Literary Reviewing and the Velocity of Book Histories in Times of Digitization

2021 ◽  
Vol 139 (1) ◽  
pp. 224-241
Author(s):  
Julia Straub

Abstract Web 2.0 has enabled a wide variety of practices and processes involved in the production, dissemination and reception of literary works to take place in an interactive environment. Concepts of authorship, the book as such, but also literary reviewing have undergone significant changes as a result, leading, for example, to the rise of the amateur critic. The case of Kristen Roupenian’s short story “Cat Person” (2017), published both in print and online by The New Yorker magazine, and its “going viral”, illustrate the speed and alacrity with which literary works today undergo evaluation and how different these kinds of discursive practices are in comparison to more traditional notions of literary reviewing. In the light of this velocity of reception processes, this article re-examines existing theories of literary value and evaluation (as in the form of reviewing and as postulated, e. g., by Barbara Herrnstein Smith) and their relation to book history.

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateusz Antoniuk

On the threshold of the 1970s Zbigniew Herbert, an eminent Polish poet and writer, was working on a play entitled Baśń zimowa (Winter Tale), which can be described as a truly international, interlingual, and transcultural phenomenon of textual culture. Written in Polish and ultimately intended for publication in German translation, it was inspired by a short story by James Stevenson published in The New Yorker magazine. For a number of reasons, Herbert never completed the text and all that remains is the archival material (plans, rough drafts, a newspaper cutting). Using this case as a platform, I attempt to investigate the potential for cooperation between the disciplines of genetic criticism on the one hand and cultural transfer studies on the other. A discussion of the ontology of unfinished and abandoned work provides a backdrop to the major themes.   


Author(s):  
Arne De Boever

Chapter Six shows how Ben Lerner’s 10:04 is a realist finance novel that takes on the financialization of the novel itself. If Houellebecq in his investigation of finance was mostly focused on art—understandably so, given that the art market obviously exceeds that of literature—Lerner puts the novel at the heart of such a project and delivers a novel that revolves around the promise of the novel: a projected novel, existing on contract, auctioned off for “a strong, six-figure advance” among the New York publishing houses on the basis of a short story that its author published in The New Yorker. The chapter shows that in its focus on the future, Lerner’s novel takes on the topics of capitalism and financialization, asking the difficult questions about the value of a commodity such as the novel and of what the chapter characterizes as a financial instrument such as the novel “on spec.” As a meditation on the future, Lerner’s novel is an investigation into finance and the possibility of a future that would remain outside of the financial logic, or at least operate critically within it.


Author(s):  
Sylvia Townsend Warner ◽  
Mercedes Aguirre

A short story published first in the New Yorker as ‘The Shirt in Mexico’ on 4 January 1941, and later as ‘My Shirt Is in Mexico’ in A Garland of Straw (1943).


Jurnal KATA ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Nanny Sri Lestari

<p>Sebuah peristiwa, dalam kehidupan manusia, dapat menjadi inspirasi bagi penulisan sebuah cerita. Pengarang, sebagai bagian dari masyarakatnya, mengangkat relung-relung kehidupan manusia, ke dalam sebuah cerita. Namun harus dipahami, bahwa pengalaman pengarang dalam kehidupannya sehari-hari, juga mempengaruhi subjek yang ditulisnya. Saat ini tidak dapat dipungkiri lagi, bahwa teknologi komunikasi yang sangat canggih, telah mempengaruhi perkembangan karya sastra. Media penulisan karya sastra, tidak lagi melalui media cetak seperti kertas tetapi sudah melalui peralatan modern yang sesuai jamannya. Namun demikian ragam karya sastra prosa, seperti cerita pendek, justru mampu mengisi ruang media kommunikasi tersebut. Dua orang pengarang, yang menulis cerita pendek di media masa, berusaha mengangkat isu tentang lingkungan. Isu yang diangkat, lebih menekankan kepada masalah lingkungan alam dengan mengangkat isu tentang pohon sebagai bagian dari kehidupan manusia. Tujuan penelitian ini, untuk menelusuri struktur cerita pendek yang mengangkat isu lingkungan dalam jalinan ceritanya. Untuk memenuhi tujuan penelitian, langkah awal dari penelitian ini, adalah melakukan pendekatan struktur cerita, yang kemudian dikaitkan dengan pencarian makna cerita tersebut. Sering sekali di balik sebuah cerita ada pesan yang ingin disampaikan kepada masyarakat pembacanya. Bentuk pesan tersebut tersirat, dalam jalinan struktur cerita pendek tersebut. Pesan yang disampaikan, dalam kedua cerita pendek tersebut,  adalah pesan tentang lingkungan alam, yang  saat ini tidak pernah diperhatikan oleh masyarakat. Dengan alasan, kebutuhan ekonomi yang sangat dominan.</p><p><em>An event, in human life, can be an inspiration for writing a story. The author, as a part of his society, lifts the niches of human life, into a story. But it must be understood, that the author's experience in everyday life, also affects the subject he wrote.</em><em> </em><em>Today it is undeniable, that highly sophisticated communication technology, has influenced the development of literary works. Media writing literature, no longer through print media such as paper but have been through modern equipment that fit his era.</em><em> </em><em>However, the variety of prose literary works, such as short stories, is able to fill the media space communications. Two authors, who write short stories in the mass media, try to raise issues about the environment. Issues raised, more emphasis on the issue of the natural environment by raising the issue, about the tree as part of human life. The purpose of this research, is to trace the structure of short stories, which raised environmental issues in the composition of the story. To fulfill the purpose of research, the first step of this research, is to approach the structure of the story, which is then linked with the search for the meaning of the story. Very often, behind a story, there is a message to be conveyed to the readers. The form of the message is implied, in the composition of the short story structure. The message conveyed, in both short stories, is a message about the natural environment, which today is never noticed by society. The message conveyed, in both short stories, is a message about the natural environment, which today is never noticed by society.</em></p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-72
Author(s):  
Sheila Liberal Ormaechea ◽  
Isidoro Arroyo Almaraz ◽  
Paula Hernández de Miguel

Presentamos un trabajo de investigación empírico donde analizamos el uso de la ilustración en un medio concreto (The New Yorker) para contrastar el poder de transmisión del mensaje en un contexto muy concreto como es el de la pandemia mundial debido a la propagación de la covid-19. Metodología: Se ha llevado a acabo una triangulación metodológica combinando diversas técnicas y herramientas como la investigación documental, análisis descriptivo, focus group y análisis de contenido . Resultados: El análisis de 347 portadas revela que el elemento que varía de una publicación a otra es la ilustración.


2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Dudy Syafruddin

Literature is a product of culture keeping abreast of human mind. Literary works is a means for the authors to express the social phenomenon in his life. The discourses about postmodernism in the second half of twentieth century, as a part of the story of human mind, was a profound interest for the Authors. In Indonesia, the postmodern discourse has come up in the 1960s. This paper involves the elements of Postmodernism in the short story “Abacadabra” written by Danarto. The dominant elements in this short story are parody, fragmentary, and historiographic metafiction.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 82
Author(s):  
Shofi Mahmudah Budi Utami

This study aims at revealing how the discursive practices and the discourse on alcoholism in the Native Americans is produced and contested in a short story entitled The Reckoning by Joy Harjo. The problem in this study is approached by Foucauldian concept of discourse production procedure. The method applied here is the Foucauldian discourse analysis by examining the problem through the process of formation including external and internal exclusion. Central to the analysis is that alcoholism is produced as taboo through the mother character which limits the general understanding about alcoholism; hence this discourse is possible to produce by the subject whose credentials can validate the truth. This discourse is also affirmed by the contextual prohibition which authoritatively can state the truth about alcoholism. This is further contested in the current society of how being an alcoholic would be considered as a non-native American way of life. The result indicates that alcoholism among Native American society becomes the discourse within which constraints produce considerable barriers to expose or address to this topic


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document