Track Changes : A Literary History of Word Processing / Matthew G. Kirschenbaum.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kirschenbaum, Matthew G., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Word processing--History.

Word processing.

Writing--Technological innovations.

Writing.

Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.)--Technological innovations.

Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (379 p.)

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2017]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"The story of writing in the digital age is every bit as messy as the ink-stained rags that littered the floor of Gutenberg's print shop or the hot molten lead of the linotype machine. During the period of the pivotal growth and widespread adoption of word processing as a writing technology, some authors embraced it as a marvel while others decried it as the death of literature. The product of years of archival research and numerous interviews conducted by the author, Track Changes is the first literary history of word processing. Matthew Kirschenbaum examines how the interests and ideals of creative authorship came to coexist with the computer revolution. Who were the first adopters? What kind of anxieties did they share? Was word processing perceived as just a better typewriter or something more? How did it change our understanding of writing? Track Changes balances the stories of individual writers with a consideration of how the seemingly ineffable act of writing is always grounded in particular instruments and media, from quills to keyboards. Along the way, we discover the candidates for the first novel written on a word processor, explore the surprisingly varied reasons why writers of both popular and serious literature adopted the technology, trace the spread of new metaphors and ideas from word processing in fiction and poetry, and consider the fate of literary scholarship and memory in an era when the final remnants of authorship may consist of folders on a hard drive or documents in the cloud."--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Introduction: It Is Known

1. Word Processing as a Literary Subject

2. Perfect

3. Around 1981

4. North of Boston

5. Signposts

6. Typing on Glass

7. Unseen Hands

8. Think Tape

9. Reveal Codes

10. What Remains

After Word Processing

Author’s Note

Notes

Credits

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed Feb. 24, 2017)

ISBN:

9780674969445

0674969448

9780674969469

0674969464

OCLC:

984637445