Description
Abstract:"More than any other discipline, literary studies is the creation of print culture. How then can it thrive in the digital era? Early 1990s predictions of the book's imminent death presented a simplistic either/or choice between moribund print culture and triumphalist digital technology. Yet we have grown to experience the two as complexly interdependent--even complementary. Nevertheless, literary studies urgently needs to reconsider the discipline's founding assumptions in light of digital technology. The digital era prompts rethinking of literary studies' object of study, as well as its methods, theories, audiences, and pedagogical practices. What counts as literature necessarily shifts in an age of do-it-yourself (DIY) publishing and proliferating born-digital texts. Where should literary studies sit institutionally, and how might it blend contextually oriented social sciences methods into its traditionally humanistic textual analyses? Why should literary study continue to marginalize emotional responses to texts when online communities bond via readerly affect? Who is the audience for literary discussion in an age when expertise is routinely challenged yet communication with global book-loving publics has never been technologically easier? Finally, how can academics utilize digital tools to rejuvenate literary pedagogy and better connect with millennial-age students? This book addresses fellow literary scholars, book historians, media theorists, cultural sociologists, digital humanists, and those working at the interface of these converging disciplines. It models constructive engagement with contemporary digital culture and brings sorely needed optimism to the question of literary studies' digital future."-- Provided by publisher
Physical Description:1 online resource (xiv, 233 pages) : color illustrations
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references and index
ISBN:9780198952640
0198952643
9780198952626
0198952627