"This edited collection explores the multiple dimensions of authorship that constitute the "ecology" of writing. Examining the early 20th century to the present, Ecologies of Writing expands our understanding of this period of dramatic media-technological transition in which writers become increasingly self-reflexive and responsive to the materials and changing environments of their craft. Drawing from works in German literature and theory, contributors expand this framing to encompass the vast array of material, social, environmental, and economic influences that all inform the practice of writing"--
Drawing from case studies in 20th century German literature and theory, the contributors to this volume explore the multiple dimensions behind and alongside authorship that constitutes the "ecology" of writing.
Over the last few decades, a resurgence of interest in historical and contemporary writing processes, fueled in part by the development of digital media, has developed alongside the emergence of new conceptions of material-human agency and the environment. What would it mean to apply these conceptions to the phenomenon of writing? As the essays in this volume explore, writing is never the purely mental activity of a solitary mind; it is inherently socially embedded and always more-than-human.
Examining the early 20th century to the present, a period of dramatic media-technological transition in which writers become increasingly self-reflexive and responsive to the materials and changing environmental circumstances of their craft, Ecologies of Writing expands the frame to encompass the vast array of material, social, environmental, and economic influences that all inform the practice of writing. Case studies draw on German-language literature and theory, including works by Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, and W. G. Sebald, and recent theories of human-material agency, media theory, and ecocriticism.
Arvustused
This volume presents compelling new perspectives on practices and contexts of writing, looking beyond authorial intention and agency to the different natural and built environments, media ecologies, and social situations in which writing takes place. A delightful example of what Villem Flusser calls superscript, or thinking and writing about writing, Ecologies of Writing boasts many inspiring insights and unexpected finds and will advance discussions about writing and media practices in the 20th and 21st centuries in media studies, materialist and object-oriented scholarship, and the sociology of literature. * Sean Franzel, Professor of German and William H. Byler Distinguished Chair in the Humanities, University of Missouri, USA *
Muu info
Uses case studies from 20th-century German literature and theory to explore the material, social, economic, and environmental bases of writing and its craft.
Introduction: An Expanded Perspective on Textual Creation
Urs Büttner (Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf, Germany) and Jacob
Haubenreich (Johns Hopkins University, USA)
Part I. Materialities
1. The Field of Writing: The Ambulatory Art of Noticing Third Nature in
Sebald and Kinsky, Jason Groves (University of Washington, USA)
2. Street Writing and Contemporary German Streetscapes, Peter Schweppe
(Montana State University, USA)
Part II. Mediality and Technical Devices
3. Lines of Force: Writing Theory and the Energetic Scripts of Modernism,
Susanne Strätling (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany)
4. An Updated Superscript: Paradoxes of Writing Amidst Generative AI, Richard
Gibson (Wheaton College, USA)
Part III. Mind and Body
5. This Conflict between the Souls Inclination and the Bodys
Capabilities: Writing Hygiene in Thomas Manns Death in Venice, Urs Büttner
(Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf, Germany)
6. Immersion and its Discontents: Kafka's Ecology of Attention, Carolin
Duttlinger (University of Oxford, UK)
Part IV. Social Conditions
7. In the Machine Room: Writing between Author and Editor, ca. 1900-2000,
Ines Barner (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) translated by Eric Hounshell
8. Writing as Work: Towards a Theory of Literary Production, Carolin Amlinger
(University of Basel, Switzerland)
Notes on Contributors
Index
Urs Büttner is Feodor Lynen Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the University of Oxford, UK. He previously held positions at Leibniz University Hannover, Free University Berlin and Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. He taught as Max Kade Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and received a Visiting Scholarship at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Durham.
Jacob Haubenreich is Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Johns Hopkins University, USA. He has previously held positions at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale and the College of the Holy Cross, as well as positions as Visiting Scholar at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and in the Marbach Weimar Wolfenbüttel Research Association.
