Literature in the Digital Age

Why bother reading literature in our digital age when we have so many other media and entertainments to absorb our time and attention? Why seek the experience of being immersed in a novel when virtual reality can provide what seems like a far more comprehensive immersive experience? Given the effects that digital media have had on our concentration and attention spans, is the novel?or, indeed, is literature more generally?doomed? The evidence suggests that?to the contrary?we find ourselves in a potentially golden age for literature. History shows that periods of transition between media?from orality and literacy, from manuscript to print?are enormously fruitful times for the production of innovative literary forms and for reflection on key questions about the essential nature of literature. This lecture course exploits our ongoing place in the media shift from print to digital to address a range of these key questions: What is literature? How is literature changing? What is literature for? By reading contemporary and historical literature, and print and born-digital texts, we will explore themes such as language & communication, creativity & originality, networks & connections, cognition & artificial intelligence, privacy & surveillance, identity & subjectivity, longevity & obsolescence. In so doing, we will decide whether the digital age spells the death of literature, or its renaissance.