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In Bookishness, Jessica Pressman examines the new status of the book as object and symbol. She explores the rise of "bookishness" as an identity and an aesthetic strategy that proliferates from store-window décor to experimental writing. Ranging from literature to kitsch objects, stop-motion animation films to book design, Pressman considers the multivalent meanings of books in contemporary culture. Books can represent shelter from--or a weapon against--the dangers of the digital; they can act as memorials and express a sense of loss. Examining the works of writers such as Jonathan Safran Foer, Jennifer Egan, Mark Z. Danielewski, and Leanne Shapton, Pressman illuminates the status of the book as a fetish object and its significance for understanding contemporary fakery. Bringing together media studies, book history, and literary criticism, Bookishness explains how books still give meaning to our lives in a digital age.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. How and Now Bookishness
2. Shelter
3. Thing
4. Fake
5. Weapon
6. Memorial
Coda
Notes
Index
About the author
Jessica Pressman is associate professor of English and comparative literature at San Diego State University, where she cofounded the Digital Humanities Initiative. She is the author of Digital Modernism: Making It New in New Media (2014); coauthor of Reading “Project”: A Collaborative Analysis of William Poundstone’s “Project for Tachistoscope {Bottomless Pit}” (2015); and coeditor of Comparative Textual Media: Transforming the Humanities in the Postprint Era (2013) and Book Presence in a Digital Age (2018).
Summary
Jessica Pressman explores the rise of “bookishness” as an identity and an aesthetic strategy that proliferates from store-window décor to experimental writing. Ranging from literature to kitsch objects, stop-motion animation films to book design, she considers the multivalent meanings of books in contemporary culture.
