University of Wolverhampton's video: Artsfest Online: Pen Print and Communication in the Eighteenth Century webinar book launch

The eighteenth century, perhaps more than any other, was a pivotal time in the development of the mechanics and methods of communication. Commercial, political, legal, social and religious interactions were all facilitated by a variety of material processes such as handwriting, painting, drawing, printing and engraving which coexisted alongside more ephemeral and immaterial means of communication including voice, gesture, costume and performance. This introductory talk looks at the ways the volume’s contributors have dealt with all forms of communication in the eighteenth century. Hosted by Dr Malcolm Dick and recorded on 19th November 2020. Malcolm Dick is Director of the Centre for West Midlands History at the University of Birmingham, Co-Director of the Centre for Printing History & Culture, and Editor of Midland History. With Caroline Archer he has edited John Baskerville: Art and Industry of the Enlightenment (2017) and and James Watt (1736-1819): Culture, Innovation and Enlightenment. Malcolm was awarded an OBE in the 2019 New Year’s Honours List for ‘outstanding services to History in the West Midlands’. Speakers include: Persida Lazarević Di Giacomo: Writing and the preservation of cultural identity: the penmanship manuals of Zaharija Orfelin. Ruth Larsen: An archaeology of letter writing: the correspondence of aristocratic women in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England. Caroline Archer-Parré: Private pleasures and portable presses: do-it-yourself printers in the eighteenth-century. Joanna Jarvis: Performance and print culture: two eighteenth-century actresses and their image control. Callie Wilkinson: Script, print and the public-private divide; Sir David Ochterlony’s dying words. Elaine Mitchell: Marigolds not manufacturing: plants, print and commerce in eighteenth-century Birmingham. Jenni Dixon: Tourist experience and the manufacturing town: James Bisset’s Magnificent Directory of Birmingham. Emil Rybczak: Perceptions of England: English Theatrical Publications in Germany and the Netherlands. Jon Melton: The Serif-Less Letters of John Soane.