The Making of Inscription: the Journal of Material Text – Theory, Practice, History

Inscription: the Journal of Material Text – Theory, Practice, History is edited by Professor Simon Morris (Leeds Beckett University), Dr Gill Partington (Fellow in Book History at the Institute of English Studies, University of London) and Professor Adam Smyth (English Literature and the History of the Book at Balliol College, Oxford University). Inscription is a cross-platform work that is: an artist's book; a curated exhibition space for multi-media works; and an academic journal for critical discussion surrounding the materiality of text.

Morris will discuss the historical precedents for this work and the artistic strategies that have informed its radical departure from more conservative models of academic journals. If books are one-off heavy-weights, then journals have a lightness that encourages risk, and a seriality that creates connections and personality across editions. Inscription aims for the mobility of the seventeenth-century pamphlet, the intellectual rigour of the monograph, and the walk-through-wonder of the art gallery. Morris will discuss: the choice of typography; the square format; the playful colophon; the exhibitions; the films; the workshops; the use of deadpan humour; and the approach to commissioning artist’s editions.