Last spring, the University of Michigan held a conference to discuss the future of reading. Participants included Sam Tanenhaus, editor of The New York Times Book Review, and Jessica Pressman, assistant professor of English, Yale University.

Mr. Tanenhaus was named editor of the Book Review in March 2004. He was the assistant editor to the New York Times’ op-ed pages. He is author of Whittaker Chambers: A Biography (Random House, 1997; Modern Library paperback, 1998), a finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1997, and the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1998. He is currently writing a biography of William F. Buckley, Jr.

Ms. Pressman is currently working on her first book, Digital Modernism: Making It New in New Media. She explores connections across literary experiments from the 20th and 21st centuries and across media forms, contemplating the threat of an increasingly paperless and multimodal society.