9
The "fierce urgency of now"
Lusa-Hispanic Cultural
Studies, new technology and
the future of the profession
Melissa A. Fitch
The Network is a magical, free place.
We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere, may express his or
her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced
into silence or conformity. I declare the global social space that we
are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek
to impose upon us. We will create a civilization of the mind in cyberspace, may it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.
Quotes from the "Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace"
John Perry Barlow February 8 , 1996
The first week of June of 2020, K-pop fans around the world sprung into
action in what was probably the most unexpected, even giddy, example of
the sort of "magical" freedom that Barlow imagined back in 1996. They
used their prodigious tech skills to flood police and FBI websites in the
United States with images and video clips of their favorite K-pop bands
singing and dancing. They did this in an effort to thwart the authorities'
attempts to get photos that would enable them to identify and prosecute
protesters in the Black Lives Matter movement. Later in the month, the
K-pop fans struck again, this time joined by their TikTok friends, ordering
tickets en masse to President Donald Trump's first campaign rally since the
start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This time the goal was to put one over on
the commander-in-chief, someone who had boasted all week that his rally
would have at least 100,000 attendees, and that perhaps even a million
people would converge upon Tulsa, Oklahoma to hear him speak inside
an arena with vast stretches of empty seats when in fact only a few thousand attended and the overflow seating and stage arranged outside of the
venue was quickly dismantled in order to avoid embarrassment. It was too
late. One CNN commentator mockingly stated, "[i]t appears the projections for attendance were off by 990,000" (CNN June 20). In spite of this
rare demonstration of high-tech global solidarity and several other examples of borderless "freedom" that the internet has occasioned, however,
DOI: 10.4324/ 9780367480868-10
172
Melissa A . Fitch
most would agree today that the quotes by Barlow above regarding the
future of the internet in 1996 seem tragically misplaced.
Technology and Big Data have taken over our lives, both personal and
professional. Although one hears of the positive transformations that they
have delivered and the promises they portend for the future, particularly
from organizations like the World Economic Forum and their muchtouted "Fourth Industrial Revolution," the ominous aspects of this transformation , including heightened surveillance and state control, the rise
of artificial intelligence, lives endangered by toxic e-waste dump sites, and
the massacres that now take place in real time, via live-streamed via social
media, have come to supersede all positive considerations.
It is difficult for us as scholars to approach the present moment due to
the dizzying speed with which changes are taking place in the transition
from a post-industrial to a digital society. There is little time to stop, digest
and reflect; all of which are required to form any sort of coherent response,
much less evaluation. And yet, amid the whirlwind of sights and sounds
associated with the technological revolution that have become part of our
daily technoscape, one thing is incontrovertible: Barlow's idea from 1996
that somehow technology would harken in a utopic freedom and creativity
for all the world's inhabitants has little to do with what has actually transpired over the last two decades. In retrospect, this was sadly inevitable.
Donna Haraway warned us about this possibility back in 1986: "Technology
is not neutral. We are inside of what we make, and it is inside of us" (166).
It was inevitable that the so-called "crisis" in the Humanities would come
up during the "State of the Art" roundtable of the Texas Tech University
conference "Language, Image, Power" in Oct,o ber of 2019. For more than
a decade, we have faced the diminished importance of our field within
institutions of higher learning. At the conference, beyond the urgent need
to address the weakened role of the humanities nationally, I centered my
remarks on two aspects of the present moment which I felt needed to be
taken into consideration in the field of Luso-Hispanic Cultural Studies: first,
the global power shift that has come with the rise of Asia, and second; the
technological revolution (or so-called "Fourth Industrial Revolution"). Now,
of course, we realize that there is an additional threat that must also be added
to the mix: the arrival of COVID-19. These three features are changing the
landscape of our profession like nothing that has come before. The "fierce
urgency of now," to use the elegant phrasing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is
that we develop the professional agility necessary to face such a tumultuous
time. We must become like professional boxers in the ring, bobbing and
weaving, watching our opponent carefully as we anticipate the next blow,
prepared to move quickly in any direction in order to ensure our survival.
These three challenges - the changing global power dynamics, the Fourth
Industrial Revolution (4IR) and the pandemic - will dramatically alter all
disciplines, economies and industries around the world. Everything - our
scholarship, programs and pedagogy - must change. This essay seeks to
The ''fierce urgency of now"
173
address how we can go about making these transformations by attending
to each of the three challenges while underscoring their interrelatedness.
On the bright side, as Humanities scholars we are at a distinct advantage.
Critical thinking is what we do best. The question thus becomes: how can
we apply this skill to a radically different and constantly changing new
context - the fusion of the physical, biological and digital worlds - particularly in light of Covid-19?
The first challenge: Addressing shifting global dynamics
The Spanish and Portuguese-speaking regions interact (as they have for
centuries) politically, economically and culturally with the rest of the
world. Surprisingly, scholars in our field, until recently, have rarely seemed
to take notice. One of our biggest problems is that we have often operated
as though the United States or Europe were at the center of the universe.
Alternatively, we have acted as though these regions only interact among
themselves, as though, somehow, they were hermetically sealed off from
the rest of the world. How, and why, has the cultural, political and economic interpenetration between the Luso-Hispanic world and Asia, the
Middle East and Africa remained largely ignored until relatively recently?
How is it possible, for example, that those of us working in Cultural Studies
know so little about the impact in our area of expertise on the two largest
countries, China and India, the combined population of which accounts
for 37% of the world's humanity?
It is essential that Luso-Hispanic cultural production be examined in
light of the rapid ascent of the emerging economies of Asia and understood within the context of globalization, transnationalism and the technological revolution. It must be placed within its larger context, one
which encompasses every corner of the globe. It is for this reason that the
theme of Latin American Studies Association 2020, the virtual conference
hosted in Guadalajara, Mexico, "Amefrica Ladina: vinculando mundos
y sabers, tejiendo esperanzas" 1 was such a welcome change for the professional organization, moving away from the constant reinforcement of
Latin America's European and U.S. connections or even indigenous roots
to incorporate the region's African origins. One journal has been dedicated to understanding this broader context since 2011: Transmodernity:
Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production in the Lusa-Hispanic World, edited
by Ignacio Lopez-Calvo and Cristian H. Ricci. The journal's description
conveys the uniquely global frame of reference, stating that the it "promotes the study of marginalized areas of Luso-Hispanic cultural production of any period and invites submissions of unpublished studies dealing
with peripheral cultural production in the Luso-Hispanic world. It also
welcomes relevant interdisciplinary work, interviews and book reviews,
as they relate to "South-to-South" dynamics between formally colonized
peoples" (Transmodernity). It should be underscored that one dimension
174
Melissa A. Fitch
of the journal has involved yearly meetings around the world including in
India, Japan, Morocco and Russia, in which the regional scholars focused
on Luso-Hispanic literary and cultural production were highlighted on
the program and served as hosts. This broadening of the field, this inclusiveness, has led to many fruitful global collaborations and has resulted in
multiple publications over the last decade.
Returning to the example of K-pop fan activism from the start of this
essay, I will connect it to my own work on Latin American popular culture.
In June of 2016, I was invited to give a lecture at the University of Santiago
in Chile. I was warned that the students did not often attend the talks of
visiting scholars in great numbers, so that I should not be too disappointed
at the low turnout. I sent an abstract of my presentation that detailed how
I would address the topic of K-pop fans in South America, a lecture that
would focus not merely the wildly performative aspects of these groups
within their own countries - something that includes festivals and dance
competitions, Korean-language lessons and karaoke in Korean - but also
would underscore their global campaigns to help the environment and
pursue social justice.
The day of my presentation, when my host and I arrived at the classroom
where I was slated to give the talk, the room was already full. The students
had seen the flyer posted around campus and many arrived in advance to
secure a seat. When I ran a loop of popular songs from Korean boy and
girl bands prior to beginning my talk, some of these students were unable
to control the impulse to move in synch with their idols. My Chilean colleagues were stunned. They had not noticed what was happening around
them, quite literally on the streets of Santiago, where groups of young people gathered to dance each evening, dressed in ways that mirrored those of
their Asian idols, often with buttons or shirts that had phrases or words in
Korean. They hadn't seen how youth in Chile, thanks to technology, were
engaged in a remarkable cultural interpenetration with their peers on the
other side of the world, partaking in the richness of global popular culture
and making it their own in fascinating and unexpected ways.
My talk not only addressed the rise of Asia on the global stage but
also, indirectly, spoke to the "crisis" in the Humanities. As my colleague
Malcolm Compitello has always said, "You teach the students you have, not
the students you wish you had." Many students today around the globe are
digital natives. They are well-versed in global cultural flows and popular
culture forms such as anime, or K-pop. Far from being "trivial," K-pop fan
culture is transforming the world in remarkable ways, as documented in
the opening anecdote briefly laying out their activism on behalf of the
Black Lives Matter protesters. By discussing something that was relevant to
the Chilean undergraduates, it made my lecture "exciting" and pertinent
to their lives. In short, it made them care; demonstrating, as the mysterious
voice from 1989s movie Field ofDreams best phrased it, "If you build it, they
will come."
The ''fierce urgency of now"
175
Here is another example of using global cultural flows between Asia and
Latin America to illuminate issues in the Humanities and Luso-Hispanic
Cultural Studies. In 2017, for a course on global Latin American culture
I had my undergraduate students read a graphic novel written by Krish
Ragav, an Indian from Kolkatta (Calcutta), about a trip he took to Mexico
City, Estilo Hindu: A Mexico City travelogue (2015). My students, so accustomed to viewing Mexico through the often-negative lens of the United
States mass media, were struck by how the author/ artist only saw the beauty,
art and richness of Mexican culture. "Do you notice anything missing from
his view of Mexico City,?" I asked them, most of whom were of Mexican or
Mexican-American heritage and who had also been to the Mexican capital. "The poverty!" some responded. "The chaos!" shouted others. "Why
might that be?" I pressed them. This was a graphic novel written by a man
from India. Next to his hometown of Calcutta, Mexico City seemed like a
model of organization and efficiency. He hadn't even noticed the poverty.
What better way to bring home to students John Berger's classic insight,
one continually referenced in Humanities courses around the world, that
"the eye is never neutral"? (Berger, 1973).
Casting a critical gaze on our own scholarship, and thinking globally, it
becomes easy to see what (or who) is rendered visible and what (or who)
remains out-of-view, both literally and figuratively. By doing so, one is able to
see that these cultural texts, and I include our scholarly work among them,
are not "objective," but rather they are ideological constructs that often simply reinforce the global elite's power structure and subsequent trafficking
of knowledge. This, unfortunately and inescapably, includes ourselves. The
inability to acknowledge the rise of Asia is not exclusive to our own field. If
we turn to the central three themes of this book: power, text and image, we
may fasten our critical lens on the cultural production associated with the
4IR that has been produced by the World Economic Forum since 2016 in
order to understand what it reveals about global structures of power.
By analyzing passages of the original book, The Fourth Industrial Revolution
written by World Economic Forum founder and former chairman Klaus
Schwab and published in 2016, one can appreciate the inherent instability and constructed nature of the "better world" that the WEF envisions
and the way in which neoliberalism and European and U.S. supremacy
are presented as self-evident. The rhetorical violence that may be detected
through a close reading of the text is not one conveyed by presence, but
rather by absence and erasure. Schwab's book details what awaits the
"winners" in the future within the new world order as a result of the 4IR
(92). He mentions that there will be some "globally best-placed, smart"
cities that will be the anchors of this bright future and that they will be
the ones to "foster innovation" (78). All of the cities - New York, London,
Helsinki, Barcelona and Amsterdam - are in the United States and Europe.
China and India have no place in the utopian future of the WEF. Does
this make sense? Both countries have highly technologically-advanced
176
Melissa A. Fitch
cities and regions with tech-savvy inhabitants, so why would they be omitted from the high-tech future envisioned by the World Economic Forum?
Indeed, graduates of tech-related degree programs in India are among
the most sought-after for the major tech corporations in Silicon Valley.
But it is not only the world's largest countries that are omitted from the
bright, shiny future presented by the World Economic Forum of the 4IR, it
is also smaller countries that are far more advanced technologically than
the United States or those countries found in Europe, such as South Korea,
Singapore and Japan (not coincidentally, these are the three countries that
have provided the most advanced and comprehensive response to the pandemic in early 2020).
The most exhaustive yearly documentation of global technological transformations, Digital World 2020, cites the rapid rise of Asia as the most salient
feature of our time. Any online search of "most technologically advanced
cities" inevitably will include Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Taking all of this into account, that the WEF does not include these countries in their blueprint for the future is a glaring omission. One has to question on what basis the 4IR "smart" distinction is made. Unfortunately, the
conclusion one draws is inescapable. The 4IR reinforces colonial notions
of racial superiority and historical dominance, given that the only commonality among the "smart" cities of the 4IR listed by the World Economic
Forum is that they primarily have white inhabitants. Thus, this begs the
question: if the slogan of the World Economic Forum is that it seeks to
"improve the state of the world," then whose world are they referring to?
Apparently, it will be up to the benevolent rulers of Europe and the United
States to bestow some of those "smart" technological advances to other
regions of the globe - Asia, Africa and South America.
So why should any of this be of concern to those of us working in LusoHispanic Cultural Studies? It is simple: the field of Cultural Studies as
broadly understood and originally conceived by Stuart Hall and Raymond
Williams in the early 1960s at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural
Studies at the University of Birmingham in the UK not only investigates
cultural manifestations, but also the context and conditions of their production and consumption, how they traffic in meaning, and what they can
tell us about relations of power. By using the tools of our trade, both in our
scholarship and in our teaching, we can illuminate just exactly how these
self-apparent truths operate. But we must also cast that critical gaze upon
ourselves and our own work. As scholars we have been guilty of the same
sort of violence and erasure that oftentimes in the past we have decried.
Cultural Studies can find its disciplinary home in either the Social
Sciences or the Humanities. My own scholarly approach is one firmly
anchored within the Humanities. This means, in the words of David
William Foster, that it entails "slogging through stupendous mountains of
cultural production and then,juggling the protocols, theories and formats
of scholarly interpretation, trying to say something intelligent about what
The ''fierce urgency of now" 177
we have read: to contextualize it, to deconstruct its ideological presuppositions, to establish connections, to pick apart its rhetorical strategies,
to demonstrate patterns of both presences and absences in the cultural
record, and a myriad of other activities that enable us to forge a critical
interpretation that will enable us to better understand the world around
us" (2005, p. 133). To that I would add that it enables us to also "better
understand" our own complicity and privilege within that world.
To summarize, the first challenge requires us to place Lusa-Hispanic
cultural production within a broader context, to interrogate the global
production and trafficking of meaning, the webs in which meaning is created, sustained, transformed and/ or challenged, and the power relations
that will necessarily inform any iteration. We must understand this cultural production within the context of globalization, transnationalism and
the rise of social media. As editor-in-chief of the University of Texas Press
journal Studies in Latin American Popular Culture since 2002, I have had a
front row seat to witness transformations in our field and the new directions in which scholarship and pedagogy are moving, as I will highlight in
the subsequent "challenge" to be addressed, the rise and role of the digital
realm in Lusa-Hispanic Cultural Studies.
The second challenge: Tackling digital culture
Beyond understanding how Lusa-Hispanic Cultural Studies can be framed
within a broader world context, we must also come to terms with the flourishing of digital cultural production that is challenging the way that we understand notions of text, authorship and readership. The lines between artistic
genres have blurred like never before. Any scholarly discussion of digital
literature, for example, will often require additional expertise to examine
the visual and acoustic dimensions of a text as well as the online presence
both pre- and post-production. Scholarly research may also now include the
online comments and conversations or posted video replies that the digital
text may engender. It may require the inclusion of any resultant fan fiction,
which it to say, an extension of the narrative text created by readers.
Literature is authoritarian by definition: "author"itarian. So is cultural
criticism. Cultural authorities, or scholars, impose order upon the text,
finding coherence, deriving meaning, or, returning to Foster's words above,
"finding something meaningful to say that helps us better understand the
world." Digital literature, however, may expand outward in infinite ways.
It may have no defined beginning or ending nor involve any fixed text at
all. As a result, the act of critical interpretation becomes less about finding
the elusive key to understand "the" story than it is about the multisensorial
experience of reading/ viewing/ hearing/ interacting with the site and the
stories within, something that may be a chaotic and disorientingjourney.
Of course, we cannot forget that reading has always been a tactile experience. We were accustomed to holding a book and turning the pages.
178
Melissa A. Fitch
The distinctive scent of books in a library is as evocative as Proust's madeleine, transporting us magically to a moment from our past. Taking this
into consideration, the present moment may be understood as simply providing a new tactile experience, one of clicking on hyperlinks within online
texts. While it is true that the book as material object and bookstores as we
once knew them are both in decline, it is incorrect to say that people are
no longer reading. They are reading all the time, though usually on their
laptops, cell phones and tablets. They do so on multiple screens, and, in
doing so while walking or driving, they become a danger to themselves and
others. The decline of the book in material form has coincided with an
explosion of interest in audible books. "Reading" a book has now as often
become listening to a book before bed, on long flights, during car trips, or
.
on a morning run.
The wealth of reading material, including classic works of literature now
available online, has led to greater accessibility for those who have access
to the internet. Unfortunately, with the expansion of literature online has
come the reduction of our capacity to withstand distractions and read
for uninterrupted blocks of time. The embarrassment of riches has led
to a sort of "overchoice" or "choice overload," as Alvin Toffler memorably
referred to it in Future shock (1970, p. 263). The constant array of new material available each day means that it is nearly impossible to keep on top of
the literary panorama, something that has always been critically important
for us as scholars to do in the past.
Online literary culture is also exploding. Not only do books "come to
life" as never before, entering through all of the senses online, but often
they are the result of many different authors; some professional, but many
not. One example of this is Chilean author Jorge Baradit's novel Syncho,
created online on his social media accounts by his many fans and collaborators, with segments seen on YouTube videos before the book ever came
out in a print edition (2008). The lines between producer and consumer
have become confused: everyone can be an author, photographer, filmmaker, or musician or, yes even a Cultural Studies critic, using the tools
and apps of the internet. Literary websites provide interaction and collaborations between individuals around the world, linked through a shared
affinity for a particular author or genre. Individuals are able to attend livestreamed book launchings where they can interact directly with authors.
Texts may be sampled and remixed into new formats. There are many different options today for readers and scholars to engage a text - reading it
in print, reading it online, hearing it read, or going directly to a website in
which it may be experienced in all of its myriad dimensions, in ways that
are more akin to a video game (Aarseth 1997).
For some Cultural and Literary Studies scholars the lack of clarity
with regard to genres, authors and readers has led to a head-in-the-sand
approach. How do we analyze something that is fluid and, in many cases,
unending? How do we begin to assess the impact of literary creations that
The ''fierce urgency of now" 179
are overabundant, in which each new day brings with it quite literally, millions of new texts, in various forms? How can we deal with new genres
that technology has created and for which "literature" no longer seems an
appropriate category? How do we handle authorship as a collaboration, not
merely among writers of the text, but also among the teams of musicians,
web designers, graphic designers and programmers that may be involved
in the final version, or perhaps change in subsequent iterations? The considerations are exhausting.
But there is yet another, more pressing concern for scholars in Cultural
Studies and the Humanities who may be interested in devoting their academic careers to digital culture: what happens when, as a result of the intentional "planned obsolescence" of technology, the platforms and programs
that house the digital work cease to function because they have become
outdated and, as a result, the digital literary work disappears? What possible merit can be gleaned by the analysis of a text, no matter how brilliantly
crafted, if it no longer exists? Perhaps as a result of this very murky water,
can any scholar be blamed for wanting to take refuge in simply doing a
close analysis of a print version of a novel from our predigital age? As a
result of the overwhelming amount of issues that must be taken into consideration, relatively few researchers have made inroads in the field, and
those that have mostly belong to the digital native generation.
Some of the most comprehensive books related to Latin American digital literature and scholarship that have emerged in the last five years are
Technology, literature, and digital culture in Latin America: Mediated sensibilities
in a globalized era (2015) edited by Matthew Bush and Tania Gentic; Poesia
y poeticas digitales/electr6nicas/tecnos/new-media en America Latina: Definiciones
y exploraciones (2016) edited by Luis Correa-Diaz and Scott Weintraub and
Weintraub's Latin American technopoetics: Scientific explorations in new media
(2018) (Matthew Bush and Tania Gentic 2015; Correa-Diaz and Weintraub,
2016; Weintraub 2018). The scholar who has dominated the field in English,
however, is Claire Taylor from the University of Liverpool with Electronic literature in Latin America, from text to hypertext (2019); Place and politics in Latin
American digital culture (2014) and Latin American identity in online cultural
production (2012) written with Thea Pitman. Hilda Chacon has also made
important inroads, with Online activism in Latin America (2018). Most of
these books have been published as part of Routledge's "Studies in New
Media and Cyber Culture" series.
In terms of journals, the Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies,
under the direction of editor-in-chief Malcolm Compitello, was one of
the first journals in our field to address the issue of new technology in
2010, in a special section entitled "Literatura latinoamericana, espanola,
portuguesa en la era digital (nuevas technologias y lo literario)" edited
by Scott Weintraub and Luis Correa-Diaz. Letras Hispanas had a special
section on digital literature in Volume 11, Paperless text: Digital storytelling in
Latin America and Spain (1976-2016) edited by Osvaldo Cleger and Phillip
180
Melissa A. Fitch
Penix-Tadsen in 2015. Both of the journals provided pioneering studies
that grappled with the complexity of working with this new cultural production. Scholarly books and essays have also been devoted to a vast array
of digital literature. Most of the existing criticism confronts one of the
most prevalent falsehoods of the digital age, and one embodied by the
opening quotes by Barlow from 1996, that somehow technology would lead
to freedom, because, it is assumed, it would be accessible to all. Of course,
we know that this is not the case. In 2020 the digital divide continues to
loom large, with 40% of the world's population without any internet at all
(Kemp 2020). New technology requires knowledge, time and access. But
who has access to the systems needed to read or produce digital literature?
The answer is, generally speaking, those who have the most money and
leisure time, neither of which are found in abundance in most of the world.
One of the things that is rarely discussed when approaching the topic of
digital cultural production is that, although there is rarely a direct financial transaction associated with the material one may read - as one would
have buying a book in a bookstore - there is, in fact, a cost involved, and
this must be taken into account. There is rarely any payment that would
go to the authors who create digital narratives. Writing literature online
requires money from the author or from an institution willing to fund the
project and subsequently maintain a website in which it is housed. The lack
of funds to maintain/ update websites, platforms and operating systems
where the electronic literature is found has meant that much of this writing has been lost. Another preoccupation related to the "free" web and the
"freedom" it is supposed to foment, is that it has increasingly become dominated by a few tech giants, most of which are in the United States, such as
Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter, though increasingly they may
originate in Asia, such as China's TikTok (Douyin), WeChat (China), LINE
(Japan) , Kakao Talk (Korea) and Sino Weibo (China).
Chilean scholar Carolina Gainza, one of the most important pioneers in
the field ofLuso-Hispanic Digital Cultural Studies, acknowledges the dominance of U.S.-based corporate entities behind much of internet content,
including the "homemade" videos ofYouTube influencers, but she argues
that because digital texts can be produced collectively the genre subverts
the cult of individualism upon which capitalism relies. For her, notions of
the "author" in any traditional sense are thoroughly undermined by readers who are able to subvert meaning through the resignification of signs,
in essence allowing them to stage a virtual coup d'etat. The hackers become
revolutionaries (2014).
This was seen in a rather comical fashion when a new version of Jorge
Luis Borges's short story "El Aleph" came out in 2009 written by Pablo
Katchadjian. The author more than doubled the word count of Borges's
masterpiece in order to create his "El Aleph Engordado" [The Fattened
Aleph] story and distribute it to his friends as a Christmas gift. He was
sued in 2011 by Maria Kodama, Borges's widow, who had the Intellectual
The ''fierce urgency of now" 181
Property Rights to the original work. Initially Katchadjian won in court, but
Kodama appealed, finally winning the case in 2016 and demanding he pay
her with the sum ofjust one peso as a symbolic gesture (Sdrigotti 2015).
Many cultural hackers/ writers were outraged by the lawsuit. One, Martin
Laufer, currently at MIT, decided to create his own digital versions of "El
Aleph." The first was "El Aleph on a Diet" in which, when the reader accessed
the text online, certain words would automatically be edited out, creating,
in the process a much shorter version, one that is different in every iteration. Not content to stop there, he then created "El Aleph on AutoCorrect"
in both Spanish and English versions. During the process of reading, the
text would change automatically to something nonsensical, just as the autocorrect feature functions when one writes. As a wink to the reader, Laufer
makes a declaration on the opening webpage for his new versions that the
rights of the original belong exclusively to Maria Kodama. The case of "The
Fattened Aleph," "Aleph on a Diet" and "Aleph on Autocorrect" notwithstanding, many Latin American digital authors actually invite and enjoy the
readers' appropriations of their work. It is understood as a compliment and
adds to the diffusion of their own work. Indeed, plenty of writers pointed
out that reworking Borges's stories is, in fact, quite a Borgian thing to do,
something worthy of his own fiction. But then again, this leisurely take on
copyright infringement hinges upon an author having enough financial
resources to not require payment for her or his work.
Digital cultural production is particularly relevant for scholars of the
Lusa-Hispanic Cultural Studies for yet another reason: as researchers we
have tended to specialize in geographical areas, often just one specific
country or perhaps or two or three nations within a given region. There
are many writers/ artists whose digital work defies such neat categorizations. While this has long been the case in our field - one need look no
further than Chilean writer Isabel Allende, who has lived most of life in
the United States and was well-known in the U.S. before achieving any
great notoriety in her country of birth - a combination of advancements
in technology, coupled with global economic and political upheavals, has
meant that digital cultural production is perhaps more likely to emerge
from individuals whose own lives have been marked by extended periods
of time spent abroad. While electronic literature scholar Leonardo Flores
has argued that Latin American digital cultural production may be considered "post-national" (2017, p. 2), I disagree, convinced that one may still
find cultural traces anchored in a specific geographical locations, though
admittedly, disentangling the threads is more challenging than ever.
Some of the most important work being done by writers/ artists in the
digital realm has been done by transnationals and/ or dual citizens whose
work bridges the Atlantic. One example is Domenico Chiappe (1970) who
was born in Peru, raised in Venezuela, but moved to Spain in 2002 and
has lived there ever since. Chiappe is the author of one of the canonical
works of Lusa-Hispanic digital literature, Tierra de extracci6n (1996-2007)
182
Melissa A. Fitch
an online story consisting of 63 hypermedia chapters that takes place in
Venezuela. The work was created with Andreas Meirer. The project originated while he was in Venezuela but later was further developed when
Chiappe moved to Spain, where he defended his doctoral dissertation at la
Universidad Carlos III in Madrid on the topic of digital literature in 2015.
Another example is the Argentine-born Belen Cache (1960), one of the
pioneers in the field of online cultural production in the Hispanic world,
and one of the genre's most prolific writers/ artists who, like Chiappe, moved
to Spain many years ago and has created much of her most provocative work
there. Her "Gongora Wordtoys" (2011) invites the reader-user to interact with
excerpts from Baroque Spanish writer Luis de G6ngora's Solitudes (Cache,
2011). An illustration from the Lusophone is the verbal, visual and sound
digital literary work Amor de Clarice, created by Portuguese artist/ writer/
scholar Rui Torres (1973). The creation was based on words, sentences and
metaphors taken from the short story "Amor" by Brazilian Clarice Lispector.
While one may argue persuasively for or against the existence of a digital
literary form that is removed from national referents, the one incontrovertible fact is that this realm offers fertile ground for Lusa-Hispanic scholars to
explore notions of national, post-national and transnational identities.
To recap, the first two challenges delineated is this essay are that scholarship and teaching in Lusa-Hispanic Cultural Studies must begin provide
a broader understanding of how the regions engage with the rest of the
world and that it also must grapple with digital culture. Our graduate students will be entering the most difficult job market in decades and they
must be able to wear many hats. They must know the theories and key
texts that have formed the foundation of our Lusa-Hispanic Cultural and
Literary Studies while at the same time addressing one, if not both, of the
dimensions discussed above. To be sure, the cultural manifestations that
have emerged with regard to both areas are exceptionally rich. They are
exciting and unusual. I have been able to document this transformation
in our field as editor-in-chief of Studies in Latin American Popular Culture.
Among the most intellectually gratifying contributions I have read in
recent years are those which have addressed topics that would have been
unthinkable in the past. Some examples include Moises Park's "'Gracias a
la vida': Violeta went to heaven and came back wearing a k-pop miniskirt"
(2019); Sebastian Reyes Gil's "Escorts afrolatinos en la era digital, o el arte
de los masajistas" (2017); Ignacio Alguilo's "YouTube kitsch and the racial
politics of taste in the Andes: The case of Delfin Quishpe" (2020) and
Mauricio Duarte's "Breaking the Middle East media paradigm: HispanTV
streaming politics in Spanish from Iran" (2020).
While these essays on the surface would appear to have little in common,
the thread that unites them is precisely how fresh and unconventional they
are. These authors are examining Lusa-Hispanic cultural production as
it relates to the world, not merely the Western Hemisphere, and/ or they
are analyzing carefully, and taking seriously, digital popular culture and
The ''fierce urgency of now" 183
what it tells us about a given community or about global cultural flows.
All of this is tied to technology. Returning to the discussion of K-pop in
Latin America, one of the most fascinating and unexpected aspects that
I found, in a conversation with Chilean K-pop fans on the subway one day
in Santiago, is that these young people watched weekly online the most
popular television program in South Korea related to their obsession.
Technology has enabled greater cultural interaction than ever before,
leading to enhanced mixing and mingling of cultures and inspiring new
forms of global cultural production. It is up to Luso-Hispanic scholars to
not only be cognizant of this, but also to begin to examine these cultural
artifacts, while encouraging their graduate students to do the same. It is
my greatest hope that these sorts of investigations will become the rule
in the future of the work done within our field, instead of the exceptions.
Unfortunately, this will not be the case unless we are able to collectively
address the third, and most pressing challenge of all: the pandemic.
The third challenge: COVID-19. Bracing
for (and embracing) what lies ahead
In February and March of 2020, teachers in countries of Asia, Europe,
South and North America and many other nations around the world who
were reluctant to embrace technology in their pedagogical practices in
the past were forced, almost overnight, to learn to teach their students
online because of the outbreak of COVID-19. The disparity between the
haves and have not, or the "winners" and implied losers in the jargon of
the 4IR discussed under the first challenge above was never more apparent
than it was in the initial weeks following the arrival of the pandemic, as
students (and teachers) without computers or with marginal connectivity
or bandwidth - overwhelmingly those of ethnic minority groups in the
United States - were lost in the scramble to continue their education and
were often severely impacted by the disease itself.
For colleges and universities in the United States, such as my own, the
dramatic loss in revenue as a result of canceled conferences, research, sporting activities and festivals, and the refunds required to be dispersed to students unable to return to their residence halls, made us face a stark new
reality: those of us unable to rapidly adjust in terms of our pedagogical
practices could conceivably be furloughed, fired, or otherwise forced into
early retirement due to the economic crisis. Our third challenge is that we
must adapt our pedagogy immediately to this fluid, ever-changing moment.
Make no mistake, the financial crisis in higher education in the United
States had been acute for more than a decade already, as public institutions that had been previously supported by the state became public/
private mixes and administrators began to speak using business jargon.
Students were no longer "students," but instead "customers," and the most
sought-after "customers" were, in fact, those who came from out-of-state
184
Melissa A. Fitch
or from abroad, because they paid the highest tuition fees. Meanwhile,
the college-age demographics in the United States were on the decline.
Some predicted that hundreds, if not thousands, of brick-and-mortar universities would go out of business in the future and that those that would
remain would consist primarily of the top fifty institutions that cater to
the elite. The travel restrictions enacted by Donald Trump since 2016
had already had a negative impact on international student enrollment.
The closing of borders, canceling of international flights, and mounting
tensions with China over COVID-19 only added to the problem. The economic crisis and restrictions in domestic travel within the United States as
a result of the pandemic also mean that fewer out-of-state students would
likely come to campus. The inevitable decline in enrollment means that
many state universities and colleges will be forced to cut programs in
order to survive. As we have learned a duras penas over the last decade, the
first programs on the chopping block are often those connected to the
Arts and Humanities.
COVID-19 has forced us to recognize that the nature of education - its
value, price, content and credentials - has fundamentally shifted. If students are unable to be physically on campus, why would they continue to
pay exorbitant tuition fees to take online courses that could be taken for
far less money at other institutions? What is the value of the brand name
associated with one university over another if there is no accompanying
"experience" of clubs and sporting events, homecoming, and other such
social activities?
Covid-19 has dealt what may be a mortal blow to what was already
becoming obvious: brick-and-mortar universities offering a four or fiveyear degree are increasingly becoming obsolete. The velocity of the influx
of new information related to the Fourth Industrial Revolution requires
constant, on-going training, something better achieved, and less costly,
through online education. This realization conveniently works hand-inhand with the financial shift away from state funding for higher education.
If the cultural logic of capitalism rests upon planned obsolescence, when
applied to an educational setting, it means that one will never "finish."
Your credentials, and perhaps even your job, will become as obsolete as
last year's iPhone, so you will be forced to constantly "upgrade." In the
language of higher education, that means that beyond being simply a
"customer," you will now become a "life-long learner." The questions are:
where, and how? Universities, facing the financial crisis of the last decade,
had already been expanding rapidly to reach all age demographics. The
arrival of Covid-19 has meant that this shift has taken on a new urgency.
So what does all of this mean for us? The challenge now is for us to avoid
becoming further marginalized at our institutions by embracing (metaphorically, given the pandemic) this new educational reality, the zoomification of higher education and the changing profile of our students.
Online education is not a trend to be waited out. It will not come to an end
The ''fierce urgency of now" 185
as soon as COVID-19 subsides. It was already on the horizon. The choice we
have is stark: adapt, or get out.
This third challenge is not specific to scholars within our field. It applies
to all educators. We must roll up our sleeves and learn about the remarkable advances that have been made in online education, the "new science
of learning." Hand-wringing, arguing, decrying the poverty of the online
experience compared to in-person instruction is futile. Beyond that, it
will sour our students to the experience. The baptism-by-fire experience
of the onset of the pandemic in March of 2020 was hardly indicative of
the potential and opportunities available through online education, but
understanding the very real benefits will require an openness and a willingness to learn on our part.
The "fierce urgency of now" is that we transform every aspect of our
profession as we have known it - the way we do research, the way we teach,
the way we think. To pretend that we are still in a world in which a close
analysis of one print novel read long ago and by very few can be considered a viable intellectual or professional pursuit are over. We must prepare
our students for this chaotic new world of sensory overload and engage
colleagues, cultures and countries outside of the Western Hemisphere in
order to understand the magnitude and breadth of the global cultural
interactions inherent in Luso-Hispanic Studies.
Now is the time to equip our students with the tools that enable them to call
into question the structures that make neoliberalism and the neat division of
the world into "winners" and losers a forgone conclusion. We must acknowledge our own blind spots in our research and grapple as scholars with the
onslaught of new cultural production that is being created online. Finally,
we must adapt to the myriad tools available in online education in order to
better serve our students of all ages in the wake of the global pandemic.
The "fierce urgency of now" is that, instead of finding an alcove where
we can take refuge from the storm, we turn and face the chaotic new
reality - this torrent of signs, images, music, noise, and words, of global
interconnectedness and crisis -and that we sail, without fear, directly into
the headwinds.
Note
1 The concept of "Amefrica Ladina" was first coined by Afro-Brazilian scholar
Lelia Gonzalez.
References
Aarseth, E 1997, Cybertext: Perspectives on ergodic literature, The Johns Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore.
Alguilo, I 2020, 'YouTube kitsch and the racial politics of taste in the Andes: The
case of Delfin Quishpe ', Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, vol. 38, no. 1,
pp. 1-21.
186
Melissa A. Fitch
Anderson, C 2004, 'The long tail', Wired Magazine, l O October, viewed July 1, 201 7,
http: / / www.wired.com/ wired/ archive/ 12.10/ tail.
Anderson, C 2008, 'The end of theory: The data deluge makes the scientific method
obsolete', Wired,June 23, https: / / www.wired.com/ 2008/ 06/ pb-theory/ .
Baradit,J 2008, SYNCO, Ediciones B, Santiago, Chile.
Baradit, J 2017, Interview with Carolina Gainza. 'La ultima experiencia inmersiva
nova a tener que ver con que te cuenten sobre la batalla, te van a meter en ella',
May 2017, viewed 15 Aug. 2019, Cultura digital en Chile: literatura, musica y cine.
https: / / culturadigitalchile.cl.
Barlow, JP 1996, 'Declaration of independence of cyberspace', 24 hours in cyberspace.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, February 8, viewed Jun 1, 2020, https: / /
www.eff.org/ cyberspace-independence.
Berger, J 1973, Ways of seeing, Penguin, London.
Borges,JL 1996 [1944], Ficciones, Emece, Buenos Aires, pp. 4 7-65.
Boyd, D & Crawford, K 2012, 'Critical questions for big data: Provocations for a
cultural, technological, and scholarly phenomenon', Information, Communication
& Society, vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 662-679.
Bruns, A 2008, Blogs, Wikipedia, second life, and beyond: From production to produsage,
Peter Lang, New York.
Bush, M & Gentic, T 2015, Technology, literature, and digital culture in Latin America:
Mediated sensibilities in a globalized era, Routledge, New York.
Carey, K 2016, The End of college: Creating the future of learning and the university of everywhere, Riverhead Books, New York.
Cavanagh, A 2005, Sociology in the age of the internet, Berg Publishers, Oxford.
Chacon, H ( ed.) 2018, Online activism in Latin America, Routledge, New York.
Chiappe, D & Meier, A 2000, Tierra de extracci6n. https: / / collection.eliterature.
org/ 2/ works/ chiappe_tierra_de_extraccion.html.
Chiappe, D 2007, 'Creative processes in hypermedia literature: Single purpose, multiple authors', in T Pitman & C Taylor (eds.), Latin American cyberculture and cyberliterature, Routledge, New York, pp. 216-226.
Chiappe, D 2011, 'Tierra de Extracci6n o La historia de una novela multimedia', Texto
Digital, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 138-146.
Correa-Diaz, L & Lowman, S 2015, 'La tuit(er)-ficci6n en el (ciber)espacio literario
hispanoamericano', Dossier paperless text: Digital storytelling in Latin America
and Spain (1983-2013). Letras Hispanas 11 , pp. 300-31 3. http: //www.modlang.
txs tate. edu/ letrashispanas / previousvolumes / vol 11.h tml
Correa-Diaz, L & Weintraub, S 2016, Poesia y poeticas digjtales/electr6nicas/tecnos/New-media
en America Latina: Definiciones y exploraciones, Editorial Universidad Central de Bogota,
Bogata, http: / / www.ucentral.edu.co/ editorial/ catalogo/ poesia-poeticas-digitales.
Couldry, N & Mejias, UA 2019, The costs of connection: How data is colonizing human life
and appropriating it for capitalism, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto.
DeMillo, RA 2011, Abelard to Apple: The fate of American colleges and universities, MIT
Press, Cambridge.
Dewulf, J 2018, 'From Papiamentu to afro-catholic brotherhoods: An interdisciplinary analysis of Iberian elements in Cura<;;aoan popular culture ', Studies in Latin
American Popular Culture, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 69-94.
DiMaggio, P, et al. 2001, 'Social implications of the internet', Annual Review of
Sociology vol. 27, pp. 307- 336.
The ''fierce urgency of now" 187
Douglas, JY 2000, The end of books-or books without end? University of Michigan Press,
Ann Arbor.
Duarte, M 2020, 'Breaking the Middle East media paradigm: HispanTV streaming
politics in Spanish from Iran', Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, vol. 38,
no. 1, pp. 75-94.
Dunbar-Hester, C 2011, Beyond McLuhan: Your new media studies syllabus.
McLuhan conference at the University of Winnipeg, October 26-28. McLuhan
Galaxy. https: / / mcluhangalaxy.wordpress.com/ 2010/ 09 / 21 / beyond-mcluhan-yournew-media-s tudies-syllabus /
Eastman, AS 2018, 'Paving the way to Pavones: Property wars, narratives of discovery, and the fantasy of surfing paradise', Studies in Latin American Popular Culture,
vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 2-29.
Fitch, MA 2016, 'Abriendo nuevos caminos en los estudios culturales latinoamericanos: La ola coreana (k-pop), los medios sociales y la cultura participativa en
Chile.', Lecture. Facultad de Humanidades de la Universidad de Santiago, Chile.
June 15.
Fitch, MA 2017, 'The new convergence literature of Latin America: The presence
of new media in contemporary narratives', in I Lopez-Calvo (ed.), Critical insights:
Latin American fiction, Salem Press, Pasadena, pp. 3-25.
Fitch, MA 2019, 'Chilean digital literature ', in I Lopez-Calvo (ed.), The Cambridge
history of Chilean literature, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Flores, L 2017, 'La literatura electronica latinoamericana, caribeiia y global:
Generaciones, fases y tradiciones', Artelo~e. Recherche sur les arts, le patrimoine et la
litterature de l'Amerique latine, vol. 11, pp. 1-10.
Foster, DW 2005, El ambiente nuestro: Chicano/Latino homoerotic writing, Arizona State
University, and Bilingual Press, Tempe.
Franklin, S 2015, Control: Di~tality as cultural lo~c, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Cache, B 2011, 'Gongora Wordtoys', in Sociedad lunar. Literatura expandida, viewed
August 4, 2020. http: / / belengache.net/ gongorawordtoys/ .
Gafnza, C 2014, 'Hackeo cultural: esteticas y polfticas en la era digital. Comunicacion
digital, polftica y subjetividad', in Estetica, medias masivos y subjetividades. Selected
presentations from the V Simposio Internacional de Estetica, desarrollado los
dfas 22, 23 y 24 de octubre en el Campus Oriente de la Pontificia Universidad
Catolica de Chile, viewed 10 October 2019, http: / / estetica.uc.cl/ images/ stories/
librovsim posio / 05_carolina %20gainza. pdf.
Garcia Carcedo, P & Regueiro, B 2015, El reto de escribir. Entre papeles y pantallas,
Editorial GEU, Granada.
Giridharadas, A 2019, Winners take all: The elite charade of chan~ng the world, Vintage,
New York.
Gleason, NW 2018, Higher education in the era of the fourth industrial revolution, Springer
Nature, Berlin.
Goldsmith, K 2011, Uncreative writing, Columbia University Press, New York.
Han, BC 2015, The burnout society, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto.
Han, BC 2015b, The transparency society, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto.
Han, BC 2017a, In the swarm: Di~tal prospects, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Han, BC 201 7b, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and new technolo~es ofpower, Verso Books,
New York and London.
Han, BC 2018, Topology of violence, MIT Press, Cambridge.
188
Melissa A. Fitch
Haraway, D 2006, 'A cyborg manifesto: Science, technology, and socialist-feminism
in the late 20th century', in J Weiss, J. Nolan, J Hunsinger & P Trifonas (eds.),
The international handbook of virtual learning environments, Springer, New York,
pp.117-158.
Hayles, K 2008, Electronic literature: New horizons for the literary, University of Notre
Dame Press, Norte Dame.
Hind, E 2018, 'On pirates and tourists: Ambivalent approaches to "El blog del
narco"', in H Chacon (ed.), Online activism in Latin America, Routledge, New York,
pp. 111-127.
Hine, C 2005, Virtual methods: Issues in social research on the internet, Berg, Oxford.
Jenkins, H 2006, Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide, New York
University Press, New York.
Jenkins, H, et al. 2013, Spreadable media: Creating value and meaning in a networked
culture, New York University Press, New York.
Kaitlin, T 2020, 'Why k-pop fans are no longer posting about k-pop', The
Atlantic, June 6. h ttps: / / www. theatlan tic. com/ technology/ archive/ 2020 / 06 /
twi tter-k-pop-protes t-black-lives-matter/ 612742 /
Katchadjian, P 2009, El aleph engordado, lmprentaArgentina de Poesia, Buenos Aires.
Kemp, S 2020, 'Digital in 2020: Global digital overview', We are social, hootsuite.
https: / / datareportal.com/ reports/ digital-2020-global-digital-overview.
Kozak, C 2012, 'Introduction', in C Kozak (ed.), Tecnopoeticas argentinas. Archivo
blando de arte y tecnologia, Caja Negra, Buenos Aires, pp. 7-10.
Kozak, C 2017, 'Esos raros poemas nuevos. Teoria y critica de la literatura digital
latinoamericana', Eljardin de los Poetasvol. 4, pp.1-20.
Kozak, C 2018, 'Comunidades experimentales y literatura digital en Latinoamerica',
Virtualis, vol. 9, no. 17, pp. 9-35.
Lang, JM 2020. 'On not drawing conclusions about online teaching now', The
Chronicle of Higher Education, May 18, https: / / www.chronicle.com/ article/
On-Not-Drawing-Conclusions/ 248797.
Lanier,] 2010, You are not a gadget, Knopf, New York.
Lanier,] 2014, Who owns the future?, Simon and Schuster, New York.
Lanier, J 2017, Dawn of the new everything: Encounters with reality and virtual reality,
Henry Holt & Company, New York.
Laufer, M 2015-2016, 'El Aleph a dieta and El Aleph autocorregido', Milton Laufer,
Letras Hispanas 11 https: / / www.miltonlaufer.com.ar/ .
Lopez-Calvo, I & Ricci, C (eds.) 2011, Transmodernity:journal ofperipheral cultural production of the Lusa-Hispanic world, School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts,
University of California, Merced.
Manovich, L 2011, 'Trending: The promises and the challenges of big social data',
in MK Gold (ed.), Debates in the digital humanities, The University of Minnesota
Press, Minneapolis, viewed 15 July 2011, http: / / www.manovich.net/ DOCS/
Manovich_trending_paper.pdf.
Martinez, S & Solano, E (eds.) 2010, Blogs, bloggers, blog6sfera. Una revision multidisciplinaria, Mexico City, Universidad lberoamericana. http: / / www.ibero.mx/ web/
filesd/ publicaciones/ blogs-enero2010.pdf Accessed 14 Aug. 2017.
Massa, R 2019, 'Here's why colleges are being forced to close their doors-and what
they can do to stay open', Salon, November 10, viewedJune 21, 2020, https: //
www.salon.com/ 2019 / 11 / 09 / heres-why-colleges-are-being-forced-to-close-theirdoors-and-what-they-can-do-to-stay-open_partner/ .
The ''fierce urgency of now" 189
Medina, E 2013, Revolucionarios ciberneticos. Tecnologia y politica en el Chile de Salvador
Allende. Santiago, LOM Editoriales, Chile.
Montoya Juarez,] 2013, Narrativas de simulacro: Videocultura, tecnologia y literatura en
Argentina y Uruguay, Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones, Murcia.
Park, M 2019, "'Gracias a la vida': Violeta went to heaven and came back wearing a k-pop miniskirt', Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, vol. 37, no. 1,
pp. 25-50.
Paz-Soldan, E & Castillo, D 2001, Latin American literature and mass media, Hispanic
Issues 22, Garland, New York.
Perez-Lopez, MA 2017, 'Fronteras del texto en el mundo global: Nuevos tiempos
espacios de la poesfa chilena', Guara: Revista da Linguagem e Literatura, vol. 7, no.
2, pp.134-142.
Pitman, T & Taylor, C 2013, Latin American identity and online cultural production,
Routledge, New York.
Pitman, T & Taylor, C (eds.) 2007, Latin American cyberculture and cyberliterature,
Liverpool University Press, Liverpool.
Prado, BC 2007, Literatura posnacional, Editum, Murcia.
Ragav, K 2015, Estilo Hindu: A Mexico City travelogue. Creative Commons. https: / /
issuu.com/ krishraghav/ docs/ estilohindu_web2.
Ricardo, FJ (ed.) 2009, Literary art in digiial performance: Case studies in new media art
and criticism, Bloomsbury Press, London.
Rios, F 2020, 'Amefrica ladina: The conceptual legacy of Lelia Gonzalez (19351994) ', FORUM50, vol. 3, p. 75.
Reyes Gil, S 2017, 'Escorts afrolatinos en la era digital, o el arte de los masajistas',
Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 37-50.
Rodrfguez,JA (ed.) 2011, Narratopedia. Rejlexiones sabre narrativa digital, creaci6n colectiva y cibercultura, Pon tificia U niversidad J averiana, Bogota.
Sanchez Mesa, D 2004, Literatura y cibercultura. Selecci6n, introducci6n, traducci6n, y
Bibliografia, Arcos Libros, Madrid.
Sanchez Vasquez, A 2006, 'De la estetica de la recepcion a la estetica de la participacion', in S Simon Marchan (ed.), Real/virtual en la estetica y la teoria de las artes,
Paidos, Buenos Aires.
Sanz, A & Romero, D (eds.) 2007, Literatures in the digital era: Theory and praxis,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Schwab, K 2016, The fourth industrial revolution, Currency, New York.
Schwab, K & Davis, N 2018, Shaping the future of the fourth industrial revolution,
Currency, New York.
Scolari, CA 2013, Narrativas transmedia. Cuando todos los medias cuenta, Editorial
Deusto, San Sebastian.
Scolari, CA 2008, Hipermediaciones. Elementos para una teoria de la comunicaci6n digital
interactiva, Gedisa, Barcelona.
Sdrigotti, F 2015, 'Re-working Borges is a legitimate experiment, not a crime',
The Guardian, June 25 2020, viewed June 21, 2020, https:/ / www.theguardian.com/
books / books blog/ 2015 / jun/ 25 / re-mixing-borges-experimen t-not-a-crimepablo-katchadjian.
Taylor, C 2014, Place and politics in Latin American digital culture: Location and Latin
American net art, Routledge, New York.
Taylor, C 2019, Electronic literature in Latin America: From text to hypertext, Palgrave
MacMillan, New York.
190
Melissa A. Fitch
Taylor, C & Pitman, T (eds.) 2007, Latin American cyberculture and cyberliterature,
Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Toffler, A 1970, Future shock, Random House, New York.
Torres, R 2009, Amor de Clarice, viewed February 5, 2019, https: / / classic.rhizome.
org/ artbase/ artwork/ 35811 / .
Tough, P 2019, The years that matter most: How college makes or breaks us, Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt, Boston.
Valencia, L 2011, 'Cr6nica de viaje de un novelista a la literatura digital y su regreso
(felizmente) escarmentado', inJA Rodriguez (ed.), Narratopedia. Reflexiones sabre
narrativa digital, creaci6n colectiva y cibercultura, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana,
Bogota, pp. 85-99.
Vazquez, AS 2005, De la estetica de la recepci6n a una estetica de la participaci6n,
Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de Mexico, Mexico City.
Verdu, D 2016, 'El gusto en la era del algoritmo', Babelia, 11 July 2016, viewed 20 Sep.
2019, https:/ / elpais.com/ cultura/ 2016/ 07 / 07/ babelia/ 1467898058_835206.html.
Walsh, JD 2020, 'The coming disruption: Scott Galloway predicts a handful of
elite cyborg universities will soon monopolize higher education', New York
Magazine, viewed May 11 2020, https: / / nymag.com/ intelligencer/ 2020/ 05/
scott-galloway-future-of-college.html.
Weintraub, S 2018, Latin American technopoetics: Scientific explorations in new media,
Routledge, New York.
West,AN2017, 'Media and transparency:Anintroduction toByung-ChulHan' , TheLos
Angeles Review of Books, viewed September 14, 2018, https: / / lareviewofbooks.org/
article/ media-and-transparency-an-introduction-to-byung-chul-han-in-english/
Zimmerman, J 2020, 'Video kills the teaching star', The Chronicle of Higher
Education, viewed April 24 2020, https: / / www.chronicle.com/ article/
Video-Kills-the-Teaching-Star/ 248631 .