Editorial Philology

The course of Editorial Philology fits coherently into the educational objectives of the Master's Degree Course in Publishing, Communication Cultures and Fashion, in particular - as indicated in the study manifesto - with the aim of «developing professional aptitudes that guarantee a complete vision of the production activities of the publishing system and its general problems, from production to consumption, with specific reference to book publishing, offering a range of in-depth studies that can be traced back to the various areas of publishing culture, understood as the study of the transmission of texts and the study of the techniques necessary for the publication of texts in print or digital form».

This course therefore deals with the study of the transmission of written texts in the 20th century publishing system, applying the investigation methods of philology and has the following educational objectives:
- provide the theoretical and methodological skills of editorial philology, which involves the methods and tools of investigation of authorial philology, the textual bibliography and ecdotics;
- to apply these skills to understand written texts, especially literary ones, learning to investigate their textual and editorial history and thus to historicise the verbal and material forms of their transmission, in order to achieve an interpretation of them based on knowledge of the evolution of their concrete physiognomy over time.

The combination of these theoretical skills and the acquisition of methods for analysing textual, philological, editorial ecdotic and bibliographical data, which revolve around the book as an object, explicitly form the basis of the training of the profession of editor, as well as the basis of other professions related to book publishing and beyond.

In order to achieve these objectives, a comparison with the first editions of the texts and the papers of the author's or publisher's archives will be fundamental.

Knowledge:
at the end of the course the student will acquire knowledge of the modes of production and edition of the printed book in the contemporary age; knowledge of the modes of studying archival papers, first and foremost those of the authors (i.e. autographs) but also those produced and preserved by publishers; and finally knowledge of the problems associated with the investigation of editions of texts, with specific focus on 20th century literary ones.

Competences:
at the end of the course, the student will acquire both the ability to investigate from a philological point of view the editions in their various forms and the competence necessary to deal with the autographs of writers and to define the characteristics that their publication may have.