Life of Texts

Kiene Brillenburg Wurth is professor of Literature and Comparative Media at Utrecht University. Ann Rigney is Professor of Comparative Literature at Utrecht University. She has published widely on theories of cultural memory and on memory cultures in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. Her books include The Afterlives of Walter Scott (OUP, 2021) and Transnational Memory (co-edited with C. De Cesari, De Gruyter, 2014). She is Principal Investigator on the ERC-funded project Remembering Activism: The Cultural Memory of Protest in Europe (ReAct) (2019–2024).

"This introduction to literary studies is set to become the standard for the next generation. With its attention to the narrative, cultural, and (inter)medial dimensions of the 'life of texts', it skillfully provides access to a rich and dynamic field. Highly recommended as a reliable and immensely readable companion to all graduate and postgraduate students of modern literatures."Astrid Erll, Professor of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures at Goethe University Frankfurt"The book is a smart, coherent guide to the humanities and to literary studies in particular. The Life of Texts introduces literary studies as a field with history and an always-developing vocabulary, presenting literary studies as part of (and not separate from) lived cultural experience. From advertisements to the avant-garde, structuralism to media studies, this book seems to cover (or at least connect to) it all. Organized and designed with a visual clarity that facilitates ease of engagement with complicated terms, ideas, and historical knowledge, this book will support the teaching of literary studies as well as, and perhaps more importantly, learning about why such learning matters."Jessica Pressman, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at San Diego State University

• Foreword Acknowledgements SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION Chapter 1: The Field Ann Rigney 1.1 Introduction: Academic frameworks 1.2 Knowledge production is work in progress 1.3 Academic disciplines: Hard and 'soft'? 1.4 Humanities and the study of culture 1.5 Cultural studies and its challenges 1.6 Literary studies at an interdisciplinary crossroads 1.7 Areas of specialisation within literary studies 1.8 In conclusion: Discipline and diversity Chapter 2: The Many Dimensions of Literature Ann Rigney 2.1 Introduction: Durable texts 2.2 Poetic language 2.3 Narrative 2.4 Reflection 2.5 Pleasure 2.6 Classification: Genres 2.7 Valuation and canon formation 2.8 In conclusion: The intersection of text and value SECTION 2: TEXTS Chapter 3: Texts and Intertextuality Ann Rigney 3.1 Introduction: The Greats escape 3.2 Texts 3.3 Intertextuality: The relationships between texts 3.4 Singularity: Between old and new 3.5 In conclusion: The undead author Chapter 4: Intermedial Poetics Kiene Brillenburg Wurth 4.1 Introduction: Intermediality and the poetic 4.2 Poetic theory, poetry, and beyond 4.3 Rhythm and metre in sound and image 4.4 Irony 4.5 Metaphor and montage 4.6 Transmediality and remediation 4.7 Intermedia, intermediality, and multimediality 4.8 In conclusion: Literary studies and media studies Chapter 5: Narrative Ann Rigney 5.1 Introduction: Narratology 5.2 Narrative and story: Two sides of the same coin 5.3 Characters and their world 5.4 Plot models 5.5 Narrative techniques 5.6 Identity and identification: Gender 5.7 In conclusion: What is a fulfilled life? SECTION 3: READING Chapter 6: Readers, Reading Kiene Brillenburg Wurth 6.1 Introduction 6.2 A Short History of Reading I: Writing to print 6.3 A Short History of Reading II: Print and beyond 6.4 How Texts Engage their readers 6.5 Reception studies 6.6 Cognitive and sociological studies of reading 6.7 In conclusion: The agency of readers Chapter 7: Meaning and Interpretation Kiene Brillenburg Wurth 7.1 Introduction: interpretation and meaning-making 7.2 The work of interpretation: allegoresis and hermeneutics 7.3 Dialogic hermeneutics 7.4 Signs and signification: a semiological perspective 7.5 Word, after word, after word: Différance and deconstruction 7.6 In conclusion: The range of interpretation Chapter 8: Between Elite and Mass Culture Kiene Brillenburg Wurth 8.1 Introduction: canons and canon debates 8.2 Mass culture and artistic culture 8.3 Symbolic capital and cultural elite 8.4 Folk and elite culture intertwined 8.5 Canon-makers and canon-breakers 8.6 There is art in mass media 8.7 In conclusion: power to the users SECTION 4: CONTEXTUAL APPROACHES Chapter 9: Imagination in a Changing World Ann Rigney 9.1 Introduction: A happy househusband 9.2 Texts and cultural context 9.3 Why does literature keep changing, and how? 9.4 Can literature change the world? 9.5 Case study: Ecocriticism 9.6 In conclusion Chapter 10: Literature and Postcolonial Criticism Kiene Brillenburg Wurth 10.1 Introduction: spaces in the background 10.2 Imperialism, colonialism, postcolonialism, and the decolonial 10.3 Colonial discourses and the question of power 10.4 Analysing colonial discourses, interrogating power and identity 10.5 Postcolonial literature: The Other writes back 10.6 In conclusion: texts and cultural identities Chapter 11: Literature and Cultural Memory Ann Rigney 11.1 Introduction: literature in/and time 11.2 Cultural memory studies 11.3 Narrating events 11.4 Remediation and the dynamics of cultural memory 11.5 Literature and 'unforgetting' 11.6 Canons and their contestation 11.7 In conclusion: literature and collective identities GLOSSARY SCHOOLS IN LITERARY STUDIES LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS