UW Textual Studies Alums Continue to Masters at the School of Advanced Study at the University of London
Join us in congratulating recent UW Textual Studies alums, Riley Hull and Jules Lockett, who have been accepted to the MA in the History of the Book program at the School of Advanced Study at the University of London. We sat down with Riley and Jules to speak about their path through the TXTDS program, their route to the MA in the History of the Book, and their aspirations post-graduation. Read on to find out more!
English Majors and TXTDS Minors to attend MA Program at University of London
Riley Hull and Jules Lockett are majors in English and minors in Textual Studies and Digital Humanities. Next year, they’re set to attend the MA Program in the History of the Book at the School of Advanced Study at the University of London. This is a graduate program focused on all aspects of the making, distribution, and reading of books and other written media, such as newspapers and magazines, manuscripts, ephemera, digital texts, and more, from the clay of cuneiform tablets to the digital devices of today.
Pictured Above: Clay cuneiform tablet and repaired parchment. These substrates are important examples in the history of written media.
For both Riley and Jules, the draw of this specific program rests with the opportunities it offers within and beyond coursework. As part of the program’s modules, students have the chance to complete an internship in the London book trade or working with a library or museum. According to Jules, this opportunity forms a particular point of interest as she hopes to go on to complete a Masters in Library and Information Science upon graduation in pursuit of a career in special collections and archival librarianship. Riley has been accepted to the M.S. in Library Science program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and will continue on to this program upon her completion of the MA in Book History.
For Riley, the internship is also a huge draw, but alongside this, the opportunities the program provides for tailoring the focus of study is also especially enticing. As Riley hopes to go on to further study or to a PhD program, the MA’s specialization opportunities in various geographies and periods of the book are particularly exciting. One of the MA’s course modules, The Book in the Industrial Age, suits one of Riley’s special research interests in the nineteenth-century book and print’s industrialization during the period. This module is dedicated to print’s post-handpress era from the mechanization of printing in the nineteenth century to the advent of the digital era.
“Looking forward to the MA program, I’m most excited about getting to study the history of the book in the heart of London, one of the epicenters of both publication and circulation. I’m so excited to join the scholarly community abroad, and I can’t wait to start studying the history of the book on an even more in-depth and specific level.”
– Riley Hull
Pictured Above: Charles Dickens’ Bleak House in serialized parts and Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret in yellowback form are examples of industrialized formats of book production manufactured during the nineteenth-century.
Textual Studies Courses Prepare Graduates for Advanced Training in the History of the Book
Jules and Riley both credit their experiences in the UW Textual Studies program, undertaking the Minor in Textual Studies and Digital Humanities, as a key in their successful applications and in their preparation for advanced study in the history of the book.
In fact, Riley credits TXTDS 402 Book Arts: Proseminar in Special Collections, Bibliography, and Letterpress Printing, with first sparking her interest in nineteenth-century British book history—an interest she hopes to explore and cultivate in the MA program. During the fall quarter of 2023, Riley was fascinated by a session that focused on printed books from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, representing the industrialization of printing technology and the changing format of the book throughout the period.
“My time in the TXTDS minor has been the most unexpected but rewarding part of my time at the UW. It has led me to connect with incredible professors and like-minded talented peers who have become close friends, while also introducing me to an entire academic world I didn’t previously know existed but am now endlessly fascinated by and invested in.”
– Riley Hull
For Jules, this course and session were also important in helping her find her own interests in the broader field of book studies. Seeing the technology of the book change over the period of print’s industrialization through the items in the Special Collections classroom—in binding practices, paper constitution, and its evolving physical form—Jules was inspired to think about how the book object responds to social, political, and historical shifts. She hopes to continue to research this process through the MA program and in her future studies in library science.
Pictured Above: Stills from digital projects produced by Riley Hull and Jules Lockett during their TXTDS coursework. These projects received recognition from the Annual Textual Studies and Digital Humanities Academic Awards.
During their time in the TXTDS minor program, both Riley and Jules were recognized for their outstanding work. Each academic year, the Annual Textual Studies and Digital Humanities Academic Awards celebrates the accomplishments of students enrolled in Textual Studies courses. In 2024, Riley, as part of a team including fellow students, Trisha Binwade and Tara Boyd, won First Place in the Undergraduate Award for “The Ladies’ Handbook of Fancy and Ornamental Work,” a TEI-XML edition of the 19th-century handbook from UW’s Special Collections holdings. Jules, also as part of a team that included Sofia Posada and Nic Staley (an Art History graduate student in the Textual and Digital Studies certificate), won Honorable Mention for their work on the “Jasper N. Bertram Papers,” a TEI-XML edition of the 19th and early-20th century papers housed in UW’s Special Collections. Gaining both skills in bibliography and print culture studies, as well as digital approaches to the book, has been especially helpful, note Riley and Jules, as their future MA program spans a broad period of written production from the pre-print era of manuscripts to the digitized text formats of modern day.
TXTDS Students Blend English Studies and Book History
One of the exciting things about the MA in the History of the Book program for both Riley and Jules is that it is housed in the Institute of English Studies within the Institute of Advanced Study. As English majors themselves, and enrollees in the English Honors Program, this circumstance is ideal for the way in which it allows them to continue to pursue the intersection of their dual scholarly interests, something the interdisciplinarity of the Textual Studies undergraduate minor has encouraged from the start.
The undergraduate Minor in Textual Studies and Digital Humanities pairs well with a variety of other majors and its courses allow students to specialize in their areas of interest, often blending the concerns of their major into the coursework of the minor. In fact, Textual Studies students come from a range of disciplinary affiliations including English, Applied Mathmatics, Anthropology, French, History, Linguistics, and many more!
Undergraduate Courses in Textual Study, Special Collections, and Digital Humanities
Congratulations to Riley Hull and Jules Lockett on completing the Minor in Textual Studies and Digital Humanities and on their acceptance to the MA in the History of the Book Program at the University of London! Many thanks to both for sharing their research interests and hopes for the upcoming program with the Textual Studies blog!
The Textual Studies program offers an array of courses at the undergraduate level that reflect the program’s dedication to the study of diverse texts across time, place, media form, and language, including non-anglophone and non-alphabetic corpora, computational and digital approaches to textual study, and the ability to experience hands-on learning with materials in UW Special Collections and the UW Libraries’ archives.
If you’d like to find out more about opportunities for undergraduate students in UW Textual Studies, our upcoming courses, or the undergraduate minor program and its requirements, you can explore our website or email text@uw.edu.
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