Full Description
Miniature books, handwritten or printed books in the smallest format, have fascinated religious people, printers, publishers, collectors, and others through the centuries because of their unique physical features, and continue to captivate people today. The small lettering and the delicate pages, binding, and covers highlight the material form of texts and invite sensory engagement and appreciation. This volume addresses miniature books with a special focus on religious books in Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist traditions. The book presents various empirical contexts for how the smallest books have been produced, distributed, and used in different times and cultures and also provides theoretical reflections and comments that discuss the divergent formats and functions of books.
Contents
Religious Miniature Books: Introduction and Overview
Kristina Myrvold and Dorina Miller Parmenter
Chapter 1: Ritualizing the Size of Books
James W. Watts, Syracuse University
Chapter 2: On the Functions of Miniaturizing Books in Jewish Religion
Marianne Schleicher, Aarhus University
Chapter 3: Words in a Nutshell: Miniaturizing Texts in Early Modern England
Lucy Razzall, University College London
Chapter 4: Small Things of Greatest Consequence: Miniature Bibles in America
Dorina Miller Parmenter
Chapter 5: Diminutive Divination and the Implications of Scale: A Miniature Quranic Falnama of the Safavid Period
Heather Coffey, OCAD University, Canada
Chapter 6: Mite Qurans for Indian Markets: David Bryce in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century
Kristina Myrvold
Chapter 7: Miniature Qurans in the First World War: Religious Comforts for Indian Muslim Soldiers
Kristina Myrvold and Andreas Johansson, Lund University
Chapter 8: Size Matters! Miniature Mushafs and the Landscape of Affordances
Jonas Svensson, Linnaeus University
Chapter 9: Gitamahatmya! Paratexts in Miniature Bhagavad Gitas with Special Reference to Pictures and Gender
Jon Skarpeid, University of Stavanger, Norway
Chapter 10: Sutras Working in Buddha's Belly and Buddhists' Pockets: Miniature Sutras in Korean Buddhism
Yohan Yoo and Woncheol Yun, both at Seoul National University
