Texts and paratexts in Media

Critical Inquiry

Volumn 32, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 27-42

  Stanitzek, Georg ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SIEGEN   (Germany)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61249344164     PISSN: 00931896     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/498002     Document Type: Review

References (71)

1. Theodor W. Adorno, "Commitment" (1962), Notes to Literature, trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen, ed. Rolf Tiedemann, 3 vols. (New York, 1992), 2:90, presumably motivated by phenomena of concrete poetry
2. Dolf Sternberger, "Über Jargon in der gegenwärtigen Literaturkritik" (1968), Sprache und Politik, vol. 11 of Schriften (Frankfurt am Main, 1991), pp. 292, 294
3. Gerhard Neumann and Sigrid Weigel, "Einleitung: Literaturwissenschaften als Kulturwissenschaft," in Lesbarkeit der Kultur: Literaturwissenschaften zwischen Kulturtechnik und Ethnographie, ed. Neumann and Weigel (Munich, 2000), p. 11
4. Doris Bachmann-Medick, "Einleitung," in Kultur als Text: Die anthropologische Wende in der Literaturwissenschaft, ed. Bachmann-Medick (Frankfurt am Main, 1996), p. 11 - that is, against deconstruction
5. See Gérard Genette, Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation, trans. Jane E. Lewin (Cambridge, 1997); hereafter abbreviated P
6. The history of this concept in Genette's œuvre on literary theory includes its role within his typology of transtextual references; see Genette, The Architext: An Introduction, trans. Lewin (1979; Berkeley, 1992), p. 81
7. and Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree, trans. Channa Newman and Claude Doubinsky (1982; Lincoln, Nebr., 1997), pp. 2-4
8. On Genette's paratext concept formation as an act of baptism, see Thomas Schestag, "Call Me Ishmael," in Paratexte in Literatur, Film, Fernsehen, ed. Klaus Kreimeier and Georg Stanitzek (Berlin, 2004), pp. 22-29
9. Genette, "Présentation,"Poétique 69 (Feb. 1987):3
10. Adorno, "Bibliographical Musings" (1963), Notes to Literature, 2:23
11. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1967; Baltimore, 1997), p. 18
12. For a different conception of paratext and the question of whether typography falls under this category, see Jerome J. McGann, "Texts and Textuality," The Textual Condition (Princeton, N.J., 1991), p. 13
13. This would require a careful discussion. But without a doubt the argument cannot be drawn upon the conception as formulated by Genette; compare Ralf Grüttemeier, "Paratext," in Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik, ed. Gert Ueding, 6 vols. (Tübingen, 1992-2003), 6:571
14. See Schestag, "Call Me Ishmael."
15. Genette includes this in his argumentation with a reference to the discussion of poststructuralist theory, namely, to J. Hillis Miller, "The Critic as Host" (1977), in Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader, ed. David Lodge (London, 1993), pp. 279-80
16. See Natalie Binczek and Nicolas Pethes, "Mediengeschichte der Literatur," in Handbuch der Mediengeschichte, ed. Helmut Schanze (Stuttgart, 2001), pp. 288-89
17. See Gale MacLachlan and Ian Reid, Framing and Interpretation (Carlton, Victoria, 1994), p. 104
18. This, incidentally, is consistent with the fact that the organization of this aspect always leads to a plurality of sorts, which is precisely why Genette chose Paratexts for his title. Apart from the special case of "paratexts without texts," paratexts normally do not occur in the singular but in the plural (P, p. 3). They differ in this way - namely, from text - when it is meant in the sense of the entire work
19. See Marie Luise Kaschnitz, Wohin denn ich: Aufzeichnungen (Hamburg, 1963)
20. See Heinrich Bosse, Autorschaft ist Werkherrschaft: Über die Entstehung des Urheberrechts aus dem Geist der Goethezeit (Paderborn, 1981), pp. 7, 42
21. See Dagmar von Gersdorff, Marie Luise Kaschnitz: Eine Biographie (1992; Frankfurt am Main, 1997), p. 251
22. See Adorno, Peter Suhrkamp, and Siegfried Unseld, "So müßte ich ein Engel und kein Autor sein": Adorno und seine Frankfurter Verleger: Der Briefwechsel mit Peter Suhrkamp und Siegfried Unseld, ed. Wolfgang Schopf (Frankfurt am Main, 2003), pp. 245-82
23. Adorno, "Titles," Notes to Literature, 2:4
24. "Attention to titles leads in a materialist direction" (James McLaverty, "Questions of Entitlement: Some Eighteenth-Century Title Pages," in The Margins of the Text, ed. D. C. Greetham [Ann Arbor, Mich., 1997], p. 176)
25. "Actually, the paradox of the work of art is recapitulated and condensed in the title" (Adorno, "Titles," 2:4)
26. Derrida, The Truth in Painting, trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian Mcleod (Chicago, 1987), p. 61
27. See Pethes, "Paratext," in Metzler Lexikon Kultur der Gegenwart: Themen und Theorien, Formen und Institutionen seit 1945, ed. Ralf Schnell (Stuttgart, 2000), p. 403
28. See Samuel Weber, "The Unraveling of Form," Mass Mediauras: Form, Technics, Media, ed. Alan Cholodenko (Stanford, Calif., 1996), pp. 22-23
29. and Vom Parergon zum Labyrinth: Untersuchungen zur kritischen Theorie des Ornaments, ed. Gérard Raulet and Burghart Schmidt (Cologne, 2001)
30. Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), p. 11. One is reminded here of the negative attitude of scholars towards "poststructuralist self-references" cited above (Bachmann-Medick, "Einleitung," p. 11), an attitude one would expect in the current cultural discourse
31. A significant other wording refers to the intention "of the author and his allies" (P, p. 2; my emphasis). Extensive discussion is required not least because of this additional criterion; on the question of authorization by the "author or his legal representatives," see Derrida, "Devant la loi," trans. Avital Ronell, in Kafka and the Contemporary Critical Performance: Centenary Readings, ed. Alan Udoff (Bloomington, Ind., 1987), p. 145. See also footnote 40 below
32. See Michel Foucault, "What Is an Author?" (1969), trans. Josué V. Harari, Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology, vol. 2 of Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, trans. Robert Hurley et al., ed. James D. Faubion (New York, 1998), p. 221
33. On this, see Harald Weinrich, "Titel für Texte," in Titel - Text - Kontext: Randbezirke des Textes, ed. Jochen Mecke and Susanne Heiler (Berlin, 2000), pp. 3-19
34. in the editor's preface: "The boundaries of texts ... are central to literary communication" (Mecke and Heiler, "Vorwort," p. xix); compare Dirk Baecker, "Hilfe, ich bin ein Text!" in Paratexte in Literatur, Film, Fernsehen, pp. 43-52
35. See Stanitzek, "Was ist Kommunikation?" in Systemtheorie der Literatur, ed. Jürgen Fohrmann and Harro Müller (Munich, 1996), pp. 21-55. My thanks to Clemens Knobloch for the stimulating discussions of this subject
36. On this, see also the argumentation of Joachim Paech, "Film, programmatisch," in Paratexte in Literatur, Film, Fernsehen, pp. 213-23
37. See Nicole Janin-Foucher, Du générique au mot FIN: Le Paratexte dans les œuvres de F. Truffaut et de J.-L. Godard (1958-1984), 3 vols. (Lyon, 1989)
38. and Christian Metz, "Pour servir de préface," in Nicole de Mourgues, Le Générique de Film (Paris, 1994), pp. 7-9
39. the concept was already used by Robert Stam, Reflexivity in Film and Literature: From Don Quixote to Jean-Luc Godard (1985; New York, 1992), p. 23, there still referring to P, p. 2
40. See Metz, L'Énonciation impersonnelle, ou, Le Site du film (Paris, 1991)
41. In this respect it is a genuine mass medium as it fulfills the "message from many to many" criterion established by Jurgen Ruesch and Gregory Bateson, Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry (1951; New York, 1987), p. 42
42. See the inquiries dedicated in particular to describing their forms and functions: Janin-Foucher, Du générique au mot FIN
43. de Mourgues, Le Générique de film
44. Adam Duncan Harris, Extra Credits: The History and Collection of Pacific Title and Art Studio (Minneapolis, 2000)
45. Deborah Allison, "Promises in the Dark: Opening Title Sequences in American Feature Films of the Sound Period" (Ph.D. diss., University of East Anglia, 2001)
46. Alexander Böhnke, " Paratexte des Films: Verhandlungen des diegetischen Raums" (Ph.D. diss., University of Siegen, 2004)
47. Here it is appropriate to mention that parasite theory should play a greater role in the paratextuality discussion; see Michel Serres, The Parasite, trans. Lawrence R. Schehr (1980; Baltimore, 1982)
48. The zone of paratextuality is an interesting milieu for parasites and their relations, which are reversible in many respects and thus often quite complex. Compare Stanitzek, "'The Plastic People Will Hear Nothing but a Noice': Paratexts in Hollywood, the Beatles, Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, et al.," trans. Alexander Böhnke, Soziale Systeme 9 (2003): 321-33
49. In this context some short remarks by Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello outlining the générique as a desirable future model of representing work in a globalized economic production should at least be bookmarked; see Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello, Le Nouvel Esprit du capitalisme (Paris, 1999), p. 475
50. See Buch zum Film, "David Wark Griffith" (1972), in Im Off Filmartikel, ed. Frieda Grafe and Enno Patalas (Munich, 1974), pp. 222-23
51. and Gérard Blanchard, "Le Scriptovisuel ou Cinémato-Graphe," in L'Espace et la lettre: Écritures, typographies (Paris, 1977), pp. 410, 422
52. See Jeff Bellantoni and Matt Woolman, Type in Motion: Innovations in Digital Graphics (New York, 1999), pp. 38-39
53. and Alexander Böhnke, "Handarbeit: Figuren der Schrift in SE7EN," Montage/av 12, no. 2 (2003): 9-18
54. See, for instance, Oh Muvie presents Rosa von Praunheim [and] Carla Aulaulu in Oh Muvie (Frankfurt am Main, 1969)
55. See Trailer, Teaser, Appetizer: Zu Ästhetik und Design der Programmverbindungen im Fernsehen, ed. Knut Hickethier and Joan Bleicher (Hamburg, 1997)
56. Niklas Luhmann, The Reality of the Mass Media, trans. Kathleen Cross (1996; Stanford, Calif., 2000), p. 45
57. See, regarding books, Philippe Lane, La Périphérie du texte (Paris, 1992)
58. regarding film trailers, Vinzenz Hediger, Verführung zum Film: Der amerikanische Kinotrailer seit 1912 (Marburg, 2001); regarding TV on-air self-promotion, Trailer, Teaser, Appetizer
59. On the thesis that television in particular must adapt to this scarcity, see Klaus Kreimeier, Lob des Fernsehens (Munich, 1995), p. 247
60. See Raymond Williams, Television and Cultural Form (New York, 1975), pp. 87-88
61. Walter Benjamin, "One-Way Street" (1928), trans. Edmund Jephcott, Selected Writings, trans. Rodney Livingstone et al., ed. Marcus Bullock et al., 4 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1996-2003), 1:444
62. What unexpected architectures a comparison of cultures can bring to light is described in Erhard Schüttpelz's analysis, which draws attention not only to the force of the book paradigm but also to its potential permeability for oral "para-paratexts" and "allo-oral footnotes"; see Erhard Schüttpelz, '"The Bushmen's Letters Are in Their Bodies': Paratexte zwischen: Kabbo und Wilhelm Bleek," in Paratexte in Literatur, Film, Fernsehen, pp. 135-64
63. See Marshall McLuhan, letter to Morton and Caroline Bloomfield, 26 Mar. 1973, Letters of Marshall McLuhan, ed. Marie Molinaro, Corinne McLuhan, and William Toye (Toronto, 1987), pp. 473-74; my thanks to Karlheinz Barck for the information he provided
64. Accordingly, McLuhan also hopes for good results from a second step in which he analyzes the "interplay" between the ground and figure (McLuhan, letter to Barbara Ward, 9 Feb. 1973, Letters of Marshall McLuhan, p. 467)
65. See Frank Hartmann, "Vorwärts, zu den Bildern zurück? Paratextuelle Konstruktionsmomente im Netzdiskurs" (1998), http://mailbox.univie.ac.at/Frank.Hartmann/Essays/Intertwined. htm; for an attempt to develop a paratext concept independent of Genette's specifications
66. Francisco J. Ricardo, "Stalking the Paratext: Speculations on Hypertext Links as Second Order Text," in Hypertext '98: The Ninth ACM Conference on Hypertext, ed. Kaj Grønaek, Elli Mylonas, and Frank Shipman (Pittsburgh, 1998), pp. 142-51
67. Compare Stuart Moulthrop, "You Say You Want a Revolution? Hypertext and the Laws of Media," in Essays in Postmodern Culture, ed. Eyal Amiran and John Unsworth (New York, 1993), pp. 69-97
68. Alexander Kluge, "Das Lesen des Textes wirklicher Verhältnisse: Die schwerwiegende Frage, ob wir die Chiffre des 20. Jahrhunderts verstehen" (1985), in Oskar Negt and Kluge, Der unterschätzte Mensch: Gemeinsame Philosophie, 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main, 2001), 1:862-63
69. On the allograph commentary in general, see Fohrmann, "Der Kommentar als diskursive Einheit der Wissenschaft," in Diskurstheorien und Literaturwissenschaft, ed. Fohrmann and Müller (Frankfurt am Main, 1988), pp. 244-57; on the allograph paratext in particular, see P, pp. 337-39
70. Wolfgang Neuber, "Topik als Lektüremodell: Zur frühneuzeitlichen Praxis der Texterschließung durch Marginalien am Beispiel einiger Drucke von Hans Stadens Wahrhaftiger Historia," in Topik und Rhetorik: Ein interdisziplinäres Symposium, ed. Thomas Schirren and Ueding (Tübingen, 2000), pp. 177-97
71. and Ursula Geitner, "Allographie: Autorschaft und Paratext - im Fall der Portugiesischen Briefe," in Paratexte in Literatur, Film, Fernsehen, pp. 55-99