The Paul & June Schlueter Lecture on the Art & History of the Book: Alphas' Adventures in Munchland 2

Join the Libraries on November 18th at 4:30 PM in the Gendebein Room (206) at Skillman Library for the 2024 Paul & June Schlueter Lecture on the Art & History of the Book. 

In making a case for the ascent of immersive and interactive narrativity in the current moment, this talk positions metaverse gaming as the most popular form of storytelling and meaning-making for young learners, especially learners in minoritized populations and groups. Focusing on Bronx-born drill artist Ice Spice (b. Isis Naija Gaston) and her presence in Roblox as a brand-level case study, Erickson draws upon different periods in the print cultures of gaming, dolls, children's books, and street literature to unpack Black girlhood as embodied in Roblox's online game platform and game creation system.In drawing upon this history, explored also are the ways in which pervasive racial stereotypes that have long been reinforced in the print and material culture of these popular industries are simultaneously promulgated, distorted, and subversively controverted in subtle acts of defiant autonomous transmutation made possible through the technological affordances of metaverse mediation.    

Jesse R. Erickson is the Astor Curator of Printed Books and Bindings at the Morgan Library & Museum. He served as co-editor of the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America from the summer of 2021, ending his term in the summer of 2024. He worked previously in a joint appointment as Coordinator of Special Collections and Digital Humanities and Assistant Professor in the Department of English in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Delaware. And he has served as the Vice President for Programs for the American Printing History Association, on the Board of Directors for the Center for Book Arts in New York City, and on the editorial boards of the University of Delaware Press and Birmingham City University Centre for Printing History and Culture’s journal, Publishing History. Erickson’s primary expertise is in ethnobibliography, but his research has explored such related topics as material textuality, Black print culture, and the transnational publishing history of the works of Victorian period author Ouida.

A Q&A and reception will follow the lecture