Mapping the field of digital literary studies: Concepts, methods, and emerging directions
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.64595/99c6t274Keywords:
algorithmic reading, computational literary studies, digital humanities, digital literary studies, electronic literatureAbstract
The expansion of digital archives, computational tools, platform-based reading practices, and artificial intelligence has transformed literary studies into a field where texts are increasingly examined as data, networks, interfaces, and machine-mediated cultural objects. This study aims to map the field of digital literary studies by identifying its dominant concepts, methodological clusters, and emerging research directions. Methodologically, the study employs a qualitative-dominant field-mapping design supported by bibliometric description, keyword co-occurrence mapping, bibliometric-oriented science mapping, and corpus-assisted thematic analysis of selected scholarly metadata, abstracts, keywords, and conceptual statements. The findings show that digital literary studies is organised around five major formations: digital humanities and literary interpretation, computational and distant reading, electronic literature and digital textuality, cultural analytics and platform-based literary circulation, and AI-oriented literary analysis. The study also reveals that literary objects are increasingly conceptualised as archives, corpora, graphs, interfaces, platforms, datasets, and algorithmic outputs. The novelty of this study lies in its integrated mapping of concepts, methods, and future directions within digital literary studies.
Downloads
References
Amangazykyzy, M., Gilea, A., Karlygash, A., Nurziya, A., & Sandygash, K. (2025). Epistemological Transformation of the Paradigm of Literary Studies in the Context of the Integration of Digital Humanities Methods. Forum for Linguistic Studies. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i4.8619
Andalas, E., Sudibyo, S., & Saktimulya, S. (2026). Computational Method in Literary Studies. The International Journal of Critical Cultural Studies. https://doi.org/10.18848/2327-0055/cgp/a248
Consilvio, D. (2023). COMPUTATIONAL CLOSE READING: A CRITIQUE OF DIGITAL LITERARY METHODOLOGY. https://doi.org/10.23860/diss-consilvio-damiano-2023
Duggan, L. (2023). Foreword to the Special Issue "Between Proximity and Distance: The Affordances of Scale in Computational Literary Studies". Orbis Litterarum. https://doi.org/10.1111/oli.12398
Gius, E., & Jacke, J. (2022). Are Computational Literary Studies Structuralist?. Journal of Cultural Analytics. https://doi.org/10.22148/001c.46662
Gupta, H., Wania, R., Yadav, R., & Prasad, A. (2025). The Digital Turn in English Literary Studies. International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research. https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2025.v07i03.46284
Hossain, M. (2025). Digital Narratives and Reader Engagement: Transforming Literary Forms in the Digital Era. Asian Journal of Education and Social Studies. https://doi.org/10.9734/ajess/2025/v51i41851
John, A., & George, E. (2024). The Impact of Social Media and Electronic Literature on Literary Studies, Language Learning and Acculturation: A Study Conducted in South India. World Journal of English Language. https://doi.org/10.5430/wjel.v14n4p546
Loebis, I., Faot, O., Agustina, S., & Gultom, M. (2025). Genre-Blurring and Digital Literatures: Authorial Presence in English E-novels and Web Serials. Formosa Journal of Multidisciplinary Research. https://doi.org/10.55927/fjmr.v4i11.601
Mischke, D., & Ohge, C. (2023). Digital Melville and Computational Methods in Literary Studies. Leviathan, 25, 35 - 60. https://doi.org/10.1353/lvn.2023.a904374
Nistor, L. (2022). De la tradițional la modern – evoluție. Literatura digitală – fenomen cultural al secolului XXI. Comunicare interculturală și literatură. https://doi.org/10.35219/cil.2020.1.24
Preeti, D., Sharma, N., Verma, J., R, L., J, D., & , B. (2024). Quantitative Analysis of Literary Texts: Computational Approaches in Digital Humanities Research. Educational Administration Theory and Practices. https://doi.org/10.53555/kuey.v30i5.3770
Ramya, R., & S, R. (2021). Literature in New Media: A Comparative Study of Literary Affordances of Lance Olsen’s “10:01” in Traditional and Digital Medium. Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v13n2.45
Siby, O. (2025). Digital Literature and the Construction of Knowledge: Blogs, Twitter Fiction, and VR Narratives. International Journal of Language, Literature and Culture. https://doi.org/10.22161/ijllc.5.5.8
Vanathi, A. (2023). Exploring Literary Studies through Digital Humanities. Shanlax International Journal of English. https://doi.org/10.34293/rtdh.v12is1-dec.61
Vodola, M. (2022). Fabrizio Venerandi’s Electronic Poems: An Attempt to Analyze Digital Works. Vol. 3, Iss. 2 (DHSI Conference & Colloquium 2021). https://doi.org/10.21428/f1f23564.238e0874
Změlík, R. (2025). On the question of the acquisition of literary texts and the method of their processing for the needs of independent literary research. Bohemistyka. https://doi.org/10.14746/bo.2025.1.8
Zozulia, D. (2024). The poetics of form in digimodernist prose. Synopsis: Text Context Media. https://doi.org/10.28925/2311-259x.2024.3.3
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Achmad Fawaid
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License