March 25, 1981

The Alice Freeman Palmer Professor of History at the University of Michigan, Elizabeth Eisenstein ’45/4, spoke on “From Scriptoria to Printing Shops,” as part of the Curtis Lecture Series. Citing early adoption of printing by ecclesiastic and university communities, Eisenstein observed that “Within these intellectual communities, critics began to challenge the practices of theology, law and medicine through the new medium of print.” After her lecture, Brown University social and cultural historian Natalie Zemon Davis commented on Eisenstein’s remarks and added thoughts of her own.

The Miscellany News

Eisenstein’s two-volume The Printing Press As An Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early Modern Europe (1979) established the parameters of modern print culture studies.

Dr. Eisenstein visited Vassar in 1978 and again in 1988.