Joseph Tabbi (born 1960) is a US scholar and theorist, notable for his contributions to the fields of American literature and electronic literature,[1] and as the editor in chief of Electronic Book Review for over 30 years.[2] Tabbi retired from his position as full professor at the University of Bergen in 2026, and is now a professor emeritus.[3][4] He was previously a professor of American literature at the University of Illinois Chicago.[5]

Academic career

Tabbi received a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1989 for a dissertation titled "The Psychology of Machines: Technology and Personal Identity in the Work of Norman Mailer and Thomas Pynchon."[6] Tabbi joined the faculty of the University of Illinois Chicago, and then in 2019 he moved to the University of Bergen to take a position as Professor of English Literature.[7] In 2023 he became one of the Principal Investigators of the Center for Digital Narrative.

He was the first scholar granted access to the archives of the reclusive novelist William Gaddis,[8] and is the author of Nobody Grew but the Business: On the Life and Work of William Gaddis[9][10] and the editor of The Bloomsbury Handbook of Electronic Literature[11] (2017) and Post-Digital: Critical Debates from electronic book review[12] (2020). His other works include Cognitive Fictions[13] (2002) and Postmodern Sublime: Technology and American Writing from Mailer to Cyberpunk[14] (1996). In 2024 he published The Cambridge Introduction to Literary Posthumanism.[15]

Tabbi edits the scholarly journal Electronic Book Review[16] (ebr), which he founded with Mark Amerika.[2] Tabbi is also the founder of Consortium on Electronic Literature (CELL), an "open access, non-commercial resource offering centralized access to literary databases, archives, and institutional programs" in the humanities.[17]

Selected works

Edited books

  • Reading Matters: Narrative in the New Media Ecology (Cornell University Press,1997) (with Michael Wutz) ISBN 9780801484032
  • Paper Empire: William Gaddis and the World System (University of Alabama Press, 2007) (with Rone Shavers et al.) ISBN 9780817354060
  • The Bloomsbury Handbook of Electronic Literature (2017)
  • Post-Digital: Critical Debates from electronic book review (2019)

References

  1. ^ "Google Scholar". scholar.google.com
  2. ^ Amerika, Mark (2026-01-18). "Two or Three Things I Know About the Early History of the electronic book review and How Joe Tabbi and I Brainstormed Its Inception". Electronic Book Review. doi:10.64773/34b4-49b3. ISSN 1553-1139
  3. ^ Montfort, Nick (2026-01-18). "Joe Tabbi as Literary Scholar and Cyberpunk". Electronic Book Review. doi:10.64773/3658-499e. ISSN 1553-1139
  4. ^ Wittig, Rob (2026). "Celebrating Joseph Tabbi: Gathering". Electronic Book Review. Retrieved 2026-03-24.
  5. ^ Rettberg, Scott (2026-01-18). "What I Know about Joe: Introduction to a Celebration of Joseph Tabbi". Electronic Book Review. doi:10.64773/3b2a-c26b. ISSN 1553-1139
  6. ^ WorldCat item page
  7. ^ "Joseph Paul Tabbi". University of Bergen. Retrieved 2024-02-23.
  8. ^ "Joseph Tabbi - Penguin Random House". PenguinRandomhouse.com
  9. ^ Scott, Joanna (30 July 2015). "The Virtues of Difficult Fiction". The Nation. – via www.thenation.com.
  10. ^ Tabbi, Joseph (May 2015). Nobody Grew but the Business. First ed. Northwestern University Press. ISBN 978-0-8101-3142-2. Retrieved 19 October 2020.
  11. ^ "The Bloomsbury Handbook of Electronic Literature"
  12. ^ "Post-Digital"
  13. ^ Herman, David (15 December 2018). "Cognitive Fictions (review)". Symploke. 12 (1): 294–296. doi:10.1353/sym.2005.0018. S2CID 143953971
  14. ^ Mascaro, John (1999). "Kant Touch This: Joseph Tabbi's "postmodern Sublime"". Studies in the Novel. 31 (4): 506–515. JSTOR 29533360
  15. ^ Tabbi, Joseph (2024). The Cambridge introduction to literary posthumanism. Cambridge introductions to topics. Cambridge; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-009-25645-2.
  16. ^ "about ebr – electronic book review". electronicbookreview.com. 2014-01-18.
  17. ^ Tabbi, Joseph. "About". CellProject.net. Consortium on Electronic Literature. Retrieved 24 October 2020.