The Wells College Book Arts Center presents the 44th Susan Garretson Swartzburg ’60 Memorial Book Arts Lecture, given by Katherine M. Ruffin on the topic “Why Making Things Matters: The Book Arts in the Liberal Arts.” This talk will take place at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, October 19, in the Dewitt Lecture Hall (106) of Zabriskie Hall. Admission is free, and all are welcome.
What can we learn by making books by hand in the 21st century? What opportunities do the book arts offer students in the liberal arts? How can the study of books enhance creative and scholarly inquiry? What worlds of experience can the book open up to us?
Katherine M. Ruffin is the Book Studies and Book Arts Program Director at Wellesley College. She also teaches the book arts in the Printmaking Department and the Masters of Art Education Program in the College of Fine Arts at the Boston University. In 2013, she joined the faculty of Rare Book School.
Katherine has published limited editions under her own imprint of Shinola Press since 1994. She has taught letterpress printing at the Center for Book Arts in New York City, Penland School of Crafts, and the Wells College Book Arts Summer Institute. She holds an A.B. in philosophy from Bryn Mawr College, an M.F.A. in the book arts from the University of Alabama, and a Ph.D. in library and information science from Simmons College.
For more information, email bookartscenter@wells.edu.
The Susan Garretson Swartzburg 60’ Memorial Book Arts Lecture is a series named for Susan Garretson Swartzburg. Working closely with Wells faculty and staff, Swartzburg helped to organize the press, bindery and other components that became Wells Book Arts Center. She served on the Book Arts Board and established a biannual book arts lecture series in memory of her father, developing contacts, raising funds, organizing events and finding speakers.
