Friday, March 6, 2026 | 9:30AM-4:15PM | Doheny Memorial Library | RSVP

Woodblock was the dominant and preferred method of printing in East Asia up until the nineteenth century. By contrast, East Asia’s home-grown typographic traditions often seem like an afterthought, an eccentricity, or an abandoned experiment that failed to match the Gutenberg revolution. Yet, typography was never entirely discontinued and diverse actors utilized movable type at specific times, in certain places, or for certain objectives in face of xylographic competition. This conference, organized by Prof. Graeme R. Reynolds in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California, investigates the autochthonous traditions of movable type in East Asia before the arrival of Western letterpress and lithography in the late nineteenth century.

Please go to the Conference Website for the Conference Schedule, Participant Bios, and to Register!

This conference is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography at Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, and the Korean Heritage Library, Korean Studies Institute and East Asian Studies Center at the University of Southern California.