Out of Print: E-Books and Flea Markets in Literary Studies

The analysis revolves around late twentieth-Century out-of-print books. While the expectation of availability that comes from digitized texts influences how we approach literature, these texts would be impossible to find without second-hand bookstores and flea markets. By focusing on underground queer New York works as a case study, we will see how a recovery of these texts and the dynamics that surrounds it provide an interesting perspective on the relationship between print and digital books, small and mainstream publishing, and the implications of this natural v. digital selection when it comes to canonicity, and their consequences for scholarly work.