This paper is concerned with the impact of information technology on the general cultural imagination of our time. It aims to address the intersection between literature and science in the novel Abtrünnig by the German author Reinhard Jirgl by looking at how it incorporates the figure of the hyperlink into the narrative structure.
While I take full account of contemporary theoretical writings on the cultural impact of information technology, I use Ernst Cassirer's theory of symbolic forms as a basis for developing my own conception of the present role information technology plays in cultural imagination. I focus on the hyperlink as what may be viewed, in Cassirer's terms, as a ‘concrete material sign' of information technology as a symbolic form. This feature of information technology represents a way of structuring and presenting knowledge which challenges the traditional principles of narrative writing. Looking at how this figure is incorporated in contemporary printed fiction therefore provides fruitful opportunities for examining how narrativity is negotiated by writers in a digital age.
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