A History of Literacy

From Oral Tradition Through the Printing Press and It’s

Consequences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y13cES7MMd8&feature=channel

Oral Formulaic Theory

• Oral Formulaic Theory and “Formulae”• Oral Tradition, In Medias Res, and Cultural

Memory• The Drama of Oral Poetry• Drama as Cultural Interaction• Orality and Thought Formation

The Introduction of Literacy

• Literacy as a New Though Form• Literacy as a Progressive Catalyst• Literacy in The Manuscript

• The Manuscript and Oral Theory and Cultural Memory

• The Manuscript and Drama, different readings

From Writing to Printing

• The “Invention” of the Printing Press and it’s ties to another World

• What is a Printing Press?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-BEI_4D7tQ

• How Thought Formation Changes With Technology

• How Technology Interacts with Culture, Politics, and Religion

• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2209674176821470551&ei=c9xSSoPROY7YqAPO0dDADw&q=Gutenberg+Printing+Press&hl=en&client=firefox-a

Politics and Religion of the Printing Press

-Information Networks of the Church-3 levels of hierarchy

The Selling of Indulgences by the Church

I . A partial indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who, while performing their duties and enduring the difficulties of life, raise their minds in humble trust to God and make, at least mentally, some pious invocation.

II. A partial indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who, prompted by a spirit of faith, devote themselves or their goods in compassionate service to their brothers and sisters in need.

III. A partial indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who, in a spirit of penitence, voluntarily abstain from something which is licit for and pleasing to them.

Types of Grants

Renaissance Humanism

-Rediscovering classical texts-Writing new ideas in the vernacular-Increasingly secular world view

Sources• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y13cES7MMd8• Jones, E. L. The European Miracle. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Cambridge:

Cambridge UP, 1987.• Lord, Albert B. "Perspectives on Recent Work on the Oral Tradition

Formula." Oral Tradition. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1986. 467-503.• Sorrell, Paul. "Oral Poetry and the World of Beowulf." Oral Tradition.

Dunedin: University of Otago, 1992. 28-65.• Acker, Paul L. Revising Oral Theory: Formulaic Composition in Old

English and Old Icelandic Verse. New York: Routledge, 1998.• http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/sh/index.htm• Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. "On The Printing Press As An Agent Of."

Literacy, Language, and Learning (1985): 19-33.• Hanson, Elizabeth., The Information Revolution and World Politics.

London: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2008.• De Santis, Hugh. Beyond Progress: An Interpretive Odyssey to the

Future. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.