Book, Text, Medium
Cross-Sectional Reading for a Digital Age

This study cuts across book arts and literary stylistics in a revisionary theory of language as medium in textual action.

Garrett Stewart (Author)

9781108834599, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 January 2021

280 pages
23.6 x 15.8 x 2.2 cm, 0.54 kg

'… there is a great deal to enjoy …' John Cayley, Critical Inquiry

Book, Text, Medium: Cross Sectional Reading for a Digital Age utilizes codex history, close reading, and language philosophy to assess the transformative arc between medieval books and today's e-books. It examines what happens to the reading experience in the twenty-first century when the original concept of a book is still held in the mind of a reader, if no longer in the reader's hand. Leading critic Garrett Stewart explores the play of mediation more generally, as the concept of book moves from a manufactured object to simply the language it puts into circulation. Framed by digital poetics, phonorobotics, and the rising popularity of audiobooks, this study sheds new light on both the history of reading and the negation of legible print in conceptual book art.

Prospectus
IntroRetro
Part I. The Hold of the Codex: 1. Bibliographics
2. Platformatics
Part II. The Grip of Inscription: 3. Reading In
4. Reading Out
Part III. The Give of Medium: 5. Phrasing the Sayable
6. Between Language and Text
Parting Words.

Subject Areas: Printing & reprographic technology [TDPP], Impact of science & technology on society [PDR], Publishing industry & book trade [KNTP], Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH], Literary theory [DSA], Prints & printmaking [AFH]