Professor Caroline Archer-Parré
Caroline Archer-Parré is Professor of Typography, Co-director of the Centre for Printing History & Culture at Birmingham City University/University of Birmingham, and Chair of the Baskerville Society. With particular interest in typographic history from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, Caroline has published widely and is a regular contributor to both the trade and academic press.
More widely, Caroline’s goal is to stimulate, support, and disseminate knowledge of printing history and culture. She is interested in all aspects of the history of printing, including the machinery and equipment, the industry and its personnel, printing processes, and the design of printed products such as books, newspapers, journals, and ephemera. She is also concerned with the impact that print has in the wider world, and therefore also covers the social, cultural, industrial, and economic aspect of print culture.
Areas of Expertise
- Printing history
- Typographic history
- Printing types
- Print culture
- Eighteenth century
- Birmingham and the midlands
Qualifications
- PhD in Typography, University of Reading. Awarded with no corrections. Title of thesis: The Kynoch Press (1876-1981), the anatomy of a printing house.
- BA in English Literature, University of Sheffield.
Memberships
Fellowships
- Honorary Senior Research Fellow, University of Birmingham (2011-current).
Chairmanships
- Baskerville Society (2011-current);
- Print Networks (2012-current).
Peer reviewer
- Publishers: Routledge, Taylor & Francis, Bloomsbury, Publishing History..
- Conferences: ATypI Association Typographique Internationale.
Editorial board member
- Book 2.0, Intellect Books (2011-);
- Midland History, Routledge (2016-current);
- Private Libraries Association (2002-current);
- Journal of the Printing Historical Society (2002-current).
Committee membership
- Virtual Museum of Printing (2021-current);
- Printing Historical Society (2012-current);
- National Printing Heritage Committee (2012-current)
- Centre for West Midlands History Research, Birmingham University (2010-current).
Research
Current funded research
- Title: Small Performances: investigating the typographic punches of John Baskerville (1707-75) through heritage science and practice-based research.
Funder: AHRC, Standard Grant, 3 years, 2024-26
Value: £999,869.40
Investigators: Caroline Archer-Parré (BCU), Ann-Marie Carey (BCU) Marcos Martinón-Torres (University of Cambridge), Maciej Pawlikowski (University of Cambridge).
Previously funded research
- Title: Letterpress Printing: past, present, future
Funder: AHRC, Networking Grant, 2 years, 2017-18
Value: £29,529
Investigators: Prof James Mussel (University of Leeds); Caroline Archer-Barré (BCU).
Postgraduate Supervision
Current doctoral students
- Andrea Lloyd: ‘An indissoluble Unity: considering the relationship between the outward influences and the design of Birmingham’s radical newspaper 1815–36’. (Funded by AHRC, M4C).
- Rosie Smith: ‘Common Printed Things: interactions of art and industry, the Coalbrookdale collection, 1850–1930’. (Funded by AHRC M4C Collaborative Doctoral Award).
- Marwa Isa: ‘Multilingual viewers’ cultural perceptions of multi-script advertisement design: a Bahraini case-study’.
- Adrian Slaney: ‘Silk Cigarette Inserts 1917–34: sites of cultural interactions.
- Nitzan Chelouche: ‘Hebrew Type/German Face’ (registered at the University of Jerusalem, co-supervised at BCU)
- Jessica Glaser: ‘In search of the First Lady of Typography: a reappraisal of Beatrice Warde’.
Past doctoral students
- Sahar Afshar, Gurmukhi printing types: an historical analysis of British design, development, and distribution in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
- David Osbaldestin, The sans serif in nineteenth-century printed ephemera: a Midlands case-study.
- Jeff Leak, Type in the environment: an investigation into projected graphic interventions.
- Geraldine Marshall, Graphic DNA: towards a taxonomy of urban lettering.
- Lara Furniss, Beyond Discipline: design practice and design education in the twenty-first century.
Publications
Books (monographs)
- Paris Underground. New York: MBP, 2005.
- The St Bride Notebook. Oldham: Incline Press, 2003.
- Tart Cards: London’s illicit advertising art. New York: MBP, 2003.
- The Kynoch Press: the anatomy of a printing house 1876–1981. London: British Library, 2000.
Books (editor)
- Around the text, Printing History & Culture Series, No 8, Peter Lang Ltd, 2024.
- Print and tourism, Printing History & Culture, No 7, Peter Lang Ltd, 2024.
- Transient Print, Printing History & Culture Series, No 6, Peter Lang Ltd, 2023.
- Script, print and letterforms in a global context. Printing History & Culture Series, No 5, Peter Lang Ltd, 2023.
- Letterpress printing: past, present, future. Printing History & Culture, No 4, Peter Lang Ltd, 2022.
- Women in Print Vol 2. Printing History & Culture Series, No 3, Peter Lang Ltd, 2022.
- Women in Print Vol 1. Printing History & Culture Series, No 2, Peter Lang Ltd, 2022.
- Printing in the Midlands. [ed. Archer & Hinks] special issue of Midland History, Taylor & Francis. 2020.
- Pen & Print: communication in the eighteenth century [ed. Archer & Dick]. Liverpool: University Press. 2020.
- James Watt: culture, innovation, enlightenment. [ed. Archer & Dick]. Liverpool: University Press. 2019.
- Print, Politics, and the Provincial Press in Modern Britain. Printing History & Culture Series, No 1, Peter Lang Ltd, 2019.
- John Baskerville: art & industry of the Enlightenment. [ed. Archer & Dick]. Liverpool: University Press, 2017.
- Book 2.0: From codex to computer [ed. Archer & Day]. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2017.
- Religion & the book trade [ed. Archer & Philips]. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 2015.
- Book 2.0: An indivisible unity [ed. Archer]. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2012.
Chapters / articles
- ‘Painting, Graphics, Printing and Paper’ A Cultural History of Craft in the Age of Industry, [ed. Nenadic] Bloomsbury, 2023.
- ‘Information and Communication Technologies’ A Cultural History of Technology in the Age of Expansion and Enlightenment, [eds. Alexander, Bix, Moon, Storey] Bloomsbury, 2023.
- ‘Inhuming and Exhuming: John Baskerville’s death, burial and post-mortem life’, Midland History, [ed. King] Routledge, 2022.
- ‘Appropriating Printing’, Post-digital letterpress printing: research, education, and practice, [ed. Amado, Sila, Quelhas] Routledge, 2022.
- ‘Places, Spaces and the Printing Press: trade interactions in Birmingham’, Midland History, [ed. Archer & Hinks]. Routledge, 2020.
- ‘Baskerville Punches: revelations in craftsmanship’, Routledge, Midland History, [ed. Archer & Hinks]. Routledge, 2020.
- ‘Private pleasures and portable presses’ Pen & Print: communication in the eighteenth century [ed. Archer & Dick]. Liverpool: University Press. 2020.
- ‘Type, typography and the typographer’ New companion to the history of the book [ed. Rose & Eliott]. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. 2020.
- ‘Technology transfer and innovation: printing in the long eighteenth century’ Print culture, agency & regional identity in the handpress period [ed. Stenner & Smyth] Palgrave. 2019.
- ‘A short history of the type historians’ Graphic design reader. [ed. Triggs & Atzmon]. London: 2018.
- ‘Leonard Jay’ The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [ed. Curthoys]. Oxford: University Press. 2018.
- ‘Leonard Jay: a pioneer of printing education’ Printing History [ed. Palmieri] New York: American Printing History Association. 2017.
- ‘The Cambridge cult of the Baskerville Press’ John Baskerville: art, industry & technology of the Enlightenment. [ed. Dick & Archer] Liverpool: University Press. 2017.
- ‘Paris sous la rue’ Text & the City; [ed. Armstrong & Hinks]. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars. 2017.
- ‘Printing & the printed word,’ Birmingham: workshop of the world [ed. Dick & Chinn] Liverpool: University Press, 2016.
- ‘Black Letters in the Heart of Rome’ Religion and the book trade [ed. Archer & Philips]. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 2015.
- ‘Various entries’ in Encyclopedia of graphic design classics [Phaidon editors]. London: Phaidon. 2012.
- ‘Printing in Hertfordshire’ in An historical atlas of Hertfordshire [ed. Short]. Hertfordshire: University Press. 2011.
Papers / conferences
- Small Performances: investigating the typographic punches of John Baskerville through heritage science and practice-based research, Centre for Midland History & Culture, University of Birmingham, 2024
- ‘A wicked bible?’, Baskerville Society Symposium, University of Birmingham, 2022.
- ‘The Boulton Family Baskerville Bible’, CPHC/Print Networks Conference, Appleby, 2022.
- ‘Typographic Tourists’, CPHC/Print Networks Conference, Appleby, 2021.
- ‘The Baskerville punches: revelations in craftsmanship’, at ‘Cultures of the book: science, technology and the spread of knowledge’, University of Pescara, Italy, 2019.
- 'Printing in the Midlands', at Year of Print, Winterbourne House, University of Birmingham, 2019.
- ‘John Baskerville’, at ‘Baskerville in France,’ CPHC/Baskerville Society, Amiens, October 2018.
- ‘Printed in Birmingham,’ Midland History Conference, Birmingham & Midland Institute, 2017.
- ‘Shared solutions,’ Independent Libraries Association, Chawton House Library. 2017.
- ‘Baskerville’s bibliographers’, Baskerville Society with History West Midlands, University of Birmingham, November 2017.
- ‘Just like last year only better: IPEX,’ National Print Museum, Dublin, 2017.
- ‘Orlando Furioso: 500 years in print’, CRL Symposia, Birmingham, 2016.
- ‘Points of contact: pottery and the printing industry,’ Wedgwood International Symposium. 2016.
- ‘Baskerville revisited,’ Erasmus Darwin Annual Symposium. 2016.
- ‘Printing and the mind of the Midlands,’ Urban History Society annual conference, Wolverhampton University, 2015.
- ‘Printing education,’ Printing Historical Society Conference, St Bride Institute, London, 2015.
- ‘Printed in Birmingham’ at ‘The form of the book’ A book history research network study day, Birmingham, December 2014.
- ‘Leonard Jay and the advent or printing education’ at ‘Landmarks of printing’ 50th anniversary conference of the Printing Historical Society, St Bride Institute, London, November 2014.
- ‘The Cambridge Cult of the Baskerville Press’, Baskerville Society Conference, Birmingham, 2013.
- ‘The art and craft of Leonard Jay’, Printing Historical Society Conference, Birmingham City University, 2012.
- ‘Gentlemen’s magazines: or the street literature of streetwalkers’, Print Networks Conference, University of Leicester, 2012.
- ‘Paris underground: the missing memory of the city’, Material Texts Conference, Birkbeck College, University of London, 2012.
- ‘Leonard Jay: the advent of technical education in book design and production’, Text[s] to Book[s] Conference, Université de Lorraine, France, 2012.
- ‘The Birmingham Printers and the emergence of technical education in the printing industry’, Emergence of West Midlands: Culture, Community & Change 1779-1918, Conference, University of Birmingham, 2012.
- ‘Black letters in the heart of Rome’, Print Networks Conference, National Library of Wales, University of Aberystwyth, 2011.
- ‘Novelties & Necessities’, Association Typographique Internationale, Dublin, 2010.