Overwhelmed: Literature, Aesthetics, and the Nineteenth-Century Information Revolution

Overwhelmed explores how nineteenth-century British and American literary practices engaged developing information technologies, challenging the notion that literature and information were at odds. It offers a new argument that literature and information were entangled in surprisingly collaborative ways, providing new ways to think about the anxieties and opportunities of our own digital age.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 296 pages
Publication date: 04 June 2024
Publisher: Princeton University Press

Literature in the digital age is shaped by the nineteenth century's information revolution, which created new relationships between literature and information. Maurice Lee's book, "Overwhelmed," explores four key areas—reading, searching, counting, and testing—in which nineteenth-century British and American literary practices engaged developing information technologies. Lee presents a new argument that literature and information in the nineteenth century were entangled in surprisingly collaborative ways. This unexpected, historically grounded look at the past offers new ways to think about the anxieties and opportunities of our own time, illuminating debates about the digital humanities, the crisis in the humanities, and the future of literature.

Dimension: 235 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780691259246