What forms will literary and cultural criticism take in the twenty-first century, given the move toward open access, open data, and open government that is currently being promoted in the name of greater efficiency and transparency? Will the growing use of digital tools and data-led methodologies adopted from computer science to help us analyze the vast, networked nature of knowledge and information in postindustrial society produce a major change in our understanding of literature and culture, and indeed the humanities? Some have suggested that we have already embarked on a post-theoretical era, exemplified by a shift away from a concern with ideology and critique and toward more positivistic, quantitative, and empirical modes of analysis. If this is the case, should we be looking to develop new forms of literary and cultural criticism, characterized by an ability to combine the methodological and the theoretical, the quantitative and the qualitative, the digital and the traditional humanities? Are such new forms of literary and cultural criticism even possible?
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