Printed Book in Contemporary American Culture

Heike Schaefer is Professor of North American Literature and Culture at the University of Education Karlsruhe, Germany. She is the author of American Literature and Immediacy: Literary Innovation and the Emergence of Photography, Film, and Television (2019) and Mary Austin’s Regionalism (2004) and co-editor of Network Theory and American Studies (2015) and Literary Knowledge Production and the Life Sciences (2017).Alexander Starre is Assistant Professor of North American Culture at the John F. Kennedy Institute, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. He is the author of Metamedia: American Book Fictions and Literary Print Culture after Digitization (2015) and co-editor of Projecting American Studies: Essays on Theory, Method, and Practice (2018).

“This relevant and timely book … . I won’t be satisfied until I possess a physical copy of this useful and thought-provoking collection.” (Glyn White, Textual Cultures, Vol. 14 (1), 2021)“The Printed Book in Contemporary American Culture an unequivocally thorough study on the printed book in the early twenty-first century … . Schaefer and Starre have composed a volume brimming withfresh insight, comprehensive research, and interdisciplinary perspectives that brings forth the richness in contemporary engagements with the printed book. Skillfully calibrated to ensure smooth transitions across chapters, The Printed Book in Contemporary American Culture reveals the current media landscape as a transformative terrain forthe printed book’s regeneration.” (Thomas Mantzaris, European Journal of American Studies, Vol. 16 (4), 2021)

• 1. The Printed Book, Contemporary Media Culture, and American Studies, Heike Schaefer and Alexander Starre.- 2. The Books That Count: Big Data vs. Narrative in Robin Sloan's Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and Joshua Cohen’s Book of Numbers, Regina Schober.- 3. US Print Culture, Literary Narrative, and Slow Reading in the Age of Big Data: Steve Tomasula’s VAS: An Opera in Flatland, Antje Kley.- 4. “Books and Books and Books … an Oasis of the Forbidden”: Writing and Print Culture as Metaphor and Medium for Survival in Margaret Atwood’s Novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Reingard M. Nischik.- 5.Zines in the Library: Underground Communication and the Property Regimes of Book Culture, Janice Radway.- 6. The Book between Media Convergence, Media Specificity, and Diverse Reading Communities in Present-Day US Culture, Christoph Bläsi.- 7. Michael Cunningham’s The Hours: Homage to the Book in a Time of Media Transformation, Aleida Assmann.- 8. “There’s Nothing Quite Like a Real Book”: Stop-Motion Bookishness, Jessica Pressman.- 9. Remediation, Oral Storytelling, and the Printed Book: The Stylistic Strategies of Mark Z. Danielewski’s The Fifty Year Sword, Alison Gibbons.- 10. Book Design as Literary Strategy: Aka Morchiladze’s Novel Santa Esperanza and Its Poetics of Playful Storytelling, Monika Schmitz-Emans.- 11. Authorial Impression and Remediation in Anne Carson’s Quasi-Artist’s Book Nox, Kiene Brillenburg Wurth.- 12. The Storied Book, Garrett Stewart.