What do we think of when we think of literary critics? Enlightenment snobs in powdered wigs? Professional experts? Cloistered academics? Through the end of the 20th century, book review columns and literary magazines held onto an evolving but stable critical paradigm, premised on expertise, objectivity, and carefully measured response. And then the Internet happened.

From the editors of Review 31 and 3:AM Magazine, The Digital Critic brings together a diverse group of perspectives-early-adopters, Internet skeptics, bloggers, novelists, editors, and others-to address the future of literature and scholarship in a world of Facebook likes, Twitter wars, and Amazon book reviews. It takes stock of the so-called Literary Internet up to the present moment, and considers the future of criticism: its promise, its threats of decline, and its mutation, perhaps, into something else entirely.

With contributions from Robert Barry, Russell Bennetts, Michael Bhaskar, Louis Bury, Lauren Elkin, Scott Esposito, Marc Farrant, Orit Gat, Thea Hawlin, Ellen Jones, Anna Kiernan, Luke Neima, Will Self, Jonathon Sturgeon, Sara Veale, Laura Waddell, and Joanna Walsh.

Foreword by Kasia Boddy, lecturer in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of Boxing: A Cultural History and The American Short Story Since 1950, and the editor of The New Penguin Book of American Short Stories.

"A compelling, kaleidoscopic account of the ways literary criticism—that vital, often disputatious, and now overwhelmingly digital public conversation by and for lovers of the written word-has transformed over recent decades. It's also a welcome invitation to ponder how we might help literary culture's most interesting niches and compelling tendencies evolve and thrive in a new era." - Astra Taylor, author of Examined Life: Excursions With Contemporary Thinkers

"A prismatic, necessary look at the disparate effects of 'online' on myriad connecting realms: publishing, fiction, criticism, translation, academia, and journalism. Written and collected in the spirit of inquiry rather than polemic, The Digital Critic reveals a rich cross-section of literary life and how its practitioners are making do—or trying to-in the new millennium." - Lydia Kiesling, editor, The Millions

"How is new technology changing the way we produce, distribute, and consume writing? There are no easy answers, but the trenchant analysis in these pages is itself evidence that critical culture is alive and well in the digital age." - Boris Dralyuk, executive editor, Los Angeles Review of Books

What do we think of when we think of literary critics? Enlightenment snobs in powdered wigs? Professional experts? Cloistered academics? Through the end of the 20th century, book review columns and literary magazines held onto an evolving but stable critical paradigm, premised on expertise, objectivity, and carefully measured response. And then the Internet happened.

From the editors of Review 31 and 3:AM Magazine, The Digital Critic brings together a diverse group of perspectives-early-adopters, Internet skeptics, bloggers, novelists, editors, and others-to address the future of literature and scholarship in a world of Facebook likes, Twitter wars, and Amazon book reviews. It takes stock of the so-called Literary Internet up to the present moment, and considers the future of criticism: its promise, its threats of decline, and its mutation, perhaps, into something else entirely.

With contributions from Robert Barry, Russell Bennetts, Michael Bhaskar, Louis Bury, Lauren Elkin, Scott Esposito, Marc Farrant, Orit Gat, Thea Hawlin, Ellen Jones, Anna Kiernan, Luke Neima, Will Self, Jonathon Sturgeon, Sara Veale, Laura Waddell, and Joanna Walsh.

Foreword by Kasia Boddy, lecturer in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of Boxing: A Cultural History and The American Short Story Since 1950, and the editor of The New Penguin Book of American Short Stories.

"A compelling, kaleidoscopic account of the ways literary criticism—that vital, often disputatious, and now overwhelmingly digital public conversation by and for lovers of the written word-has transformed over recent decades. It's also a welcome invitation to ponder how we might help literary culture's most interesting niches and compelling tendencies evolve and thrive in a new era." - Astra Taylor, author of Examined Life: Excursions With Contemporary Thinkers

"A prismatic, necessary look at the disparate effects of 'online' on myriad connecting realms: publishing, fiction, criticism, translation, academia, and journalism. Written and collected in the spirit of inquiry rather than polemic, The Digital Critic reveals a rich cross-section of literary life and how its practitioners are making do—or trying to-in the new millennium." - Lydia Kiesling, editor, The Millions

"How is new technology changing the way we produce, distribute, and consume writing? There are no easy answers, but the trenchant analysis in these pages is itself evidence that critical culture is alive and well in the digital age." - Boris Dralyuk, executive editor, Los Angeles Review of Books