Tagging Practices and the Disturbed Dialectic of Literary Criticism

This paper will discuss the relationship between speed and literary criticism in the age of new media.  Specifically, this paper will explore the dual metaphor of the “tag” as an official consumer label and an underground art form, and the productive tension that exists when both forms exist within the same urban space.  Using this metaphor to discuss traditional terminologies and folksonomy as forms of “tagging” that can create productive tension within database projects like the Electronic Literature Directory, I will conclude with a call for attentiveness that can push both casual readers and conservative scholars towards criticism that is technologically appropriate, ethically engaged, and culturally vital.

(Source: author's abstract)