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The proliferation of digital information and communications technologies over the past half-century has transformed how literary works are composed, produced, circulated, read, and interpreted. What is the nature, extent, and significance of these changes?

In answering this primary concern, this course reassesses questions and themes central to the study of literature, including archiving, authorship, canon formation, dissemination, and narrative, among others, by pairing contemporary works with texts from and about other shifts in media from the early modern era through the present day.

Accordingly, Literature in the Digital Age examines the technologies of literary production, reception, and critique  as they’ve evolved from the written & printed word through the creation of digital literature, which drastically expands the narrow definition of literature as printed works of art.  Finally, we’ll consider how our understanding of literature and literary studies changes (or not) in light of the digital turn and investigate how literary studies might be re-conceived in light of the digital revolution.

~Prof Sarah Boyd