Writing Cultures And Literary Media

This Pivot investigates the impact of the digital on literary culture through the analysis of selected marketing narratives, social media stories, and reading communities. Drawing on the work of contemporary writers, from Bernardine Evaristo to Patricia Lockwood, each chapter addresses a specific tension arising from the overarching question: How has writing culture changed in this digital age? By examining shifting modes of literary production, this book considers how discourses of writing and publishing and hierarchies of cultural capital circulate in a socially motivated post-digital environment. Writing Cultures and Literary Media combines compelling accounts of book trends, reader reception, and interviews with writers and publishers to reveal fresh insights for students, practitioners, and scholars of writing, publishing, and communications.

Exploring the culture and media of the Americas, this handbook places particular emphasis on collective and intertwined experiences and focuses on the transnational or hemispheric dimensions of cultural flows and geocultural imaginaries that shape the literature, arts, media and other cultural expressions in the Americas. The Routledge Handbook to the Culture and Media of the Americas charts the pervasive, asymmetrical flows of cultural products and capital and their importance in the development of the Americas. The volume offers a comprehensive understanding of how inter-American communication is constituted, framed and structured, and covers the artistic and political dimensions that have shaped literature, art and popular culture in the region. Forty-six chapters cover a range of inter-American key concepts and dynamics, divided into two parts: Literature and Music deals with inter-American entanglements of artistic expressions in the Western Hemisphere, including music, dance, literary genres and developments. Media and Visual Cultures explores the inter-American dimension of media production in the hemisphere, including cinema and television, photography and art, journalism, radio, digital culture and issues such as freedom of expression and intellectual property. This multidisciplinary approach will be of interest to a broad array of academic scholars and students in history, sociology, political science; and cultural, postcolonial, gender, literary, globalization and media studies.

Technology, Literature and Culture provides a detailed and accessible exploration of the ways in which literature across the twentieth century has represented the inescapable presence and progress of technology. As this study argues, from the Fordist revolution in manufacturing to computers and the internet, technology has reconfigured our relationship to ourselves, each other, and to the tools and material we use. The book considers such key topics as the legacy of late-nineteenth century technology, the literary engagement with cinema and radio, the place of typewriters and computers in formal and thematic literary innovations, the representations of technology in spy fiction and the figures of the robot and the cyborg. It considers the importance of broadcast technology and the internet in literature and covers major literary movements including modernism, cold war writing, postmodernism and the emergence of new textualities at the end of the century. An insightful and wide-ranging study, Technology, Literature and Culture offers close readings of writers such as Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett, Ian Fleming, Kurt Vonnegut, Don DeLillo, Jeanette Winterson and Shelley Jackson. It is an invaluable resource for students and scholars alike in literary and cultural studies, and also introduces the topic to a general reader interested in the role of technology in the twentieth century.

"Humanists and social scientists alike will profit from reflection on the efforts of the contributors to reimagine anthropology in terms, not only of methodology, but also of politics, ethics, and historical relevance. Every discipline in the human and social sciences could use such a book."--Hayden White, author of Metahistory

The Routledge Companion to Literary Media examines the fast-moving present and future of a media ecosystem in which the literary continues to play a vital role. The term ‘literary media’ challenges the tendency to hold the two terms distinct and broadens accepted usage of the literary to include popular cultural forms, emerging technologies and taste cultures, genres, and platforms, as well as traditions and audiences all too often excluded from literary histories and canons. Featuring contributions from leading international scholars and practitioners, the Companion provides a comprehensive guide to existing terms and theories that address the alignment of literature and a variety of media forms. It situates the concept in relation to existing theories and histographies; considers emerging genres and forms such as locative narratives and autofiction; and expands discussion beyond the boundaries by which literary authorship is conventionally defined. Contributors also examine specific production and publishing contexts to provide in-depth analysis of the promotion of literary media materials. The volume further considers reading and other aspects of situated audience engagement, such as Indigenous and oral storytelling, prize and review cultures, book clubs, children, and young adults. This authoritative collection is an invaluable resource for scholars and students working at the intersection of literary and media studies.

Contemporary Publishing and the Culture of Books is a comprehensive resource that builds bridges between the traditional focus and methodologies of literary studies and the actualities of modern and contemporary literature, including the realities of professional writing, the conventions and practicalities of the publishing world, and its connections between literary publishing and other media. Focusing on the relationship between modern literature and the publishing industry, the volume enables students and academics to extend the text-based framework of modules on contemporary writing into detailed expositions of the culture and industry which bring these texts into existence; it brings economic considerations into line alongside creative issues, and examines how employing marketing strategies are utilized to promote and sell books. Sections cover: The standard university-course specifications of contemporary writing, offering an extensive picture of the social, economic, and cultural contexts of these literary genres The impact and status of non-literary writing, and how this compares with certain literary genres as an index to contemporary culture and a reflection of the state of the publishing industry The practicalities and conventions of the publishing industry Contextual aspects of literary culture and the book industry, visiting the broader spheres of publishing, promotion, bookselling, and literary culture Carefully linked chapters allow readers to tie key elements of the publishing industry to the particular demands and features of contemporary literary genres and writing, offering a detailed guide to the ways in which the three core areas of culture, economics, and pragmatics intersect in the world of publishing. Further to being a valuable resource for those studying English or Creative Writing, the volume is a key text for degrees in which Publishing is a component, and is relevant to those aspects of Media Studies that look at interactions between the media and literature/publishing.

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.

This book considers the largely under-recognised contribution that young writers have made to life writing genres such as memoir, letter writing and diaries, as well as their innovative use of independent and social media. The authors argue that these contributions have been historically silenced, subsumed within other literary genres, culturally marginalised or co-opted for political ends. Furthermore, the book considers how life narrative is an important means for youth agency and cultural participation. By engaging in private and public modes of self-representation, young people have contested public discourses around the representation of youth, including media, health and welfare, and legal discourses, and found means for re-engaging and re-appropriating self-images and representations. Locating their research within broader theoretical debates from childhood and youth studies: youth creative practice and associated cultural implications; youth citizenship and autonomy; the rights of the child; generations and power relationships, Poletti and Douglas also position their inquiry within life narrative scholarship and wider discussions of self-representation from the margins, representations of conflict and trauma, and theories of ethical scholarship.