Upcoming Classes in the Textual Studies Minor and Graduate Certificate Programs
The UW Textual Studies Program has unveiled new courses for Spring 2025! In this blog, we’ll give you all the details of these upcoming classes. From book arts to manuscripts, to Scandinavian mythology, there’s tons to explore in TXTDS courses. Read on to find out more about our spring quarter offerings.
Courses in the Undergraduate Minor and Graduate Certificate in Textual Studies and Digital Humanities
The UW Textual Studies Program encompasses a wide range of courses in a variety of departments and subject fields. Covering topics such as book history, bibliography, digital humanities, print cultures and more, there is sure to be a Textual Studies course that fits your interests.
The UW Textual Studies Program offers programs for both undergraduate and graduate students. The UW Textual Studies and Digital Humanities Minor is a 25-credit program in which students take courses from two distributions: the Core Courses and the Electives. They additionally complete a Capstone course, TXTDS 405, which can be taken in any quarter and is a culminating project conducted under the guidance of a faculty advisor or a librarian.
The Graduate Certificate in Textual and Digital Studies is based on the completion of 16 total credits, including two classes from the Core Electives, one open elective chosen in consultation with the student’s TDS advisor, and a Capstone course, which connects the students primary program and graduate work with their work in TXTDS.
For spring 2025, Textual Studies has introduced a series of new and returning classes that fit each of these requirements. Continue reading to find out more about the courses on offer.
Spring 2025 TXTDS Core Courses
TXTDS 402 Book Arts: Proseminar in Special Collections, Bibliography, and Letterpress Printing

Have you ever wanted to learn about working in archives, handling historical materials, or the process of letterpress printing? This small seminar will allow students interested in the Textual Studies and Digital Humanities minor an opportunity to discover UW Libraries’ Special Collections and get hands-on experience with the historical and archival materials housed therein. Plus, students enrolled in the seminar will also learn about printing techniques, including instruction in letterpress printing with the help of Seattle-based letterpress printing non-profit, Partners in Print.


TXTDS 404/504 Texts, Publics, and Publication: Digital Editing and Publishing
Instructor: Professor Geoffrey Turnovsky
We’ll study the history of editorial and publication processes, from early print-shops to the impacts of digitization today. How does editing and publishing shape and reshape texts along with the publics that read them? How is digitization now impacting our writing, reading, archiving, and preservation practices? What is the future of publishing in the age of AI and social media? We’ll learn techniques in digital editing and publishing, including transcription (manual and automatic) and text encoding using the XML-based guidelines of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI). We’ll learn to query and process TEI-encoded texts using XPath and XSLT, and we’ll explore web publishing, including an introduction to HTML and CSS, and other web publishing tools.
Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of XML before. No prior experience with encoding or transcription is required or expected! You’ll be walked through the process step-by-step and will gain a host of new skills by the end of the quarter.
Spring 2025 TXTDS Electives
TXTDS 220 Making Manuscripts: Manuscript and Handwriting Technologies From Antiquity to Today
Instructor: Professor Beatrice Arduini

Quills, pens, pencils, vellum and paper: we forget in our digital age that the most enduring writing technologies have been the tools we use to write by hand. We still often sign, now with a stylus or our finger on a screen. In this course, students will explore the rich history of handwriting and manuscripts, from medieval manuscripts to handwriting today.

During the quarter, students enrolled in the course will also get to visit UW Special Collections and see rare manuscript fragments and books up close, some even dating back to the 12th century!
ENGL 322 Medieval and Early Modern Literatures of Encounter
Instructor: Professor Rhema Hokama


This course focuses on cultural encounters across medieval and early modern worlds. We will explore medieval and early modern travel writing and the dramatic and poetic responses to these tales of global travel–focusing especially on European travels to Asia and the Americas. In our readings of writers like William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, Thomas More, John Donne, Luís de Camões, and Marco Polo, we’ll reflect on how European discourses about race, religion, and geopolitical power were shaped by the global exchange of goods and ideas.
SCAND 330 Scandinavian Mythology
Instructor: Professor Timothy Bourns
During this course, students will have the chance to explore and study religious life in the pre-Christian North. You’ll explore various source materials, including the Prose Edda and Poetic Edda, and will discuss historical, archeological, and folkloric evidence.
MELC 211 Introduction to Myths of the Ancient Middle East
Instructor: Professor Kathryn Medill

Throughout this course, students will explore myths from ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria, Anatolia, and Israel. How did the world come to be the way it is, and how did these myths shape ancient peoples’ views of themselves? How and why did ancient people use myths as part of their religious practices and daily lives? Why did some myths stay in circulation for over a thousand years? And how did ancient scribes edit and reframe myths over time to serve new purposes? No prerequisites. Final project instead of final exam.
ART H 400 Art History and Criticism: Haiti and Print Culture in the Age of Revolution
Instructor: Professor Jennifer Baez

This course considers printed material and ephemera that circulated in the Black Atlantic during the runup to and the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution. Our goal is to trace how print media created affective networks. Each week centers different topoi leading to The Burning Plantation theme; that is, images produced to activate anxiety over the threat of revolt. Students will engage a variety of printed imagery including imperial cartography, portraits of revolutionary leaders, and depictions of the laboring Black body. Paired readings will highlight the role of print in forming readerships. The final project is a digital, student-led exhibition that reflects on Black Atlantic print culture and its circulation, manipulation, translation, and re-purposing.
This class is also open to those enrolled in the Textual and Digital Studies Graduate Certificate Program and satisfies one of the two required Core Elective courses.
UW Textual Studies and UW Global Literary Studies Printmaking Social Hour
If you are curious about any of these courses, be sure to stop by our upcoming Printmaking Social Hour, hosted jointly with UW Global Literary Studies. On Thursday, January 30th from 3:30pm to 5pm in HUB 337, you can come hear about these courses, make your own linocut prints, enjoy some snacks, and connect with people in the UW Textual Studies and UW Global Literary Studies programs.


If you would like more information about these upcoming spring quarter 2025 classes or the Textual Studies minor or graduate certificate programs, you can also email us at text@uw.edu.
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