[csaa-forum] The Digital Future of English: Literary Media Studies (new book)

[Simone Murray]

Colleagues,

Announcing a new book about the future of literary studies in the digital
age that rethinks the discipline's object of study, theory, methods,
audiences and pedagogy for the internet era: *The Digital Future of
English: Literary Media Studies* *(Oxford UP, 2025)*.

The Digital Future of English - Simone Murray - Oxford University Press
<https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-digital-future-of-english-9780198952619?cc=au&lang=en&#>

[image: image.png]

*Synopsis:*
More than any other academic discipline, literary studies is the creation
of print culture. How then can it thrive in the digital era? Early 1990s
predictions of the book's imminent demise presented a simplistic either/or
choice between the legacy of moribund print and triumphalist digital
technology. Yet we have grown to experience the two media as complexly
interdependent and even complementary. Clearly, digital does not kill
print. But literary studies in the digital era cannot simply resume
business as usual. It is urgently necessary to reconsider the discipline's
founding assumptions in light of digital technology.

The digital era prompts rethinking of literary studies' object of study, as
well as its methods, theories, audiences and pedagogical practices.
*What *counts
as literature necessarily shifts in an age of proliferating born-digital
texts and do-it-yourself (DIY) online publication. *Where *should literary
studies sit institutionally, and how might it graft contextually-oriented
social sciences methods onto its traditionally humanistic mode of textual
analysis? *Why *should literary study continue to marginalize emotional
responses to texts when online communities bond via readerly affect? *Who *is
the audience for literary criticism in an age where expertise is routinely
challenged yet communication with global book-loving publics has never been
technologically easier? Finally, *how *can we utilize digital tools to
rejuvenate literary studies pedagogy and help English staff better connect
with millennial-age students?

Literary studies has been convulsed for decades by debates over electronic
literature and, more recently, digitally-aided 'distant reading'. But these
discussions still mostly confine themselves to demarcating our proper
object of study. We need to think more expansively about digital
technology's impact on the underpinning tenets of the discipline. *The
Digital Future of English: **Literary Media Studies* is pitched at fellow
literary scholars, book historians, media theorists, cultural sociologists,
digital humanists and those working at the interface of these converging
disciplines. It models constructive engagement with contemporary digital
culture. Most importantly, it brings a burst of sorely needed optimism to
the question of literary studies' digital future.

*Table of contents:*
Introduction: Varieties of Digital Literary Studies: Micro, Macro, Meso
1:Object of Study: Broadening Conceptions of 'Literature' for the Digital
Era
2:Literary Institutions: Situating English between the Humanities and
Social Sciences
3:The Problem of Affect: Literary Studies, BookTube, and BookTok
4:Reading Publics: Bridging Scholarly and Popular Bookish Audiences in the
Digital Age
5:Machine Learning: Literary Studies Pedagogy in the Digital Era
Conclusion: Realizing Literary Media Studies

*Author bionote:*
*Simone Murray* is Associate Professor in Literary Studies at Monash
University, Melbourne, and an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of
the Humanities. She is author of four previous monographs: *Mixed Media:
Feminist Presses and Publishing Politics* (Pluto Press, 2004) which was
awarded the 2005 DeLong Book Prize by the Society for the History of
Authorship, Reading and Publishing; *The Adaptation Industry: The Cultural
Economy of Contemporary Literary Adaptation* (Routledge US, 2012); *The
Digital Literary Sphere: Reading, Writing,* *and Selling Books in the
Internet Era* (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018); and *Introduction to Contemporary
Print Culture: Books as Media* (Routledge UK, 2021).

Best wishes,

Simone Murray


-- 

*SIMONE MURRAY *FAHA

Associate Professor in Literary Studies
*Head of Literary Studies section*
*School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics*
*Monash University*
Room W709, Menzies Building,
20 Chancellors Walk, Clayton Campus
VIC 3800
Australia

T: +61 3 9905 2220
E: Simone.Murray at monash.edu <name.surname at monash.edu>
https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/simone-murray
Digiit.org: Where literary culture meets digital technology
<https://digilitorg.wordpress.com/>
CRICOS Provider 00008C/ 01857J

Google Scholar profile
<http://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=z9iaQTUAAAAJ&hl=en>

*Latest publications: *
2024 – "Picking Your Professor: Bridging Scholarly and Popular Bookish
Publics in the Digital Age." *Poetics Today* 45.4: 587-614. *[free
access] *Picking
Your Professor: Bridging Scholarly and Popular Bookish Publics in the
Digital Age | Poetics Today | Duke University Press
<https://read.dukeupress.edu/poetics-today/article/45/4/587/392774/Picking-Your-Professor-Bridging-Scholarly-and?guestAccessKey=7128d732-f8d5-42c1-b0c4-f94a88aa3065>

*New book published by Oxford University Press, Jul. 2025
<https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-digital-future-of-english-9780198952619?lang=en&cc=au>:*
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