The Electronic Word: Literary Study and the Digital Revolution

Movement from the analogue to the digital - see Anthony Wilden's book System and Structure which explores the nature of digital thinking.

Lanham suggests that the nature of the word has changed so much that nearly all of the components of textual communication have been transformed.

But, what does he mean when he suggests the "desubstantiation" of all of the visual arts as well? Is he referring to the shift from a world dominated by objects to one in which the metaphors of cyberspace become real? What is the meaning of the real in the face of these changes? The printing press made it possible to think about copies, to actually encourage the creation of more and more copies of books and written works. But what happens when, as Baudrillard suggests the relationship between the copy and the real ceases to be a direct one? "Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation of models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal." (From Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard, University of Michigan Press, 1994)

Lanham devotes a fair bit of time to the idea of the transparent nature of writing where the words and typographic look disappear so to speak into the process of reading. This is a crucial part of his philosophical direction throughout the book. The loss is the actual shape and form of the letters which we read, the way the page becomes a vehicle for thought without the need to construct the process of thinking. This actually confers great power onto the author, structures the nature of the narratives which are chosen and affects the manufacture and distribution of texts. Lanham makes the claim that new technologies like desktop publishing alter the parameters normally in play not only for the production of texts but for the reading and subsequent interpretation of what has been written. Zines are not only low circulation magazines, they are a new discursive form within which the reader or readers can take control of the publishing world. Author-ity is re channeled along more immediate, local and community concerns. This generates a radically different sense of what it means to interact with texts.

But, to what degree is all of this technology based? Do new technologies introduce such fundamental changes?

Rhetnet, A Cyberjournal for Rhetoric and Writing, and PRE/TEXT_, A Journal of Rhetorical Theory announce a collaborative call for papers and submissions of hypertext, hypermedia, and electronic essays which reflect, expand upon, contextualize, or explore the themes and issues of Richard Lanham's _The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts_. (A sample chapter from this collection of essays [published by University of Chicago Press, Chicago: 1993] can be found at the following URLs: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/texts/lanham.sample ftp://press-gopher.uchicago.edu/pub/Excerpts/lanham.txt)

Lanham's work touches on a number of themes of interest to humanities scholars and the questions below offer just a brief suggestion of possible explorations.

To what degree will humanities converge? Will composition teachers, for example, need to become literate (or more literate) in the graphic arts?, the moving arts?, the musical arts?

To what degree and in what way will electronic texts replace or subsume or complement printed texts?

How will literature and the study of literature be transformed? What will be gained and what will be lost?

In our academies, our intellectual integrity, reputations, reward systems are tied very much to print. We contribute to our field's knowledge by publishing. We become known by being cited and quoted. We borrow print-based economics to help negotiate how ideas are shared--plagiarism as an aspect of intellectual property; copyright as a way to protect the sellability of our particular enunciation of an idea. At the same time we disdain the economics--we distrust that which sells too well or that which is written to attract a larger audience than our relatively small circle of peers. Thus textbooks are seen as 'less valuable' than a book of 'pure' scholarship. How will digital technologies change this long-standing tradition? What will it cost?

Text is more malleable, as are graphics, music, and video. It's easier to reproduce and to share these pixellated artifacts, but only if one has access to the technology which can manipulate them. To what degree is access an issue? After all, _The Electronic Word_ exists as both a book and in a hypertext edition for Macintosh. As a work in part about the future of print, it appears in print. Is that simply a matter of our culture being in what Charlie Moran has called an amphibious stage?

What is the future of access and how will it matter for a Democracy?