Reviews
"A pioneering study with brilliant readings of important works of digital literature, Digital Modernism is a landmark work of literary criticism, a must-read for anyone interested in how contemporary literature fares in the digital domain."-N. Katherine Hayles, author of How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis"In this lucid, informed, and consequential book, Jessica Pressman enacts the strategy she theorizes. To argue that writing moves forward by looking back, she repurposes print-based critical practices of close reading to parse a pixel-based creativity she calls 'digital modernism.' This exhilarating spin draws McLuhan, Pound, and Joyce into the contemporary making of the new." -Adalaide Morris, author of New Media Poetics: Contexts, Technotexts, and Theories"Pressman's wonderfully elegant close readings show us how to engage some of the most complex creative works of our moment, even as they help us see literary modernism anew. A book for both established scholars and a new generation of critics, Digital Modernism superbly prescribes the terms for the study of electronic literature."-Rita Raley, author of Tactical Media, "A pioneering study with brilliant readings of important works of digital literature, Digital Modernism is a landmark work of literary criticism, a must-read for anyone interested in how contemporary literature fares in the digital domain."-N. Katherine Hayles, author of How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis "In this lucid, informed, and consequential book, Jessica Pressman enacts the strategy she theorizes. To argue that writing moves forward by looking back, she repurposes print-based critical practices of close reading to parse a pixel-based creativity she calls 'digital modernism.' This exhilarating spin draws McLuhan, Pound, and Joyce into the contemporary making of the new." -Adalaide Morris, author of New Media Poetics: Contexts, Technotexts, and Theories "Pressman's wonderfully elegant close readings show us how to engage some of the most complex creative works of our moment, even as they help us see literary modernism anew. A book for both established scholars and a new generation of critics, Digital Modernism superbly prescribes the terms for the study of electronic literature."-Rita Raley, author of Tactical Media, "A pioneering study with brilliant readings of important works of digital literature, Digital Modernism is a landmark work of literary criticism, a must-read for anyone interested in how contemporary literature fares in the digital domain."-N. Katherine Hayles, author of How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis"In this lucid, informed, and consequential book, Jessica Pressman enacts the strategy she theorizes. To argue that writing moves forward by looking back, she repurposes print-based critical practices of close reading to parse a pixel-based creativity she calls 'digital modernism.' This exhilarating spin draws McLuhan, Pound, and Joyce into the contemporary making of the new." -Adalaide Morris, author of New Media Poetics: Contexts, Technotexts, andTheories"Pressman's wonderfully elegant close readings show us how to engage some of the most complex creative works of our moment, even as they help us see literary modernism anew. A book for both established scholars and a new generation of critics, Digital Modernism superbly prescribes the terms for the study of electronic literature."-Rita Raley, author of Tactical Media"...Pressman seeks to position today's digital literature as a reappearance or renewal of the print-based modernism pioneered by Ezra Pound and James Joyce...to bring New Media art and theory into the legacy of literary studies and its method of close reading." -- American Literature
Table of Content
Introduction1. Close Reading: Marshall McLuhan, From Modernism to Media Studies2. Reading Machines: Machine Poetry and Excavatory Reading in William Poundstone's Electronic Literature and Bob Brown's Readies3. Speed Reading: Super-Position and Simultaneity in Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries's Dakota and Ezra Pound's Cantos4. Reading the Database: Narrative, Database, and Stream of Consciousness5. Reading Code: The Hallucination of Universal Language from Modernism to CyberspaceCoda - Rereading: Digital Modernism in Print, Mark Z. Danielewski's Only Revolutions, Introduction Chapter 1 - Close Reading: Marshall McLuhan, From Modernism to Media Studies Chapter 2 - Reading Machines: Machine Poetry and Excavatory Reading in William Poundstone's Electronic Literature and Bob Brown's Readies Chapter 3 - Speed Reading: Super-Position and Simultaneity in Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries's Dakota and Ezra Pound's Cantos Chapter 4 - Reading the Database: Narrative, Database, and Stream of Consciousness Chapter 5 - Reading Code: The Hallucination of Universal Language from Modernism to Cyberspace Coda - Rereading: Digital Modernism in Print, Mark Z. Danielewski's Only Revolutions
