For Claire Battershill there’s one thing that’s as beautiful as the text inside a book — that’s the book itself.
Battershill is an assistant professor cross-appointed to the Department of English and the Faculty of Information. She’s fascinated with the art of book-making. For her, the way a book is crafted can be a meaningful reflection of the text and can provide added substance to the words inside.
“Where the book and the text come together — it’s those kinds of relationships that I'm interested in for my research,” she says.
In addition to her studies, Battershill has been teaching a course called Language is Material for the past three years, thanks to a Learning & Education Advancement Fund (LEAF) through the Office of the Vice-Provost, Innovations in Undergraduate Education.
“This course connects to my research about the relationship between textuality and book forms,” she says. “So we’re thinking about the book, not as just a utilitarian, transparent object, but as something that you can use to express your artistic vision.”
She asked her students to write an original text — a poem, short story, essay, or any other form of writing they felt inspired to create. Once that was completed, they designed and created the book they believed best reflected the text.
“I wanted the students to have the experience of thinking through the whole process of publication, from the writing all the way to the making and sharing,” says Battershill.
Once their books were completed, the students were then tasked with making enough copies for each of their classmates.
“It's almost like a classroom small press experiment,” says Battershill. “The books often reflected the student in some way. There are expressions of their personal artistic vision, and I feel like it's rare to get to see that. We joked as we laid them out together on a table saying, ‘That's the class photo.’”
This year, Battershill also taught an advanced seminar for graduate students in the Book History and Print Culture program called Making Critical-Creative Editions, sponsored by the Department of English and the Faculty of Information in conjunction with Massey College.
Students were first asked to select a text that was meaningful for their PhD work. Then, they were asked to design and craft a book for that particular text.
“One student, Qi Hong, was working on a Chinese short story called The Steel Fish's Gill. She made a book that opened up like a fish bone. The text itself made the shape of a fish when you opened and closed it.”
Seeking further opportunities to connect through crafting and creating, Battershill founded a social group for graduate students that meets every Thursday, totally separate from any classwork.
“It’s called CRAFT, which stands for Creativity, Research and Fun Times,” says Battershill. “It's not a formal lab. It's just an opportunity to get some people together.
“I wanted to do something like this because I was meeting with students individually, and I was finding that because I'm across different departments, a lot of them are in different units. I kept thinking they have a lot to gain from each other.
“No one's obligated to come, but everyone's invited, and we have some tea and some kind of craft activity available if people want, just to do something with our hands while we chat. It's been really lovely and generative.”
Ayla Morland, a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Information with a book history and print culture collaborative specialization loves this group.
“I enjoy the opportunity to discuss and share my research and creative interests, as well as engage with other members' interests,” says Morland. “It's a supportive, fun group that’s open to different activities, ideas and various topics of discussion on the ins and outs of research and academic life.
“It’s great to meet new students and learn from them, especially students who are not in my program and that I wouldn’t normally have an opportunity to meet, even though we share similar research interests and perspectives.”
For Battershill, it’s also refreshing to see students like Morland and others so enthusiastic about creating books and other crafts with their hands and not being totally reliant or focused on digital resources.
“That matters to them, because I think there's still the lingering impacts of their experience with online learning and COVID,” says Battershill. “They like being in a room together, making something materially, having some stuff out on the table. This is stuff that doesn't translate to remote work.
“It also builds community in a different way. You see evidence of this in history: communities being built out of making things together. We still have an opportunity to do that in the present, even when there are digital options.”
All of this work mentoring, supporting and supervising students, as well as her community-building efforts have not gone unacknowledged.
Battershill was recently honoured with an Early Career Supervision Award from the University of Toronto's School of Graduate Studies, which recognizes pre-tenure faculty for excellence in graduate supervision within their first six years of appointment.
“I really appreciate my students and my colleagues nominating me for this, it was really meaningful,” she says.
Battershill is also continually inspired by U of T’s vibrant passion for book-making scholarship.
“There's a lot of energy in this area,” she says. “I'm not sure if people are aware of how strong book history is here. We have amazing students as well as faculty members — there’s Sebastian Sobecki, Misha Teramura and Thomas Keymer in English, Ann Komaromi in Slavic studies, and Alexandra Gillespie doing amazing work with her Old Books New Science lab.
“I feel so lucky to be here. There's nowhere I'd rather be for book history.”