MICHAEL CAHN

Notes

Dr phil habil Michael Cahn has taught previously at the universities of Konstanz and Siegen in Germany. He was part of the English Department and has published on literary theory, the history of rhetoric, and the history of science. Most recent publications are on the history of the book and publishing. In a second career he has set up a second hand internet bookshop in Cambridge (UK). He is also quite fluent in Italian.

At the moment he is still wondering what it means that PDFs have emptied the campus libraries. It certainly puts the subject of book history on an entirely new footing. PDF’s don’t get rid of book history, they just make it more difficult, and more of a necessity.