Seminar workshops

The German Museum of Books and Writing offers seminar workshops for students working for Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctoral degrees in cultural and media studies. We adapt the topics and structure of the workshops to the needs of each student cohort. The workshops can last between one and three days as required or they can be integrated into courses lasting a whole semester. Along with general topics relating to the cultural history of books and media, we also provide special insights into each of the Museum’s collections, their material features and their significance in the context of media history. Join us as we search for traces from the past and discover “an alternative history of media” from the perspective of museum records. We will gladly also address the subjects and seminar topics you suggest. Seminars can be held in German or English.

The topics we currently offer include the following:

Knowledge machine: the Library’s media and technical history

The German National Library is a repository of more than 100 years of media and technical history. From book trolleys, card catalogues, book transport systems, shelving systems and automatic compact shelving units to server rooms for online publications, the Library is a complex apparatus for administrating and generating knowledge and cultural memory. This workshop consists of detailed theme-based excursions through the German National Library and a close reading of historical library artefacts selected from the collection of the German Museum of Books and Writing. The students will gain an overview of the library’s history during the 20th and 21st century. They will also be guided to view historic media as part of a complex network of objects and not just as separate items.

Hands on: in the stacks of the German Museum of Books and Writing

In this workshop, students are required to explore a topic in media history on the basis of a single item. Small groups of up to four students take a close look at an object and develop a short presentation about the object, its history and use over a period of two days with the assistance of the metadata and the media history library at the German Museum of Books and Writing. To do this, they search the Museum’s collection for other suitable objects, get involved in discussions with the Museum's experts and learn to use numerous aids and means of finding information. The objects are selected in agreement with the teachers and can complement the subject of a seminar or lecture.

What was a book?

Books are surrounded by a sea of tools, instruments, practices, machinery and institutions: from quills to hand mold instruments, from printing presses to linotype machines, from book covers to paper sieves, from die stamps to folding machines. Exceptional historical books are selected from the collection of the German Museum of Books and Writing, which ranges from the Gutenberg Bible to interactive e-books. These constitute the starting point of a tour of the cultural history collection, in order to find the objects that belong to the books. This seminar can be complemented by a visit to the Museum of Printing Arts in Leipzig.