Shakespeare’s Hard Drive

Congrats to Matt Kirschenbaum on his thought-provoking article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Hamlet.doc? Literature in a Digital Age.” Matt makes two excellent points. First, “born digital” literature presents incredible new opportunities for research, because manuscripts written on computers retain significant metadata and draft tracking that allows for major insights into an author’s thought and writing process. Second, scholars who wish to study such literature in the future need to be proactive in pushing for writing environments, digital standards, and archival storage that will provide accessibility and persistence for these advantages.

Comments

Matt K. says:

Thanks very much Dan!

Oddly enough, “Shakespeare’s Hard Drive” was my original title for the article.

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