EXC 2020 Temporal Communities

Part of the EXC 2020 Annual Conference 2025 "Futures of Doing Literature", 9–11 July 2025.

While the book remains a central medium for literature, the interface between texts and readers is constantly shifting. Immersive technologies such as virtual and augmented reality are transforming storytelling, creating more possibilities for multidimensional, interactive literary experiences. Simultaneously, literature is finding new homes in hybrid spaces – both digital and analogue – that challenge traditional boundaries.

This panel, Literature Augmented, examines how these spatial transformations are reshaping our understanding of literature, narrative and meaning. How do immersive media alter the relationship between texts and their audiences? What happens when literature transcends the page, inhabiting augmented cityscapes, digital archives, interactive installations and auditive experiments? And how might literary scholars adapt their tools to analyse these emergent forms? By highlighting innovative works and interdisciplinary perspectives, the discussion explores how literature adapts to and redefines its medium. Ultimately, Literature Augmented invites participants to imagine how literature will evolve as a spatial, participatory and interactive art form, as well as to consider the historical dimensions of these developments.

  

With:
Anke Finger (University of Connecticut)
Vadim Keylin (University of Hamburg)
Carolin Schmidt (Kollektiv »kaboom«)

   

Chair: Nina Tolksdorf (Research Area 2: Travelling Matters)