National Letters — Talk and Launch
Jacob Lindgren @ 2020-08-03 12:37:03 -0500Join us for the launch of National Letters: Languages and Scripts as Nation-building Tools with a talk by the book's editor and designer Marek Nedelka.
“It may well be that print and nationalism are axiological or co-ordinate, simply because through print a people sees itself for the first time. The vernacular in appearing in high visual definition affords a glimpse of social unity coextensive with vernacular boundaries. And more people have experienced this visual unity, of their native tongues, via the newspaper than through the book.” - Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man
National Letters: Languages and Scripts as Nation-building Tools, the recently released anthology published by Letter Books and UMPRUM, travels through the episodes of the past in which letters, languages, and scripts played an important role in creating nation states and national identities. Through four case studies (Turkey, Israel, Georgia, Ethiopia), the main body of the book explores four languages and nations which were each, against all odds and for various reasons, able to develop and maintain their writing system throughout their entire history, up to the founding of their nation state.
Marek Nedelka, editor and designer of National Letters, will be at Inga to talk about the making of the book and to share some of the most interesting clippings and facts from the process. Followed by open discussion.
Published by Letter Books and UMPRUM (Academy of Arts, Architecture & Design in Prague). Contributions and texts by Rusudan Amirejibi–Mullen, Ivo T. Budil, Birol Caymaz, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Marek Nedelka, William Safran, and Emmanuel Szurek.
Postcard letterings by Jan Horčík, Seb McLauchlan, Anežka Minaříková, and Jan Novák.
“It may well be that print and nationalism are axiological or co-ordinate, simply because through print a people sees itself for the first time. The vernacular in appearing in high visual definition affords a glimpse of social unity coextensive with vernacular boundaries. And more people have experienced this visual unity, of their native tongues, via the newspaper than through the book.” - Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man
National Letters: Languages and Scripts as Nation-building Tools, the recently released anthology published by Letter Books and UMPRUM, travels through the episodes of the past in which letters, languages, and scripts played an important role in creating nation states and national identities. Through four case studies (Turkey, Israel, Georgia, Ethiopia), the main body of the book explores four languages and nations which were each, against all odds and for various reasons, able to develop and maintain their writing system throughout their entire history, up to the founding of their nation state.
Marek Nedelka, editor and designer of National Letters, will be at Inga to talk about the making of the book and to share some of the most interesting clippings and facts from the process. Followed by open discussion.
Published by Letter Books and UMPRUM (Academy of Arts, Architecture & Design in Prague). Contributions and texts by Rusudan Amirejibi–Mullen, Ivo T. Budil, Birol Caymaz, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Marek Nedelka, William Safran, and Emmanuel Szurek.
Postcard letterings by Jan Horčík, Seb McLauchlan, Anežka Minaříková, and Jan Novák.
