Book Talk: Building a Book Arts Lab with Maria Zytaruk

ONLINE BOOK TALK: Building a Book Arts Lab with Maria Zytaruk

This talk will explore the vision behind the creation of the new Department of English Book Arts Lab at the University of Calgary, as well as some of the lab's recent projects to grow flax for papermaking and to reverse-engineer a Gutenberg-style wooden screw press for experiential teaching in the lab.

Maria Zytaruk PhD, is Professor of English at the University of Calgary and serves as director of the Department of English Book Arts Lab. Her scholarship includes articles on such topics as the object collection in Benjamin Franklin's circulating library and the natural history collections of the botanical artist Mary Delany. In 2019 she guest curated the exhibition Nature on the Page: The Print and Manuscript Culture of Victorian Natural History for the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto and published an accompanying monograph of the same name. Her current research project focuses on the material history of eighteenth-century seed exchange. 

WORKSHOP DETAILS:

Location: ONLINE using Zoom

Dates: Monday, April 13, 2026

Hours: 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. (EASTERN TIME)

Course fee: $0 members / $60 non-members

Prerequisite: none

Registration closes Weds, April 1, 2025, 11:59 PM EST

PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A LIVE EVENT ONLY – it will not be recorded.

Technical requirements for participation:

·       Access to the internet and to the Zoom application

·       Screen large enough to follow instructor’s video feed (cell phone is not ideal)

·       Microphone or Headset / Webcam

·       How to join a zoom meeting information https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362193