How Is Tech Criticism Possible? On the Significance of Digital Technology as a Paradigm of Literary Criticism

Abstract

Technology is one of the basic dimensions of literary criticism, but it is often ignored for multiple reasons. As digital technology intervenes in literary production, literary criticism is being approached through the technological dimension. Technology-Based literary criticism now transcends linguistic centrism, using digital technology as a means and method of literary criticism, and bringing technology to the center stage of literary criticism. Technology-Based literary criticism, which features an intersection of interpretive and empirical perspectives, triggers multiple transmutations of the subjects of literary criticism, and also enriches the connotations of literary texts. Tech criticism came from, and has evolved with the changes of literary criticism in the productive forces and the relations of production, which are driven by digital technology. What digital technology has opened up for literary criticism is a comprehensive field, where literary criticism is in a transboundary dynamic of “relational production.” Therefore, we need to develop a sense of relation and a sense of systems to better interpret present-day literary criticism.

Keywords

• literary criticism
• criticism of technology/tech criticism
• transformation of criticism