Contrary to predictions of the demise of the book, we now inhabit a complex media ecology where intersections between print and digital abound. Looking at the current landscape of the book, however, tells us little about how we got here and about the specific instances where writers, publishers, and readers negotiated the incorporation of digital media into bound codices. In this lecture, I will share my research examining literary examples from Latin America and the U.S. in which authors expanded their writing beyond the bounds of the codex to include digital applications and publishers made room for digital media within the print book. I will discuss how hybrid practices such as this have fostered a reconsideration of the wholeness of the codex as a physical object and a literary work, even to the point where laws have been modified to impose or exempt taxes on books including digital media. Ultimately, these examples carry the physical and material marks left by digital technologies on the print codex and demonstrate how the print book has been as susceptible to the same rapid innovation impetus most often associated with digital technologies.

1. book history
2. digital book history
3. digital humanities
4. digital media
5. literary studies

This talk was delivered virtually on June 9, 2022, as an Institute Lecture as part of the Digital Humanities Summer Institute (University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada). The session was chaired by Julia Polyck-O'Neill (York University).