Post-Postmodernist Fiction and the Rise of Digital Epitexts (Theory and Interpretation of Narrative)

Pignagnoli, Virginia

ISBN 10: 0814258719 / ISBN 13: 9780814258712

Published by Ohio State University Press, 2026

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 26404794830

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Post-Postmodernist Fiction and the Rise of Digital Epitexts (Theory and Interpretation of Narrative)
• Publisher: Ohio State University Press
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0814258719
• ISBN 13: 9780814258712
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Post-Postmodernist Fiction and the Rise of Digital Epitexts explores new dynamics created by the intersection of digital media and contemporary fiction, arguing that these synergies are part of the cultural context in which the post-postmodernist novel emerges. Virginia Pignagnoli introduces a rhetorical theory of paratexts meant to reshape traditional views of paratextuality, providing categories, functions, and properties able to accommodate new digital practices, such as those of digital epitexts (authors’ social media posts and novels’ websites, for example), that widen the space for authorial creation and narrative exchange beyond the print novel. Focusing on the effects digital epitexts have on audiences, Pignagnoli presents an analysis of contemporary novels—by Michael Chabon, Jennifer Egan, Catherine Lacey, Meg Wolitzer, and Dave Eggers—that display a post-postmodern sensitivity in dialogue with some of the ways digital epitexts are currently employed. Ultimately, in showing how twenty-first-century novels and digital epitexts are co-constitutive, Pignagnoli offers a vision of a new post-postmodernism interested in sincerity, relationality, and intersubjectivity.

About the Author

Virginia Pignagnoli is Assistant Professor in the Department of English and German Studies at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She is the author of Post-Postmodernist Fiction and the Rise of Digital Epitexts and coeditor, with Malcah Effron and Margarida McMurry, of Narrative Co-Construction: Author-Audience Interactions and Their Contexts.