You are invited to participate in the online seminar

“When Pixels Meet Paper”  

organized by
the Centre for Creativity Research
(Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Faculty of Polish Studies)

13 January 2022 (Thursday)
6 p. m. Warsaw time / 5 p. m. London time / 11 a.m. Chicago time

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2187583567?pwd=Rmh3NGZxRVc0eHpqOU5JbHgxSXdhZz09

Meeting ID: 218 758 3567  
   
Our program:

1. Olga Beloborodova (University of Antwerp)

keynote: “When Pixels Meet Paper: Beckett Digital Manuscript Project as an Example of a Hybrid Genetic Edition”

Abstract

The Beckett Digital Manuscript Project (BDMP, beckettarchive.org) is run by the Centre for Manuscript Genetics (CMG) at the University of Antwerp and is co-directed by Dirk Van Hulle and Mark Nixon. It brings together a team of dedicated editors, both at the CMG and across the globe, in order to create a digital complete works edition of Beckett’s oeuvre, including all available draft material, Beckett’s notebooks and his personal library. From the very start, all the digital modules in the BDMP have been accompanied by ancillary print editions, making the project an example of a hybrid approach to genetic editing. That said, the hybridity that I would like to discuss in this paper stretches beyond the book + digital module principle and pertains to the very notion of the digital genetic edition of analogue texts.  
Following the double structure and purpose of the term ‘genetic criticism’, I will first zoom in on the (im)materiality of digital genetic editing, fleshing out the inherent tension between pixels and paper that characterizes it. More specifically, I will discuss the notion of the document and how the affordances of the digital technology can possibly affect its seemingly sacrosanct place in the genetic dossier. In the second part of the paper, I will touch upon the critical aspect of a hybrid genetic edition, by highlighting the role of the editor as a guide that helps the user not only to navigate a work’s complex genesis, but also to draw interpretative conclusions that have a bearing on Beckett’s poetics more generally. In both cases, I will use the hybrid genetic edition of Beckett’s late play Play (1964) to illustrate my point. To conclude, I will attempt a glimpse into the future (and present) of genetic editing by questioning the exclusively digital nature of so-called ‘born-digital’ texts.

Olga Beloborodova is a postdoctoral researcher and teaching assistant at the University of Antwerp, currently working at its Centre for Manuscript Genetics. She has published articles and book chapters on the subjects of Samuel Beckett, cognition and genetic criticism. Together with Dirk Van Hulle and Pim Verhulst, she co-edited Beckett and Modernism, published by Palgrave in 2018. She is also a member of the Editorial Board of Beckett Digital Manuscript Project. Her first monograph, “The Making of Samuel Beckett’s Play / Comédie and Film”, was published with UPA/Bloomsbury in 2019. Her second monograph, “Postcognitivist Beckett”, came out in 2020 as part of the new Elements in Beckett Studies Series (Cambridge University Press).

2. Discussion

3. Centre for Creativity Research: forthcoming events.

Dr. hab. Mateusz Antoniuk
Head of the Centre