A. Mark Smith to deliver 2009 21st Century Corps of Discovery Lecture

The printing revolution sheds light on technology trends

A. Mark Smith, Curators' Professor of History, will deliver the 2009 21st Century Corps of Discovery Lecture on September 23, at 3:30 p.m., in Keller Auditorium. At the beginning of each academic year, this lecture "commemorates the contributions of Lewis and Clark by featuring an outstanding MU professor who inspires and brings together the university community." Smith will draw on his expertise in the history of science, medieval history, and manuscript analysis for his lecture "More than Meets the Eye: What Made the 'Printing Revolution' Revolutionary."

Before Johannes Gutenberg's invention in 1439 of printing with moveable type, texts were not widely distributed. In fact, they had to be copied and recopied by hand and could take years to complete. This method of reproduction led to variations in the text through accumulated scribal errors and meant that the information contained in the text could differ from manuscript to manuscript. With the printing press, texts were available to a larger reading public in a standardized form. Printing could then spread knowledge quickly and with greater impact. Smith will discuss the role of this invention in the revolutionary transformation of optics carried out by Johannes Kepler, who was able to discredit earlier findings of the "founding figure of medieval optics" – Alhacen. Central to this transformation was the publication of Alhacen's grand optical synthesis, De aspectibus (On Visual Appearances), in the first printed edition of 1572.

"I compare the manuscript form to the printed form of this text in order to show how the two entail radically different methods of reading and interpretation," says Smith. Using this comparison as a case-study, he will then discuss the broader implications of this new way of reading and interpreting texts.

The lecture's goal is to reinforce discovery, one of the university's core values. Smith will incorporate the discovery of the printing press and Kepler's contributions to visual theory and light-theory. Smith will also draw analogies with current technology and trends – text messaging and modern reading (or non-reading) habits.

"Like us today, scholars of the late 16th century experienced an information overload because of the new printing medium," says Smith, "and they had to find ways to cope with that overload. Both readers and publishers responded to that need by developing new ways to organize and present texts."

Smith received his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin–Madison before coming to MU in 1986.

"Students read less now than they did when I began my career," says Smith of the changes he sees in students. "The way they learn today is different; they are all computer literate, so I have to use new tools to keep them engaged."

Smith, who is married with two sons, ages 13 and 17, is in the final stages of a 23-year project: a critical edition and translation of Alhacen's De aspectibus, the medieval Latin version of Ibn al-Haythan's optical synthesis, Kitab al-Manazir (Book of Optics), which was composed in Arabic around 1030. Smith has published six parts of the seven-part critical edition and translation. The seventh part will be published soon.

by Laura Lindsey
College of Arts and Science

Links:

A. Mark Smith
Department of History
A. Mark Smith's Guggenheim Fellowship article

American Philosophical Society, De aspectibus publisher