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The aim at the core of this book is a synthesis of increasingly popular and culturally significant forms of digital literature on the one hand, and established literary and critical theory on the other: reading digital texts through the lens of canonical theory, but also reading this more traditional theory through the lens of digital texts and related media. In a field which has often regarded the digital as apart from traditional literature and theory, this book highlights continuities in order to analyse digital literature as part of a longer literary tradition. Using examples from social media to video games and works particularly by postmodern and poststructuralist theorists, Digital Literature and Critical Theory contextualises digital forms among their analogue precursors and traces ongoing social developments which find expression in these cultural phenomena, including power dynamics between authors and readers, the individual in (post-)modernity, consumerism, and the potential for intersubjective exchange.
Chapter 1 and Chapter 3 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Core Examples
2 Partitioned Works and Seriality
3 Participatory Storytelling
4 Interactive Text Production
5 Computer-Generated Text
6 Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Annika Elstermann is a lecturer and postdoctoral researcher at the English Department at Heidelberg University. Her approach to literary and cultural analysis is generally via socio-political contexts of production and reception, and corresponding literary and social theory. She has previously published papers on player immersion in video games, and computer-generated text.
Summary
This book analyses digital literature as part of an ongoing literary tradition, emphasising continuities and approaching digital phenomena through pre-digital theory. It underscores the potential of digital literature as cultural expression rather than technological gadgetry providing an opportunity for re-reading and canonical theory
