Challenges in “Literature”?

In his Beyond the Beyond blog on Wired, science fiction writer and some time media theorist Bruce Sterling recently made a post entitled 18 Challenges in Contemporary Literature. This is certainly  provocative title, and my ears immediately perked up at it. But after reading the post, I have to say that I’m pretty befuddled, mainly because there seem to be several conflicting definitions of literature involved here.

Sterling’s first point is that:

1. Literature is language-based and national; contemporary society is globalizing and polyglot.

I thoroughly disagree with the definition of “literature” expressed here, and I’d venture to say that a good number of people writing literature and writing about literature would too. A piece of writing needn’t be mono-national in order to qualify as literature. There’s plenty of literature that isn’t. And what does Sterling mean by “language-based”? Did he mean to say “monolingual”? Again, a text needn’t be monolingual in order to be literature. Absolutely not. Apparently Sterling is honing in on the notion of a national literary canon and taking that as his definition of literature. I would agree that this idea of national literary canons is (and always was) invalid and outmoded, and that we need to move away from it if we haven’t already.

2. Vernacular means of everyday communication — cellphones, social networks, streaming video — are moving into areas where printed text cannot follow.
3. Intellectual property systems failing.
4. Means of book promotion, distribution and retail destabilized.
5. Ink-on-paper manufacturing is an outmoded, toxic industry with steeply rising costs.
6. Core demographic for printed media is aging faster than the general population. Failure of print and newspapers is disenfranching young apprentice writers.
7. Media conglomerates have poor business model; economically rationalized “culture industry” is actively hostile to vital aspects of humane culture.

All of the above points speak to the idea of “literature” as necessarily print-based and connected to the print media industry. Why not use the words “print media industry” instead of including this under the titular umbrella of “literature”?

8. Long tail balkanizes audiences, disrupts means of canon-building and fragments literary reputation
9. Digital public-domain transforms traditional literary heritage into a huge, cost-free, portable, searchable database, radically transforming the reader’s relationship to belle-lettres.[sic]

As before, these points are premised on a very specific notion of literature as the literary canon that is necessarily connected to the print media industry.

10. Contemporary literature not confronting issues of general urgency; dominant best-sellers are in former niche genres such as fantasies, romances and teen books.
11. Barriers to publication entry have crashed, enabling huge torrent of subliterary and/or nonliterary textual expression.

Again, the fact that Sterling hasn’t defined the term “literature” is very confusing here. Where is the line between literature and “subliterary and/or nonliterary textual expression”? It’s as though he assumes we’re all working from the same definition, but this definition is far from clear. He seems to be suggesting, though, that under the old print media economy, access to publication meant that a text had achieved literary status. At least in the non-niche genres (i.e. not fantasies, romances and teen books). But it’s confusing.

12. Algorithms and social media replacing work of editors and publishing houses; network socially-generated texts replacing individually-authored texts.
13. “Convergence culture” obliterating former distinctions between media; books becoming one minor aspect of huge tweet/ blog/ comics/ games / soundtrack/ television / cinema / ancillary-merchandise pro-fan franchises.
14. Unstable computer and cellphone interfaces becoming world’s primary means of cultural access. Compositor systems remake media in their own hybrid creole image.

Here, Sterling swings back to thinking about medium specificity. Books are just one medium among many; digital media challenge the longstanding monopoly of the printed book in terms of the production of “texts.” In these points he seems to want to say something more general about the book’s place within a larger media ecology.

15. Scholars steeped within the disciplines becoming cross-linked jack-of-all-trades virtual intelligentsia.

I’d love to hear examples of this! Sounds kind of exciting maybe, and yet I’m not sure. And I’m not sure that I can quite think of anybody who fits this description. What exactly is meant by “steeped within the disciplines”? And how does one become “virtual intelligentsia”?

16. Academic education system suffering severe bubble-inflation.
17. Polarizing civil cold war is harmful to intellectual honesty.

What exactly do these have to do with literature? Does he mean to imply that the academy defines the literary canon, and that this system is now compromised?

18. The Gothic fate of poor slain Poetry is the specter at this dwindling feast.

Has Sterling read a report somewhere that the production of poetry in general is down, or is it that “literary” poetry is dwindling by some measure? I’d love to hear an explanation of this statement, and also wonder how it connects to the other 17 items.

In short, I find these points to be fairly confusing, and think a definition of the term “literature” is sorely lacking — and perhaps misused in some cases. I’m sure the post was meant to be provocative and therefore a bit ambiguous and open-ended, but then again I’m not sure that it says anything new, and in some cases I just find it plain perplexing.