Literary Scholarship in the Digital Future

“We recognize the capacity of digital instruments to simulate so many of our elements and forms of living, and thinking, and imagining. But just because the book has been our simulation machine of choice for centuries, we need to study and understand it now more than ever — not as a place of retreat, but as a profound source, and resource — at a moment when we are trying to design and control digital simulation tools.” Jerome McGann —Literary Scholarship in the Digital FutureChronicle)

At U.Va., I remember that McGann had a laptop computer on his desk around 1988, which was pretty unusual for an English professor.