‘Black Box’ in flux: Locating the literary work between media

Abstract

Traditionally, the printed book has been the preferred mode of delivery for literature, to such an extent that the book’s status as a medium has been practically invisible. However, recent studies have demonstrated that the mediality of the book affects the way we read. The interpretation of literature is not just a matter of scrutinizing the text itself but of analysing the complex interplay between form, content and medium. In 2012 Jennifer Egan published the story ‘Black Box’ via Twitter. The story has subsequently been published in various other media, such as magazines, printed books and as an audiobook. This multimodal publication history necessitates new analytical strategies that can investigate what happens to our notions of a literary work when the literary text appears in several media at once. Taking off from an analysis of ‘Black Box’ and its various embodiments and drawing on John Bryant’s concept of ‘the fluid text’ the article discusses what happens to the literary work when it is dispersed between various media.

Reproduce and adapt: Homestuck in print and digital (Re)Incarnations

“…Homestuck across its different iterations is certainly a ‘fluid’ (Bryant, 2002) work. And while Andersen (2015) distinguishes adaptation from version on the basis of authorial and publisher responsibility, arguing that adaptations should be considered ‘derived from and secondary to’ literary works (133), those boundaries blur for Homestuck . All versions are under authorial/publisher responsibility, yet there are clear sites where only ‘adaptation’ provides the vocabulary necessary to understand the consequences of material difference across version.…”

“…The flow between versions, therefore, requires discrete forms through which there is continuity. Andersen (2015) argues that, while Bryant suggests that adaptation may be part of a fluid-text analysis, he does not explore this possibility; to Andersen, practically speaking, the idea of a version should be limited to items 'meant for public consumption' and where 'the author and/or his publisher assume direct responsibility ' (133-134). By this definition, Homestuck constitutes a version.…”

Introduction

“…Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that literature's ventures into different media and modalities have intensified as a result of the rapid media changes of the last few decades. After centuries of the printed book as its default medium, literature is now fundamentally between media (Andersen 2015;Hungerford 2016). While this new situation is often seen as cause for alarm, we see no indications that literature and reading are nearing extinction.…”