Paul Eggert

Text-encoding, Theories of the Text, and the ‘Work-Site’

This essay emerges from the recent debates in editorial theory and, on the practical level, from a project for producing electronic scholarly editions. It reflects on the nature of text, explores the implications for textencoding in relation to recent debate, and outlines a methodology using stand-off markup within which text encoding can respond to the theoretically enunciated problems.

The Conservator's gaze and the nature of the work

Aesthetic philosophers, theorizing literary critics and editors, and reflective commentators on the restoration of paintings, buildings, and monuments have repeatedly shown that the concept of the work is anything but self-evident. The present essay examines major attempts to conceptualize this problematic area since the 1930s, before proposing a solution based on the semiotics of C. S. Peirce and Theodor Adornos negative dialectics that will help clarify thinking when practices of preservation and conservation are being determined. The language and thinking come ultimately from scholarly editorial activity; the working assumption is that, with suitable adjustments for the medium, it will apply to other historically orientated forms of cultural conservation.

Recent Editorial Theory in the Anglophone World: A Review Article

Abstract This article is a survey of the development of anglophone editorial theory during the 1990s. It explains the divergence of the German and Anglo-American editorial traditions, especially from the late 1960s, and describes the emergence in the 1990s of attempts to re-engage the two camps. The relinquishment of commitment on the part of anglophone editors to critical editing based on idealist final-intentions methodology is traced, and the rise of interest in a materialist and sociological orientation is surveyed. Sometimes called “versionist” editing, it is still in development. A critique of its theoretical shortcomings – basically, a failure to respect textual agency – is provided, by means of close attention to writings by Jerome J. McGann and Jack Stillinger. Finally, the future prospects for editorial theory are assessed in light of the recent commitment to the development of electronic editions.