Aarthi Vadde, "We the Platform: How the Internet Changed Twenty-First-Century Literature (Columbia UP, 2026)
New Books in Science, Technology, and Society

Aarthi Vadde, "We the Platform: How the Internet Changed Twenty-First-Century Literature (Columbia UP, 2026)

B2Upper-intermediateAugust 15, 202632 min

We the Platform: How the Internet Changed Twenty-First-Century Literature (Columbia University Press 2026) by Aarthi Vadde is a groundbreaking account of mass writing in the twenty-first century, identifying rarely recognized forms of literary possibility amid the profound upheavals in traditional publishing. Aarthi Vadde examines the explosion of textuality across digital platforms: countless writers, diverse publishing formats, and vast communities of readers responding to stories publicly and instantly. Countering ubiquitous decline narratives, she offers powerful examples of literary innovation, adaptation, and survival. Among them are Jonathan Lethem and Lauren Oyler’s challenges to individualist ideas of authorship, the Twitter fiction of Jenn...

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Welcome to the New Books Network. Welcome to New Books Network. I'm your host, Arnab Lattaroy, an assistant professor of literature and postcolonial theory at Florida Gulf Coast University.

0:15

Today I have the great honor of welcoming Professor Arti Wadde, who is here to talk about her new book, Read the Platform, How the Internet Changed 21st Century Literature, Columbia University Press, 2026. Before we begin, I'd like to briefly introduce Arthi to our audience. Arthi Vadday is E. Blake Byrne, Associate Professor of English

0:40

at Duke University. Her new book is Read the Platform, How the Internet Changed 21st Century Literature, Columbia University Press, 2026. She is also the author of Shimara's Of Form, and Internationalism Beyond Europe, Columbia University Press 2016, and also the winner of 2018 Harry Levine Prize awarded by the ACLU. She co-edits the Norton Anthology of

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