Digital Paratext: Steps Towards New Technologies of the Intellect

With reference to Gérard Genette’s notion of paratext, I will discuss some characteristics of digital-only content in general and paratextual features in particular.
I will present paratextual theory as a productive analytical tool that may be used to study emerging literacies as witnessed by the paratextual structure and dynamics of hybrid and digital-only content.
To offer a general conceptual framework enabling one to analyse paratextual practices and devices in digital culture, I will
1) interpret e-paratext as “technologies of the intellect” with indebtedness to the work of Jack Goody. Goody ‘s intentionally imprecise but nonetheless productive notion of “technologies of the intellect” may help us explore the power of cultural creativity and inventiveness on the breeding grounding of inherently transient digital-only media;
2) derive the notion of e-paratext from the more general notion of deixis to explain the inescapability of paratextual practices.

(Source: Author's Abstract)