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1. The Paratexts of Inanimate Alice: Thresholds, Genre Expectations and Status

   In her book Writing Machines, N. Katherine Hayles described the concept of thetechnotext. Hayles used this concept to provide an analysis of a range of texts, including online work, based on their materiality. The analysis described in this article complements this method by developing an approach that explores the conditions of production of contemporary digital literature. It achieves this aim by providing a close reading of the online paratextual elements associated with the first four episodes ofInanimate Alice by Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph. In doing so, it modifies the print-based analytical framework provide by Gérard Genette and others to develop a detailed account of the off-site, on-site and in-file paratexts of this online work. It sets out a range of thresholds that mould the reception of this text. It also notes how they position it within wider discourses about genre, media, literature and literacy. This article concludes by exploring the limits of this paratextual reading. It discusses whether it provides an adequate account of the material conditions of these texts.

   Jill Walker Rettberg - 02.06.2012 - 14:25

2. Thresholds of the Edge: Rethinking the Concepts of Books and Access in the Age of the Digital Paratext

   In Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation (1987; English translation, 1997), Gérard Genette provided scholars with the seminal concept of paratext: functional elements of the book (such as covers, title pages, illustrations, footnotes, etc.) that help to fulfill the text’s destiny (p. 408) by making it present for the reader (p. 1).

   Today, the book often escapes the boundaries of the tangible object of Genette’s study, as is the case with The Unknown – The Original Great American Hypertext Novel. This born-digital collaborative work, so far from Genette’s perception and yet so suited to his views, is a goldmine of thresholds, namely through the source code, which the reader is invited to explore in parallel with the content and navigation provided in the published pages (Gillespie et al., 1999).

   Patricia Tomaszek - 05.11.2013 - 14:02