Brendan Dooley on Renaissance Transmission of News

Join the Grolier Club for this live webcast via Zoom. Brendan Dooley, professor of Renaissance Studies, College of Arts, University College Cork, will lecture on one of the Renaissance’s great forgotten inventions: regular public transmission of written news. Although exchanging information of general interest regarding daily occurrences has been a feature of European societies for as long as historical memory extends, an influential Renaissance novelty was the creation of specific writing genres (manuscript and print) for telling about the news each week. Drivers of this development, apart from sheer curiosity, included state officials seeking opportunities, merchants seeking markets, and writers seeking jobs. Traditional settings for news conversations, in homes, at court, and in public squares, were thus supplied with topics originating not only from local occurrences but from far away, not only from books, pamphlets, and private letters but also from periodical news sheets covering major events of the day, with significant effects on widespread ways of thinking and behaving. Dooley’s examples will show how Renaissance news evolved from manuscript newsletters into printed newspapers, with long-term consequences still keenly felt.

This program will be live webcast and registrants will receive a Zoom link two days before the event.

Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-lecture-brendan-dooley-on-renaissance-transmission-of-news-tickets-999611122777?aff=ebemoffollowpublishemail&ref=eemail&utm_campaign=following_published_event&utm_content=follow_notification&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eventbrite

If you are a Grolier Club member, please register yourself and your guests via the Club website. Do not register via Eventbrite.

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