Radiant Textuality: Literary Studies after the World Wide Web

by Jerome J. McGann

This book describes and explains the fundamental changes that are now taking place in the most traditional areas of humanities theory and method, scholarship and education. The changes flow from the re-examination of the very foundations of the humanities - its theories of textuality and communication - that are being forced by developments in information technology. A threshold was crossed during the last decade of the twentieth century with the emergence of the World Wide Web, which has (1) globalized access to computerized resources and information, and (2) made interface and computer graphics paramount concerns for work in digital culture. While these changes are well known, their consequences are not well understood, despite so much discussion by digital enthusiasts and digital doomsters alike. In reconsidering these matters, Radiant Textuality introduces some remarkable new proposals for integrating computerized tools into the central interpretative and critical activities of traditional humanities disciplines, and of literary studies in particular.

Genres: Academic

288 pages, Paperback

First published November 17, 2001

Reviews

[Filipa Calado · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jerome McGann is a pioneer brining together the future of literary studies and technology. Most of these essays were written 20 years ago, but they continue to be relevant and provoking today.

His main thesis is that reading itself is a form of criticism, what he calls "deformance," an interpretation that occurs between reader and text. It follows that reading online or moving texts across media or subjecting them to computational methods can yield worthwhile and insightful results, making us look at old artifacts in new ways. This is extremely exciting news for literary studies and pushes the field forward. Would recommend for anybody interested in the future of literature and the digital.

[Chris Friend · Rating 3 out of 5]

Effective, insightful, more or less interesting, but primarily thought-provoking. Worth reading and thinking about, but not what I'd consider "game-changing".

[Cyrus Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, I missed a lot here. Post-decontructionist? An essay, of sorts.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

"In a dark time the eye begins to see."

"Every text is a network of roads taken and not taken."