is where history enters the picture, within a place of contingency, challenge, and opportunity." Among the questions driving the discussions were the following: What processes affected formal changes in scripts? What agents or actors were involved in such shifts, either actively or passively? How was literacy achieved, then futhered or restricted? How did aesthetics and the use of script shape each other? What influence did technologies have on script forms? How was writing "gendered" or "aged" or "classed"?And what are the linkages between images and script? Of particular interest was the issue of generational transfer. "This brings us to matters on the cutting edge of anthropology:What is the role of being a child, or an adolescent? What do we l. Seller Inventory # LU-9781934691427
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The Shape of Script: How and Why Writing Systems Change
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Paperback. Condition: New. Stephen D. Houston has spent decades studying the nature of writing systems, which "are so very basic as nodes of connection among many aspects of human experience," such as language, communication, identity, technology, and the recording of memory. "One of the misconceptions about writing is that a particular system of script comes into existence, remains the same, and then 'dies,'" said Houston."This notion radically and wrongly dehistoricizes systems of writing. We now know that scripts exist as fluid sets of practices, shifting over long periods of time and in response to changing historical circumstances, conditions of learning, and arenas of patronage and use." For this advanced seminar "The Shape of Script: How and Why Writing Systems Change," 10 specialists convened to address "the question of what happens between the origins of a writing system and the time of eventual 'script death,' or extinction." Although scholars are close to conceptualizing the way scripts emerge and pass into obsolescence, they are still far from explaining how scripts maintain themselves over time or how and why they change when they do. "This is unfortunate: writing is one of the central cultural productions in human history, yet its many modulations and shifts seem largely to be taken for granted, without need for explanation. Writing is a pivotal intermediary in many human transactions. But it needs to be brought back into the fold of anthropology, not as a marginal specialty but as an indispensable tool by which knowledge is transmitted." The seminar, conceived as a capstone to a 10-year project to resuscitate and renovate the study of past writing systems within anthropology, brought together experts in script traditions including Egyptian hieroglyphs, Latin writing and Mediterranean alphabets, cuneiform, South Asian scripts, ancient Roman script, and premodern Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, and Mesoamerican writing systems. Using cross-cultural comparisons, the participants sought to understand the forces that influence the courses of writing systems. Houston emphasized the importance of examining context:"What is the physical, temporal, social, and cultural setting for the way the message of writing is accessed? That is where history enters the picture, within a place of contingency, challenge, and opportunity." Among the questions driving the discussions were the following: What processes affected formal changes in scripts? What agents or actors were involved in such shifts, either actively or passively? How was literacy achieved, then futhered or restricted? How did aesthetics and the use of script shape each other? What influence did technologies have on script forms? How was writing "gendered" or "aged" or "classed"?And what are the linkages between images and script? Of particular interest was the issue of generational transfer. "This brings us to matters on the cutting edge of anthropology:What is the role of being a child, or an adolescent? What do we l. Seller Inventory # LU-9781934691427
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