TO THE UNIVERSITY, SCIENCE, CULTURE, AND ART COMMUNITIES

In 1936, Walter Benjamin argued in his essay titled "The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproduction" that the aesthetic realm had entered a process of transformation. In this essay, Benjamin emphasized that through technical reproduction, the "aura"—representing the authenticity, historical continuity, and spatial uniqueness of the artwork—had decayed, leading to the loss of the artistic experience. Byung-Chul Han, in his work "The Crisis of Narration" (2023), continues Benjamin’s critique, asserting that information shared in today’s digital environment creates a "time series consisting only of present moments." Consequently, he claims that this possibility of instantaneous production and consumption destroys the "experiential content and transmissibility" of narrative.

Today, we are undergoing a digital transformation that surpasses and is incomparable to the cultural paradigm shifts experienced with the invention of the printing press. We have stepped out of the Gutenberg Galaxy and into the Digital Universe. Digital transformation, as a result of the technological revolution, has become a concrete reality of life across all social spheres, from education to law, and from art to economy. Without a radical rupture from objective reality, we are witnessing the reshaping of life and art through digital networks, and the emergence of new types of narratives (!). Rather than viewing these developments with prejudice, we are curious about what this emerging "new" is, how it functions, and what risks and opportunities it holds for literature and art.

Currently, it is not merely a matter of transferring or reproducing literature in digital environments, but of producing it directly within digital platforms; this involves the emergence of new textual typologies, narrative genres, and fictional forms that differ from the traditional. This situation expands the object of study, the material, and the methodological boundaries of established literary science. New literary genres—defined by concepts such as Internet literature, digital literature, network literature, e-novel, and e-poetry—offer the possibility of examination through the perspective of Intermedia Studies, a sub-discipline of Comparative Literature, in terms of language, aesthetic forms, and narrative structures.

Digital literature represents a dynamic literary practice occurring in multimedia environments. We believe that we are faced not only with a techno-formal differentiation but with a new literary genre showing a tendency toward canonization. Based on this reality, we have planned to discuss this new literature in the digital environment on both theoretical and practical levels. On this occasion, we are honored to invite our scholars and artists—who conduct scientific research, create artistic productions, and reflect on this transformation—to the 1st Symposium on Comparative Literature and Intermedia Studies titled "A New Canon: Digital Literature," which will be held online.

Respectfully,

On behalf of the Organizing Committee
 Prof. Dr. Cemal SAKALLI
(Mersin University, Department of Comparative Literature)