Global Blake: In Conversation with Alexander Regier - Printing Blake in Texas
This presentation is about the history and use of the replica star wheel Blake Press, including how it ended up in Houston, Texas. The press was originally designed by master printmaker Michael Phillips and built for and displayed in the recreation of Blake’s studio in the exhibition at the Ashmolean, William Blake Apprentice & Master. Last year (2023), together with Michael Phillips, I organized the permanent transfer of the press from Christ Church Oxford to Rice University where it is now used as a research and teaching tool. After giving some context, I’ll speak about how the press helps scholars and students expand their sense of Blake’s practice but also their sense of archive.
Alexander Regier is William Faulkner Professor of English and Chair of the English Department at Rice University. He also holds a full appointment in the Department of Modern and Classical Literatures and Cultures. In recent years, he has held fellowships at the National Humanities Center (2023), a research award from the NEH (2023) and the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers (2018-20).
Regier has published widely on Blake. He is the author of the monographs Exorbitant Enlightenment: Blake, Hamann, and Anglo-German Constellations (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Fracture and Fragmentation in British Romanticism (Cambridge, 2010). His Awkwardness: The History and Art of Unease is under review. He has co-edited Wordsworth’s Poetic Theory (Palgrave, 2010) as well as special journal issues on “Mobilities” and “Genealogies”. Regier is also the co-editor of The Bloomsbury Handbook on Sports Writing 1789-2020, which is under contract.
Printing sessions with the Blake Press at Fondren Library
The Fondren Library at Rice University maintains a calendar of bookable and open events that take place on campus, including a regular "Fourth Friday Open Studios: Tabletop printing" where students, staff and visitors have an opportunity to use the replica Blake press.
We've also included links below to videos made with Alexander showing the press at work.
