From the dawn of the mechanical printing press, the dissemination of ideas has been tied to the means of reproducing words and texts. Since the traditional printed codex and such nineteenth century offshoots as the newspaper and magazine face an uncertain future in a brave new world of digital media, tweets, and social-networking, this seminar will survey the kinds of “worlds built by words” that first flourished in the Renaissance – and may yet flourish again, should imaginative writers and innovative entrepreneurs take up the challenge of reinventing serious intellectual publishing in a post-print world. Readings include texts by Anthony Grafton, Robert Darnton, Baudelaire, Mathew Arnold, Oscar Wilde, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, George Orwell, Guy Debord, C. Wright Mills, Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, and Bernard Williams; with site visits to The New York Times, Vice, Penguin/ Random House, Gawker Media, Dissent &c. This course is open to BA/MA students.