The Digital Literary Sphere

The Digital Literary Sphere by Simone Murray

How has the Internet changed literary culture? 2nd Place, N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature by The Electronic Literature Organization Reports of the book’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Books are flourishing in the Internet era—widely discussed and reviewed in online readers’ forums and publicized through book trailers and author blog tours. But over the past twenty-five years, digital media platforms have undeniably transformed book culture. Since Amazon’s founding in 1994, the whole way in which books are created, marketed, publicized, sold, reviewed, showcased, consumed, and commented upon has changed dramatically. The digital literary sphere is no mere appendage to the world of print—it is where literary reputations are made, movements are born, and readers passionately engage with their favorite works and authors. In The Digital Literary Sphere, Simone Murray considers the contemporary book world from multiple viewpoints. By examining reader engagement with the online personas of Margaret Atwood, John Green, Gary Shteyngart, David Foster Wallace, Karl Ove Knausgaard, and even Jonathan Franzen, among others, Murray reveals the dynamic interrelationship of print and digital technologies. Drawing on approaches from literary studies, media and cultural studies, book history, cultural policy, and the digital humanities, this book asks: What is the significance of authors communicating directly to readers via social media? How does digital media reframe the “live” author-reader encounter? And does the growing army of reader-reviewers signal an overdue democratizing of literary culture or the atomizing of cultural authority? In exploring these questions, The Digital Literary Sphere takes stock of epochal changes in the book industry while probing books’ and digital media’s complex contemporary coexistence.

Murray provides an astute overview of the ways in which traditional literary activities have been reshaped by digital technologiesI enjoyed the book immensely. It is comprehensive and provides clear examples and understanding within its chosen framing. For anyone interested in how literary scholars understand their place in the digital world, it is a terrific read.
—Literature and History
A spirited endeavour to snap literary studies out of its digital slumber. Expertly written and with remarkable interdisciplinarity, Murray embarks on charting what she terms the 'digital literary sphere'—a Habermasian look into the new context of literature and literary culture in the age of the internet.
—International Journal of Communication
The Digital Literary Sphere is a valuable primer on the contemporary state of literature in an internet culture. The thorough approach of Murray's work provides an institutional and cultural history for how digital literature arrived at its present moment.
—Media Industries Journal

Simone Murray is an associate professor (reader) in literary studies and the director of the Centre for the Book at Monash University. She is the author of Mixed Media: Feminist Presses and Publishing Politics and The Adaptation Industry: The Cultural Economy of Contemporary Literary Adaptation.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781421426099
ISBN 10	1421426099
Title	The Digital Literary Sphere
Author	Simone Murray
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Johns Hopkins University Press
Year published	2018-11-26
Number of pages	256
Prizes	Runner-up for N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature 2019 (United States)
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable