The Printed Book in Contemporary American Culture

This essay collection explores the cultural functions the printed book performs in the digital age. It examines how the use of and attitude toward the book form have changed in light of the digital transformation of American media culture. Situated at the crossroads of American studies, literary studies, book studies, and media studies, these essays show that a sustained focus on the medial and material formats of literary communication significantly expands our accustomed ways of doing cultural studies. Addressing the changing roles of authors, publishers, and readers while covering multiple bookish formats such as artists' books, bestselling novels, experimental fiction, and zines, this interdisciplinary volume introduces readers to current transatlantic conversations on the history and future of the printed book.

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).