Spectres of Paper: Writing, Digitization, and the End(s) of the Book

Tadeusz Rachwał

Abstract


This paper has been inspired by Jacques Derrida’s statement revealing that his philosophical writings were mostly devoted to paper. “I have the impression,” he said, “(the impression!—what a word, already) that I have never had any other subject basically, paper, paper, paper” (Derrida 2005: 41). My paper addresses this thrice repeated noun as a name not so much of a material object on which we scribble, but as a space between the spirit and the letter, a space which turns out to be ineradicable even at the time of paper’s alleged eradication in the e-textual age, which may be called a fin de livre culture. This end of the book, I argue, is a highly provisional declaration of the beginning of a paperless era of digitized media, which are not quite capable of eradicating various traces and spectres of paper haunting their own theorizations.

 


Keywords


paper, writing, digital, analog, spectral.

Full Text:

PDF

References


Baudrillard, J. 1989. America. Trans. Ch. Turner. London: Verso.

Derrida, J. 1997 [1967]. Of Grammatology. Trans. G. Ch. Spivak.

Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

Derrida, J. 1994. Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International. Trans. P. Kamuf. New York, London: Routledge.

Derrida, J. 2005. Paper Machine. Trans. R. Bowlby. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Descartes, R. 1954. “Rules for Direction of the Mind.” In: Descartes: Philosophical Writings. Ed. and trans. E. Anscombe and P. T. Geach. London: Nelson: 153-80.

Ernst, W. 2006. “Dis/continuities: Does the Archive Become Metaphorical in Multi-Media Space?” In: W. Hui Kyong Chun and T. Keenan, ed. New Media, Old Media: A History and Theory Reader. New York: Routledge: 105-124.

Feldman, T. 1997. An Introduction to Digital Media. New York: Routledge.

Kreiss, D. and S. Brennen. 2014. “Digitalization and Digitization.” Culture Digitally. http://culturedigitally.org/2014/09/digitalization-and-digitization/, 21 April 2017.

Loomis, J. M., J. J. Blascovich and A. C. Beall. 1999. “Immersive Virtual Environment Technology as a Basic Research Tool in Psychology.” Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 31 (4): 557-564.

Mandelbrot, B. B. 1977. The Fractal Geometry of Nature. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.

Manoff, M. 2013. “Unintended Consequences: New Materialist Perspectives on Library Technologies and the Digital Record.” Libraries and the Academy, 13(3): 273-82.

Oakeshott, M. 1962. Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays. London: Methuen.

Pepperell, R. 2003. The Posthuman Condition: Consciousness Beyond the Brain. Portland, Oregon: Intellect Books.

Rancière, J. 2010. Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics. Trans. S. Corcoran. London and New York: Continuum.

Robinson, D. 2008. “Analog.” In: M. Fuller, ed. Software Studies: A Lexicon. Cambridge: MIT Press: 21-31.

Sampson, T. D. and Parikka, J. (eds). 2009. The Spam Book: On Viruses, Porn, and Other Anomalies from the Dark Side of Digital Culture. Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton Press.

Sax, D. 2016. The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter. New York: Public Affairs.

Spivak, G. Ch. 1997. “Translator’s Preface.” In: J. Derrida (1997/1967), Of Grammatology. Trans. G. Ch. Spivak. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press: ix-xc.

Westera, W. 2012. The Digital Turn: How the Internet Transforms Our Existence. Bloomington: AuthorHouse.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2018 Tadeusz Rachwał