Performing authorship in the digital literary sphere -- 'Selling' literature: cultivating community in the digital literary sphere -- Curating the public life of literature: literary festivals online -- Consecrating the literary: book review culture and the digital literary sphere -- Entering literary discussion: fiction reading online.
Summary:
"Despite the talk of the "death of the book," traditionally linear and often print-based narratives have continued to flourish in the Internet era. Shifting focus from analyzing specific literary texts to a sociological examination of the contemporary literary scene, Simone Murray provides crucial insights into the major forces shaping this digital literary sphere. Analyzing the apparatus and institutional factors shaping contemporary online literary culture, including producers, retailers, festival organizers, evaluators, and consumers, Murray highlights how these traditionally distinct roles are radically blurring and the significance of this for all stakeholders in the literary industry. The Internet's massive expansion of participants in literary debates is democratizing literary culture in refreshing ways, but it is simultaneously throwing up thorny questions about cultural authority, destabilizing geographically based conceptions of literary canons, and problematizing the boundaries of the literary text. These are in essence theoretical issues of fundamental import to all with an interest in literature, and to literary scholars in particular"-- Provided by publisher.
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