Media Ecologies of Literature

Susanne Bayerlipp teaches English Literature at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. Her research focuses on the relation between material culture, literature, and affect theory. She is currently working on a book project on compulsive hoarding in contemporary literature and culture. In 2018, she co-edited a special issue of the peer-reviewed ZAA on Cultural Techniques of Literature.Ralf Haekel is Professor and Chair of English Literature at Leipzig University, Germany. His main research interests lie in the fields of Romanticism and Media Studies. His publications include The Soul in British Romanticism (2014), the Handbook of British Romanticism (De Gruyter, 2017), and British and Irish Television Series in the 21st Century (2019).Johannes Schlegel teaches English Literature and Cultural Studies at JMU Würzburg, Germany. His PhD thesis on the anthropology and mediality of evil in British Romanticism was awarded the international Novalis Prize in 2016. In 2018, he co-edited a special issue of the peer-reviewed ZAA on Cultural Techniques of Literature.

This book explores the media ecologies of literature - the ways in which a literary text is interwoven in its material, technical, performative, praxeological, affective, and discursive network and which determine how it is experienced and interpreted. Through novel approaches to the complex, contingent and interdependent environments of literature, this volume demonstrates how questions about the mediality of literature - particularly in the wake of digitization - shed a new light on our understanding of textuality, reading, platforms and reception processes. By drawing on recent developments in advanced media theory, Media Ecologies of Literature emphasizes the productivity of innovative re-conceptualizations of literature as a medium in its own right. In an intentionally wide historical scope, the essays engage with literary texts from the Romantic to the contemporary period, from Charlotte Smith and Oscar Wilde to A. L. Kennedy and Mark Z. Danielewski, from the traditionally printed novel to audiobooks and reading apps.

1. IntroductionPart I Reading|Media|Theory2. From Work to Text Revisited: 'Reading' and the Trajectory from Literature to Media Theory(Christoph Reinfandt, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany)3. Media Theory as Book Theory: From the Technologies of Writing to the Materialities of Reading(Alexander Starre, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany)4. The Poetics of Et cetera: A Materialist-Semiotic Reading of George Orwell's Literary Lists(Ralph Pordzik, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Germany)5. Invisible Thresholds: Ben Lerner's Leaving the Atocha Station(Rieke Jordan, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Germany)Part II Material|Designs|Techniques6. The Cyclography of Literature(Mirna Zeman, FernUniversität Hagen, Germany)7. On Leaves: Flipping, Flicking, Turning(Sabine Zubarik, Evangelische Akademie Thüringen, Germany)8. Designing the Scene of Reading through Aestheticism and Arts and Crafts(Balázs Keresztes, Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary)Part III Digital|Spaces|Platforms9. Remediations of Canonized Literary Texts in the Digital Space: From Paratextuality to Hypermedia(Zita Farkas, Örebro University, Sweden)10. Reading Listening Interfaces: Reconfiguring Reading in the Age of Digital Platforms(Birgitte Stougaard Pedersen, Aarhus University, Denmark)11. Reading Player One: Interfaces Between Video Games and Literature(Sebastian Domsch, Universität Greifswald, Germany)Part IV Coda12. Towards a Media Ecology of Literature: The Case of Romanticism(Ralf Haekel, Universität Leipzig, Germany)