Litteraturkritik i marginalerna

Upsala nya Tidnings e-boksprojekt och kritikens digitalisering

Abstract

Literary critique in the margins. The e-book project in upsala nya tidning and the digitization of literary criticism

This article examines the journalistic project ”Kulturjournalistik ända ut i marginalerna” in Upsala Nya Tidning 2012–2013 in which e-books with critics’ annotations were published, and discusses it as an example of digital literary criticism. The project was awarded for its renewal of literary criticism. In the article, I explore the characteristics for the critique in the project and the significance of the  medium by analyzing two of the books published with marginalia: the novel Dagar i tystnadens historia by Merethe Lindström with annotations by Therese Eriksson, and the short story Nattsidan [Night-Side] by Joyce Carol Oates with annotations from both a critic, Anna Ehn, and from twelve newspaper-readers. I show how the marginalia differs in the two books but also how it in both cases is more inspired by the marginalia in printed books than by the possibilities raised by digital media. Rather than using the advantages of electronic media, the marginalia of the e-books in the project remediates older reading habits and the marginalia of the 18th and early 19th century. The importance of the digitalization in this case is therefore rather the distribution form of the books and the inclusion of the readers as critics.