Agrippa (A Book of the Dead)

About the event 

In the summer of 1992, readers of the magazine Details could read the following book review about an upcoming artist’s book:

‘Agrippa’s temporal dislocation will likewise multiply: if Macintoshes aren’t around in thirty years, some collectors will find themselves the owners of a rare, expensive, unreadable book.’

— Gavin Edwards, ‘Cyber Lit’, Details (June 1992, p.134, Bodleian Library MS. 7981, fol. 3). 

Over 30 years after the launch of Agrippa, a self-destructive collaborative book project by the publisher Kevin Begos Jr, the writer William Gibson and the artist Dennis Ashbaugh, join us over two consecutive afternoons to explore the fate of Agrippa’s copies in library collections, the place of artists’ books in book studies, and the intersection of analogue and digital in the field of material texts.

This symposium will be held in conjunction with the annual DF McKenzie Lecture, to be delivered by Matthew G. Kirschenbaum. It is presented by the Bodleian Libraries Centre for the Study of the Book and the Cambridge Centre for Material Texts.

Download the symposium programme (PDF)

Speakers

Quinn DuPont, Christopher Fletcher, Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, Alan Liu, Russell Maret, Rollin Milroy, Gill Partington, Justine Provino, Peter Schwenger, Jason Scott-Warren.

 Booking information

Registration is essential for attending this event. You can attend in person at the Weston Library or online.

When you have booked your place the ticketing system will send you an automated confirmation.

If you are attending online, a link to access the conference will be sent in the 24 hours before the event to the email address associated with your booking. Please check your junk/spam email folder.

 Location

Sir Victor Blank Lecture Theatre, Weston Library, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BG

 Wheelchair access

The Weston Library is wheelchair accessible.

Acknowledgements