From the Web: The Multigraph Collective and Interacting with Print

Yelena Kalinsky Discussion

In the latest Perspectives on History, editor Allison Miller tells the fascinating story of the Multigraph Collective, a group of 22 book historians and print scholars from Canada, the US, and the UK interested in the materiality and interactivity of reading who employed a radical form of electronic collaboration to produce the jointly composed and edited "multigraph," Interacting with Print: Elements of Reading in the Era of Print Saturation (University of Chicago Press, 2018). While the resulting print book, which is organized by keywords, challenges readers' assumptions about the static nature of print, the story of its joint production reminds us all of the challenges of collaboration and academe's still scarce ability to quantify it for tenure and promotion. Still, for those who wish to experiment with collaborative writing, this experiment offers some intriguing possibilities for generating ideas, composing, and editing collaboratively.

Readers can read the full essay here.