Literature created in digital media is often fluid and ephemeral, shaped by the shifting timelines of social platforms or by experimental forms in which texts move, fade, or disappear. Conventional literary studies, however, rely on the stability of the printed text, enabling rereading, quotation, and archival analysis. As digital texts become constitutively ephemeral, these methodologies face significant limitations. This contribution addresses this challenge by drawing on theatre, dance, and performance studies, disciplines accustomed to engaging with transient objects. By reformulating their methods, the project reframes ephemerality not as a technical byproduct but as a core poetic principle of digital literature, approaching literary texts through a flexible and performative analytical lens.
Nina Tolksdorf (Sun,) studied this question.