The Printed Book in Contemporary American Culture

This essay collection explores the cultural functions the printed book performs in the digital age. It examines how the use of and attitude toward the book form have changed in light of the digital transformation of American media culture. Situated at the crossroads of American studies, literary studies, book studies, and media studies, these essays show that a sustained focus on the medial and material formats of literary communication significantly expands our accustomed ways of doing cultural studies. Addressing the changing roles of authors, publishers, and readers while covering multiple bookish formats such as artists' books, bestselling novels, experimental fiction, and zines, this interdisciplinary volume introduces readers to current transatlantic conversations on the history and future of the printed book.

Autorentext

Heike Schaefer is Professor of North American Literature and Culture at the University of Education Karlsruhe, Germany. She is the author of American Literature and Immediacy: Literary Innovation and the Emergence of Photography, Film, and Television (2019) and Mary Austin's Regionalism (2004) and co-editor of Network Theory and American Studies (2015) and Literary Knowledge Production and the Life Sciences (2017).

Alexander Starre is Assistant Professor of North American Culture at the John F. Kennedy Institute, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. He is the author of Metamedia: American Book Fictions and Literary Print Culture after Digitization (2015) and co-editor of Projecting American Studies: Essays on Theory, Method, and Practice (2018).

Inhalt
Introduction1.The Printed Book, Contemporary Media Culture, and American StudiesHeike Schaefer and Alexander Starre
Section I: The Printed Book and Formations of Knowledge in the Digital Age2.The Books That Count: Big Data vs. Narrative in Robin Sloan's Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and Joshua Cohen's Book of NumbersRegina Schober
3.US Print Culture, Literary Narrative, and Slow Reading in the Age of Big Data: Steve Tomasula's VAS: An Opera in FlatlandAntje Kley
4.Books and Books and Books an Oasis of the Forbidden: Writing and Print Culture as Metaphor and Medium for Survival in Margaret Atwood's Novel The Handmaid's TaleReingard M. Nischik
5.Zines in the Library: Underground Communication and the Property Regimes of Book CultureJanice Radway
Section II: The Book as Commodity and Fetish 6.The Book between Media Convergence, Media Specificity, and Diverse Reading Communities in Present-Day US CultureChristoph Bläsi
7.Michael Cunningham's The Hours: Homage to the Book in a Time of Media TransformationAleida Assmann
8.There's Nothing Quite Like a Real Book: Stop-Motion BookishnessJessica Pressman
Section III: Redesigning the Codex: Current Experiments in and beyond the Book9.Remediation, Oral Storytelling, and the Printed Book: The Stylistic Strategies of Mark Z. Danielewski's The Fifty Year SwordAlison Gibbons
10.Book Design as Literary Strategy: Aka Morchiladze's Novel Santa Esperanza and Its Poetics of Playful StorytellingMonika Schmitz-Emans
11.Authorial Impression and Remediation in Anne Carson's Quasi-Artist's Book NoxKiene Brillenburg Wurth
Afterword: 12.The Storied BookGarrett Stewart