Born-Digital Japanese Literature in the Anthropocene

Abstract

This thesis investigates contexts of “born-digital” literature in Japan, digital platforms, and the natural environment. By defining born-digital literature as that which thoughtfully organizes language and is originally published online or dependent on digital technology to exist, I argue that the early drafts, ideas, communications, and hardware rooted in the “non-digital” world problematize “either/or” understandings of digital vs. “material” environments. I employ a methodology based on my own adaptation of patchwork ethnography and digital fieldwork, neither of which have a fixedly canonical approach and require continuous conscious revision and reconsideration on the part of researchers. Throughout this process, I argue that born-digital literature is a site of negotiation in which motivations of artists, digital platforms owned by corporations, fans, and environmental activism collide with and co-influence one another. Far from some cold process of digitally converting handwritten and printed text into binary code, digital literature represents a convergence of technology and literary expression, offering expanded avenues for sociality, activism, creativity, learning, and misinformation.