Ecologies of Writing: Natural, Technical, and Social Conditions of Textual Production in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

Drawing from case studies in 20th century German literature and theory, the contributors to this volume explore the multiple dimensions behind and alongside authorship that constitutes the "ecology" of writing. Over the last few decades, a resurgence of interest in historical and contemporary writing processes, fueled in part by the development of digital media, has developed alongside the emergence of new conceptions of material-human agency and the environment. What would it mean to apply these conceptions to the phenomenon of writing? As the essays in this volume explore, writing is never the purely mental activity of a solitary mind; it is inherently socially embedded and always more-than-human. Examining the early 20th century to the present, a period of dramatic media-technological transition in which writers become increasingly self-reflexive and responsive to the materials and changing environmental circumstances of their craft, Ecologies of Writing expands the frame to encompass the vast array of material, social, environmental, and economic influences that all inform the practice of writing. Case studies draw on German-language literature and theory, including works by Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, and W. G. Sebald, and recent theories of human-material agency, media theory, and ecocriticism.