Critical genres

The genre of literary criticism has always strained under the antagonism of an inherently dialogical structure piercing its generic boundaries, and a strong monologizing tendency to gain more or less absolute critical authority. The generic markers of criticism create a distance both to their object and their addressee that tries to make answers/comments impossible. This is about to change drastically in the near future, as critical genres are migrating to the internet, and are now arguably evolving into new genres by processes of delimitation and iterative re-dialogisation. This article takes a close look at the generic changes that critical discourse experiences while being transformed by the possibilities of computer-mediated communication.

• Affiliations: 1: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München