Cross-Cultural Approaches to Hand-Made Paper Mini-Seminar

The Special Collections Research Center and the Department of History are pleased present a mini-seminar focused on paper types from the 8th to 18th centuries CE, conducted by Dr. Cathleen A. Baker, a retired book conservator, educator, and book historian. Baker will discuss handmade paper across cultures, highlighting its production in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe during the pre- and early modern periods using various collection materials from SCRC as examples.

*Due to limited space capacity, advance registration is required by using this form: https://syracuseuniversity.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eFJWokU71mUam34.

Co-sponsored by the Department of History, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

Cathleen A. Baker is a retired paper and book conservator and educator with almost 50 years of experience, including at the Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London), SUNY Cooperstown/Buffalo State College, and the University of Michigan. She is the author of several articles and books, including By His Own Labor: The Biography of Dard Hunter (2000) and From the Hand to the Machine. Nineteenth-Century American Paper and Mediums: Technologies, Materials, and Conservation (2010). She holds an M.A. in art history from Syracuse University, as well as an M.F.A. in book arts and a Ph.D. in communication studies from the University of Alabama. Since 1997, Baker has been the founding proprietor of The Legacy Press, a renowned publisher specializing in book history. She is now a faculty member of Rare Book School (University of Virginia), where she teaches Paper as Bibliographical Evidence. Her ongoing research project investigates the first wove paper manufactured in Europe, which appeared in John Baskerville’s Virgil (1757).