This book proposes a framework for understanding contemporary digital literary genres and the complex negotiations they undertake with earlier literary experimentation. Arguing that digital literature must be understood not as a radical break with prior norms, but as works on a continuum, this book charts the ways in which selected authors of digital works in the Hispanic world speak back to the rich tradition of literary experimentation, which goes well beyond the Anglophone. For the purposes of this book, six landmark authors and their works at different stages of the development of electronic literature as a phenomenon in the Hispanic world have been selected. In my analysis, I distinguish two main features that can be identified as commonalities in their works: firstly, the combination of intertextual and metatextual plays; and secondly, the critique of digital technologies and their (perceived or actual) imbrication in the technocapitalist system underpinning them.
Regarding the first of theseâintertextual and metatextual playsâI argue for a position that is not an unproblematically laudatory one that sees digital literary production as a radical break with the printed form that is, in and of itself, empowering, liberatory, or even revolutionary. Instead, I argue, we must conceive of digital literature as being in negotiation with previous literary forms so that it functions as both continuum and break. At the same time, I situate this development in a context that goes well beyond the more conventionally noted Anglophone one, and I undertake a detailed analysis of pre-digital literary experimentation across a range of national and transnational contexts, demonstrating how the characteristics of these prior experimentations continue to manifest themselvesâand yet, are also inflected differentlyâin contemporary digital literature. I advocate establishing and tracing connections, both implicit and explicit, underscoring the national, regional, and transnational dialogues that these digital literary genres undertake with previous literary canons, texts, techniques, and genres. My focus on these works as the inheritors of long-established literary traditions thus builds an argument about how radical literary traditions, both past and present, continue to make incisive contributions to ongoing debates about digital technologiesâdebates which also have ideological and political implications. In so doing, I focus on the dialogues between literariness and technology, and I reveal the tensions that are established between moments of utopian radicalism and moments of highlighting the limitations of digital technologies.
Regarding the second of these key featuresâthe critique of digital technologiesâI analyse how the authors I have selected simultaneously employ and take a critical stance on the electronic medium. In this sense, I aim to resist what has been termed âtechnological determinismâ by exploring some of the negative effects associated with digital technologies and the material conditions that promote and support them. In so doing, I propose a counter-argument to recent popular orthodoxy which at times assumes the inherently emancipatory or democratic potential of digital mediaâof which more is discussed below. Moreover, I explore, in particular, how these authors do so in relation to the specific challenges of twenty-first-century Latin America, such as the manifestations of late capitalism, the use of culture as an instrument for building markets, and the rise of the immaterial commodity, amongst others. I elucidate how these authors, in their different ways, attempt a neo-Marxist gesture of unmasking the structural inequalities that are upheld by, and naturalised by, technocapitalism, and how they encourage us to contest these uses. As I do so, I engage in this bookâand particularly in this Introductionâwith debates about cultural studies, and the lament over the loss of its critical edge; rather than a necessary loss of critical edge, I argue, there still does exist an oppositional stance that can be perceived within digital cultural production and in (digital) cultural studies of the Left. Thus, my book maintains a focus on close textual analysis, attention to the digital, and to the wider structural concerns, with each chapter investigating the complexities of digital cultural production, not viewing the text as a free-floating, autonomous aesthetic object, but also, not positing that the text is determined by its technological features.
I start firstly with a discussion of the advent of digital technologies and their impact upon cultural and literary norms and formats, undertaking a detailed engagement with leading theorists of hypertext and electronic literature. Charting the developments in the theory of hypertext and electronic literature, from Bolter, Moulthrop, and Landowâs early pronouncements on hypertext as an infinitely recentrable system with a truly active reader, through the work of Aarseth, Murray, Hayles, Ryan, Bell, Ensslin, and many others who have nuanced and developed our understanding of new configurations of textuality, the author, the reader, and narrative structure, I draw out the main implications for our understanding of electronic literature and digital textuality. Drawing on Aarseth, Hayles, and others, I end this section by concurring that we should not, therefore, fall into the trap of technological determinism and see digital technology, as of necessity, liberatory or experimental.
Subsequently, the Introduction undertakes a detailed scrutiny of the relationship between digital culture studies and cultural studies, and advocates for a critical digital culture studies which involves a potential recuperation of the leftist underpinnings of cultural studies as first conceived. I posit a critical digital culture studies that would involve a three-fold approach, combining what I term aesthetics , technologics , and ethics , understanding digital literature as, simultaneously, making use of technological affordances without being determined by them; as building on prior literary traditions without being bound by them; and as providing a critical stance on contemporary socio-economic conditions, all the while being aware of its own imbrication in them.
After this, the Introduction moves on to an examination of the first of the two major traits identified in these authorsânamely, their use of intertextual and metatextual references. This section addresses Latin American literature as a literary precedent, detailing the specifics of the authors studied in this book, and in particular, setting forth that one of the hallmarks of their work is how, in their different ways, they make sustained intertextual references to prior generations of literary experimentation at the same time as making frequent metatextual references to the process of their worksâ own (digital) creation. This dialogue, I argue, is critical and often self-aware, as their digital literary works often make metatextual references to the digital tools and platforms that they make use of. In so doing, their overt references to digital technologies themselves often play with, and yet question or thwart, key notions of interactive literature. The authors often make implicit or explicit mention of some of the key debates in electronic literature, from some of the earlier, utopian pronouncements by scholars such as Bolter or Landow about hypertextual writing as offering radical rethinkings of the conventional form of the text, the author, and writing systems, through to some of the latest concerns about electronic surveillance and social media. In their references, however, these authors do not uncritically celebrate digital technologies as offering radically new tools for literary experimentation. Rather, they often warn us against viewing digital technology, as of necessity, emancipatory or experimental. In other words, it is not that these authors posit digital technologies as the culmination of literary experimentation, and as the answers to the limitations of the printed page; instead, they simultaneously use and highlight the shortcomings of the potentials of these technologies.
The subsequent section then moves on to the second of the two traitsânamely, how these authors also engage in a critique of the material conditions that underpin these technologies. In this section, I analyse how through their different ways, the authors undertake an unmasking of contemporary social relations of the digital era, and rather than accepting blindly the technologies they employ, encourage us to question these very technologies. I argue that these authors highlight the potentially negative aspects of a range of phenomena associated with digital technologies, undertaking a de-fetishising process, as they endeavour to denaturalise the hegemonic discourses of corporate capital, and strip away the fetishistic aura of technology. In so doing, they provide critical stance on issues such as the corporate colonisation of the lifeworld, the commodity fetishism of the digital era, the alienation of the individual in informational capitalism , amongst many others. In this way, I demonstrate how their critique is two-fold, as they question the limitations of digital technologies, and draw our attention to the negative aspects of the material conditions that underpin them.
Finally, the Introduction ends by bringing together these various issues as they coalesce around the debates about electronic literature, digital technologies, and the conditions of contemporary capitalism. I argue for an approach that involves bearing in mind the rich, non-Anglophone tradition of literary experimentation that informs the works of the authors studied in this volume who dialogue with, and yet problematise, prior literary genres, traits, and techniques; that involves paying close attention to the self-conscious way they employ digital technologies, and their cautioning about the radical literary potential these technologies purportedly offer; and that involves taking on board the sustained critical enquiry they undertake of the material conditions of the very technologies that they employ.
The Advent of Digital Technologies and Their Impact on Literary Formats
The discussion of electronic literature and its heritage must begin with the debates in hypertext and, more broadly, digital textuality, of the early 1990s. As is widely acknowledged, landmark texts of this early period such as George P. Landow (1992)1 and Jay David Bolter (1991)2âcomprising what Alice Bell has termed âfirst wave hypertext theoryâ (Bell 2010, p. 10)âposited a largely utopian vision of hypertextual writing as offering radical rethinkings of the conventional form of the text, the author, and writing systems.
Bolterâs early work, particularly his Writing Space (1991), envisaged electronic technologi...