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Gutenberg Parenthesis

The document discusses the concept of the 'Gutenberg Parenthesis' which refers to three major phases of text dissemination separated by the invention of the printing press and the transition to digital text. It argues that these transitions brought about shifts in cognition from linearity to interactivity and faster processing. The concept may help redirect attention to how literature was produced and consumed before and after the printing press.

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77 views2 pages

Gutenberg Parenthesis

The document discusses the concept of the 'Gutenberg Parenthesis' which refers to three major phases of text dissemination separated by the invention of the printing press and the transition to digital text. It argues that these transitions brought about shifts in cognition from linearity to interactivity and faster processing. The concept may help redirect attention to how literature was produced and consumed before and after the printing press.

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hamklav
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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16000730, 2009, 2, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0730.2009.00962.x by Lancaster University The Library, Wiley Online Library on [02/01/2023].

See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Orbis Litterarum 64:2 79–80, 2009
Printed in Malaysia. All rights reserved

Preface
The Gutenberg Parenthesis – Print, Book and Cognition
Lars Ole Sauerberg, University of Southern Denmark
General Editor

With the invention of moveable type and the printing press, the conditions
for communication of and access to information and knowledge changed
radically. The change affected not merely the material appearance of
information and knowledge dissemination but also, in the process, the
nature of cognition.
In a cognitive context the mass-produced and mass-distributed book has
been of the greatest significance for the way we approach the world. In the
transition from the printed book to digitalized textuality the mode of
cognition is being moved from a metaphorics of linearity and reflection to
a-linearity and co-production of ‘‘reality.’’ This means moving from the
rationality accompanied by the printed book to an altogether different way
of processing, characterized by interactivity and much faster pace. The
book as privileged mode of cognition is, it seems, being marginalized and
transformed.
Our experience of being in the world is now determined by cognitive
parameters originating as often as not in multi-medial manifestations as an
endlessly varied and variable process, competing with a pursuit of
uniformity and standardization.
Thinking of the book (as codex) in terms of contingency rather
than permanency raises questions relating to literature which we can only
begin to glimpse. The by no means universally recognized concept of a
Gutenberg Parenthesis dividing text-dissemination (in the West) into three
major phases with, arguably, ensuing cognitive shifts and accommoda-
tions, is bound to be controversial.
The Gutenberg Parenthesis may help to redirect attention to the
material determination of literature, seen from the author’s as well as the
reader’s perspectives. Attention to literature before the coming of print is
16000730, 2009, 2, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0730.2009.00962.x by Lancaster University The Library, Wiley Online Library on [02/01/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
80 Lars Ole Sauerberg

likewise shifted to the circumstances under which it was produced and


consumed. In the middle of the process of leaving the Parenthesis, it will
be exciting to see how literature, as we know it, will impress itself
on and adapt to new modes of publication, and how far literature as a
traditionally privileged cognitive probe will change essentially.
In this issue four papers approach literature in manners that all reflect to
some degree the application of the concept of the Gutenberg Parenthesis.
It remains to be seen if the concept will be a valid tool.

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