The Digital Critic
LITERARY CULTURE ONLINE
Edited by HOUMAN BAREKAT, ROBERT BARRY, and DAVID WINTERS
Foreword by KASIA BODDY
“A compelling, kaleidoscopic account of the ways literary criticism—that vital, often disputatious, and now overwhelmingly digital public conversation by and for lovers of the written word—has transformed over recent decades. It’s also a welcome invitation to ponder how we might help literary culture’s most interesting niches and compelling tendencies evolve and thrive in a new era.” —Astra Taylor, author of Examined Life: Excursions With Contemporary Thinkers
“A prismatic, necessary look at the disparate effects of ‘online’ on myriad connecting realms: publishing, fiction, criticism, translation, academia, and journalism. Written and collected in the spirit of inquiry rather than polemic, The Digital Critic reveals a rich cross-section of literary life and how its practitioners are making do—or trying to—in the new millennium.”
—Lydia Kiesling, editor, The Millions
“How is new technology changing the way we produce, distribute, and consume writing? There are no easy answers, but the trenchant analysis in these pages is itself evidence that critical culture is alive and well in the digital age.” —Boris Dralyuk, executive editor, Los Angeles Review of Books
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Buy This Book
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Paperback: $18/£14
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E-book: $10/£8
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Print + E-book: $24/£18
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About the Book
What do we think of when we think of literary critics? Enlightenment snobs in powdered wigs? Professional experts? Cloistered academics? Through the end of the 20th century, book review columns and literary magazines held onto an evolving but stable critical paradigm, premised on expertise, objectivity, and carefully measured response. And then the Internet happened.
From the editors of Review 31 and 3:AM Magazine, The Digital Critic brings together a diverse group of perspectives—early-adopters, Internet skeptics, bloggers, novelists, editors, and others—to address the future of literature and scholarship in a world of Facebook likes, Twitter wars, and Amazon book reviews. It takes stock of the so-called Literary Internet up to the present moment, and considers the future of criticism: its promise, its threats of decline, and its mutation, perhaps, into something else entirely.
With contributions from Robert Barry, Russell Bennetts, Michael Bhaskar, Louis Bury, Lauren Elkin, Scott Esposito, Marc Farrant, Orit Gat, Thea Hawlin, Ellen Jones, Anna Kiernan, Luke Neima, Will Self, Jonathon Sturgeon, Sara Veale, Laura Waddell, and Joanna Walsh.
Publication November 30, 2017 • 204 pages
Paperback ISBN 978-1-682190-76-0 • E-book 978-1-682190-77-7
About the Editors
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Houman Barekat reviews for the TLS, Literary Review, the Irish Times, Prospect and the London Magazine, and contributes to online journals including 3:AM, Full Stop and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He is the founder and managing editor of the online literary journal Review 31. |
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Robert Barry writes for publications such as The Wire, Frieze, The Atlantic Monthly, BBC Music, Fact, The Quietus, Thump, Wired, and Art Review. He is the visual art editor at The Quietus and technology and digital culture editor at Review 31. |
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David Winters has written for The Guardian, The Independent, the TLS, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The New Inquiry, The Millions, The Rumpus and elsewhere. Infinite Fictions, a collection of his critical essays, was published in 2015. He is co-editor in chief of 3:AM Magazine. |
Foreword by Kasia Boddy, lecturer in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of Boxing: A Cultural History and The American Short Story Since 1950, and the editor of The New Penguin Book of American Short Stories.
In the Media
- “Rich in erudite analysis and topical relevance” – THE DIGITAL CRITIC reviewed at The Lifted Brow (5/7/2018)
- “The time has grown ripe for the kind of theoretical and practical analyses collected in THE DIGITAL CRITIC”: A review in the Times Literary Supplement (3/23/2018)
- “Illuminating at every turn”: Litro reviews THE DIGITAL CRITIC (3/7/2018)
- THE DIGITAL CRITIC reviewed in Berfrois (2/22/2018)
- The Irish Times calls THE DIGITAL CRITIC “accessible and comprehensive at once.” (1/18/2018)
- An excerpt from THE DIGITAL CRITIC appears in Review 31 (1/18/2018)
- Joanna Walsh’s essay from THE DIGITAL CRITIC appears in Los Angeles Review of Books (12/14/2017)
- “The Re-Birth of the Author.” Theodora Hawlin’s essay from THE DIGITAL CRITIC appears in The Quietus (11/17/2017)
- Kirkus recommends THE DIGITAL CRITIC for “readers working in that Venn diagram space where writing, publishing, and cyberspace come together.” (10/3/2017)
