The Cambridge Companion to Literature in a Digital Age

This book explores the way that digital forms and methods are reconfiguring the foundational concepts of literary studies.

Adam Hammond (Edited by)

9781009349529, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 14 November 2024

328 pages
23.5 x 16.1 x 2.4 cm, 0.59 kg

Literature has experienced two great medium shifts, each with profound implications for its forms, genres, and cultures: that from orality to writing, and that from writing to printing. Today we are experiencing a third shift, from printed to digital forms. As with the previous shifts, this transformation is reconfiguring literature and literary culture. The Cambridge Companion to Literature in the Digital Age is organized around the question of what is at stake for literary studies in this latest transition. Rather than dividing its chapters by methodology or approach, this volume proceeds by exploring the major categories of literary investigation that are coming under pressure in the digital age: concepts such as the canon, periodization, authorship, and narrative. With chapters written by leading experts in all facets of literary studies, this book shows why all those who read, study, and teach literature today ought to attend to the digital.

Introduction Adam Hammond
1. Data and the Discipline Yohei Igarashi
2. Literary Change Ted Underwood
3. The Canon Mark Algee-Hewitt
4. Sound and Performance Marit J. MacArthur and Lee M. Miller
5. The Archive Katherine Bode
6. Editions Anna Mukamal, Claire Battershill and Helen Southworth
7. Materiality Dennis Yi Tenen
8. The Literary Marketplace Tully Barnett
9. Fanfiction, Digital Platforms, and Social Reading Anna Wilson
10. Narrative and Interactivity Emily Short
11. Generated Literature Nick Montfort and Judy Heflin
12. Literary Gaming Timothy Welsh
13. The Printed Book in the Digital Age Inge van de Ven
14. Literature's Audioptic Platform Garrett Stewart
15. Critique Gabriel Hankins.

Subject Areas: Literary theory [DSA]