Intended to suggest a broad range of interests found in the field of literary studies and their confluence with the creative activities, analytical methodologies, and disseminative possibilities presented by computation and the electronic medium . . . intending to suggest all this, the phrase ‘‘digital literary studies’’ does little justice to what is a meeting of interests that, it may be argued, represents the most important change occurring in the field of literary studies today. That change is not driven by theoretical concerns, although it clearly is informed by them as much as it is, in turn, informing them; it is not posited solely by the necessities of bibliographic pursuits, though quite certainly the computational tractability of such pursuits has strongly encouraged material, textual, and other bibliographic endeavor; and it is not championed only by professional interests, although the pragmatics of our profession do play a large role. Rather, the change is driven chiefly by that which has always driven key aspects of society’s engagement with text: the socially accessible technologies that govern the storage, transmission, and reception of textual material.
The way in which one might approach the engagement of computing in literary studies – a discipline as vast as it is deep – is through a multifaceted approach, understanding its relationship not only to the wider concerns of literary studies, which one might argue is its own present, but also to its own past. The origin of digital literary studies is typically located at the mid-point of the last century with the work of Father Roberto Busa, the Jesuit priest who used computational means to create the Index Thomisticus. The Index Thomisticus is, in itself, both a pre-history of the field as well as an active participant in contemporary technologies and theoretical perspectives. The raw material which formed the palimpsest of the published volumes (first to print formats, and most latterly in digital form) was migrated over a 49-year period onto a variety of media, from punch cards, to tape, to CDs, to the internet and, ultimately, to DVD. With each migration, the data was reformatted and its output re-visualized for a new generation of readers. Busa’s engagement with one text across many generations of computer hardware and software forms a pre-history for the rich and varied methodologies, theoretical perspectives, and computational means that today comprise the field of digital literary studies: text encoding, e-literature, linguistic analysis, data mining, new media studies, hypertext studies, and well beyond.
Other perspectives abound. There are, indeed, many further acknowledged milestones to which one could draw attention amongst those in a recent history; one that could be seen to begin with John Smith’s seminal article, ‘‘Computer Criticism’’ (1978), and extend through Roseanne Potter’s Literary Computing and Literary Criticism (1989), Gregory Colomb and Mark Turner’s ‘‘Computers, Literary Theory, and the Theory of Meaning’’ (1989), Charles Faulhaber’s ‘‘Textual Criticism in the 21st Century’’ (1991), Paul Delany and George Landow’s Hypermedia and Literary Studies (1991), Landow’s HyperText (1992), Delany’s ‘‘From the Scholar’s Library to the Personal Docuverse’’ (1993), Geoffrey Nunberg’s ‘‘The Place of Books in the Age of Electronic Reproduction’’ (1993), Richard Finneran’s The Literary Text in the Digital Age (1996), Janet Murray’s Hamlet on the Holodeck (1997), Espen Aarseth’s Cybertext (1997), Jerome McGann’s Radiant Textuality: Literary Studies after the World Wide Web (2001), N. Katherine Hayles’ Writing Machines (2002) and so on, up to this day; but here, already, the documentation of such an energetic and, from our current perspective, resounding engagement – a thing of beauty in itself – reflects quite significantly the literary-critical perspective, the eye, of the beholder.
Even so, far from a Busaian past, and the largely textual focus of scholarship at the end of the previous century, are the perspectives of game studies, social and ubiquitous computing, e-literature, and visualization, among many others. It is all these methodologies, perspectives, and means that intersect to form a roadmap through this dynamically evolving and richly experimental field. Yet, the sum of the chapters in this volume is much more than a survey of current concerns, which is, perhaps, best reflected in one’s specific approach to, and entry into, the discipline itself. From our current perspective, we have the considerable luxury of being able to draw upon any number of the contemporary points of engagement being actively pursued in digital literary studies and seeing active representation in this volume. Thus, as we cast our eyes backward, we can construct a number of rich, informative histories while, at the same time, pointing toward new paths for future research. This meeting of past and future is nowhere more evident than in the introductory chapter to this volume, Alan Liu’s ‘‘Imagining the New Media Encounter.’’
Upon Liu’s foundation, the remainder of the volume is divided into three broad sections, Traditions, Textualities, and Methodologies; it concludes with a useful annotated bibliography, a starting point for the consideration of a number of the many exemplary initiatives in the area. The first section, Traditions, views digital literary studies much as our academic units do, from the perspective of disciplinary periodicity: classical, medieval, early modern, eighteenth-century, nineteenth-century, and twentieth-century and contemporary. Contributions to Textualities embrace notions of that ever-problematized entity, the “text,” as those who engage literary text do so within the context of the manifold possibilities presented by new media. Lastly, Methodologies explores the new ways in which we engage in such pursuit.
The editors express their most sincere gratitude to all those involved in the conception, the shaping, and the production of this volume. Particular thanks go to Emma Bennett, our editor at Blackwell who embraced the idea for the volume and whose support throughout the production process has been unwavering, Annette Abel, who firmly and kindly oversaw the copyediting and page-proofing associated with the collection, and to Sean Daugherty (Maryland), Karin Armstrong (Victoria), and Anne Correia (Victoria), who assisted with many of the pragmatics of getting the volume ready for the press.
Ray Siemens
Susan Schreibman
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