1 The German original was published in 2021 by Carl Hanser Verlag. In the following, all citations pertain to the 2022 English translation. Dimensions of the Digital in Contemporary Literature from a Postmigrant Perspective Anna-Lena Eick 1 “‘Where Do You Come From? ’ ‘I’m from the Internet. I live online’.” In a scene from Mithu Sanyal’s novel Identitti (2022) 1 , the protagonist, Nivedita, is introduced in a radio interview as one of the “must know POCs [people of colour]” (Sanyal 2022: 8) and is asked to define the term people of colour: “POCs are the folx who always get asked, ‘Where are you from? ’” (Sanyal 2022: 8). Nivedita’s response does not prevent the moderator, Verena, from repeating the same question. Nivedita’s reply, though subtly framed, highlights the underlying tension in the phrasing - particularly with the unspoken yet clear implication of “really” (i.e. Where are you really from? ). Her response is emblematic: “I’m from the Internet. I live online” (Sanyal 2022: 8). This moment exemplifies the exploration, reception, and integration of digital media in the context of a postmigrant perspective within Identitti, and, I argue, in transcul‐ tural contemporary literature more broadly. This trend opens a previously undertheorised area of research that links the impact of the ‘digital revolution’ with the application of postmigrant and postcolonial approaches to the analysis and interpretation of literary texts that engage with transcultural phenomena. These include the reflection on migration and integration, the negotiation of individual and cultural belonging and related generational differences, as well as the question of whether concepts of home and origin can be tied to any particular place at all. The increasing reflection and integration of digital mediality within the outlined corpus of transcultural contemporary literature demonstrates an orientation towards the textual integration of a postdigital perspective - a nexus that has not yet been sufficiently theorised. 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 This contribution therefore examines the intersection between the impact of the media transformation after digitalisation and transnational issues of cultural belonging and identity. Contemporary literary texts across languages, I contend, are increasingly grappling with the cultural, social, and media-related consequences of the digital transformation of our cultures and societies - or what might be considered a postdigital reality - and its epistemological implications, both in terms of content and form. This reflection on digital mediality in a postdigital mediascape often intersects with a socially critical stance adopted (whether implicitly or explicitly) by these texts, encouraging engagement with issues such as belonging, cultural identity, as well as racism and discrimination within current social structures - particularly in postmigrant societies. Literary texts situated at this intersection (transcultural phenomena in combination with postdigital insights) furthermore open an aesthetic space for the metadiscursive negotiation of these thematic and formal entanglements. In the following, I will present the nexus of transcultural phenomena (from a postmigrant perspective) and the radically changed mediascape of the postdigi‐ tal era, as an emerging area of research. The introductory section (2) elaborates on conceptual parallels and content correlations between the post-digital and the postmigrant (and, in direct dependence, the postcolonial), as well as their discursive formation. The third section (3) situates the intersection of postmigrant societies and cultures with a postdigital mediascape shaped by the fundamental impacts of the digital transformation within existing frameworks of inter-, trans-, and hyper-culturality. This is followed by a section (4) that showcases the various impacts of the postdigital on literary texts as a spectrum, and contrasts my approach with other propositions, such as electronic literature or ‘literature born digital’, to explore potentially new questions in literary and cultural studies. The subsequent sections (5 and 6) propose foundations extend‐ ing existing frameworks to include the media-transformative components of the postdigital, and illustrate possible points of departure in the context of a post-migrant perspective on contemporary literature. A brief exemplification of how three selected contemporary German-language texts published between 2016 and 2022 incorporate the postdigital in different ways into their narrative negotiations of cultural identity is intended to identify possible starting points for further research. My closing remarks (7) will point to a broader perspective on the postdigital in post-migrant contexts. This chapter thus demonstrates that the evolving intersections of digital transformation, identity, and cultural belonging not only highlight but also open new avenues for future research on how these dynamics reshape social as well as media structures and narrative forms in an increasingly, yet unevenly, interconnected world. 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 376 Anna-Lena Eick 2 As Stengel, van Looy, and Wallaschkowski point out, the technological innovation underlying the digital revolution or digital transformation is primarily the ability to transmit and store information in binary code: “There is some evidence that this is the beginning of a digital revolution, following the Neolithic and Industrial revolutions - the third great revolution in human history. The Neolithic Revolution was based on the cultivation of food and the Industrial Revolution on the use of machines to do work. The digital revolution is being driven by computers - the transmission and storage of information, rewritten in combinations of 0s and 1s, and sent to any location at high speed. This may sound unimpressive, but the results are world-shaking” (2017: XII, my translation). 2 Conceptual Parallels - Substantive Correlations? The terms postmigrant, postcolonial, and postdigital all serve as markers for transformative processes that similarly affect socio-cultural coexistence and underlying self-understandings. These terms open new epistemological perspectives in comparable ways. The following section lays the foundation for a triangulation of the post-phenomena invoked. It will examine the concep‐ tual parallels and substantive correlations between the postmigrant (in direct discursive dependence on the postcolonial) and the postdigital, as well as their implications for social dynamics and cultural narratives. 2.1 After The Digital Revolution: Postdigital Google Maps instead of folded paper maps, emails instead of letters, Zoom meetings instead of face-to-face communication - this list could go on, yet the outcome remains the same: digital media and technology have become integral to our society, culture, and communication (see Barthelmes and Sander 2001; Van Eimeren and Frees 2013). They have seemingly replaced, transformed, complemented, or extended the functions of analogue media, leading to a “radically changed overall mediascape”, as Irina Rajewsky aptly puts it (2023: 193; my translation), in which established positions and proportions have been - and continue to be - renegotiated. The revolutionary moment of the underlying technological developments has long since passed. 2 As early as 1998, Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the MIT Media Lab, declared “the digital revolution is over” (Negroponte 1998: n.p.), ushering in a postdigital “status quo” in Western culture and society. While Negroponte addressed the phenomenon in question as “Beyond digital” (1998), it has been discussed in recent decades under the term “post-digital” (see Jandrić, MacKenzie, and Knox 2023; Thon 2025; Lindberg 2025). The term postdigital does not mean ‘after the digital’ in the sense of overcoming or surpassing the 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 Dimensions of the Digital in Contemporary Literature from a Postmigrant Perspective 377 3 In this regard, Florian Cramer states: “From a strictly technological or scientific point of view [most] uses of the word ‘digital’ were inaccurate. […] Something can very well be ‘digital’ without being electronic, and without involving binary zeros and ones. It does digital state of development in media and technology. Rather, postdigital refers to a situation in which digital communication and networking processes have become so ubiquitous and normalised that they are no longer remarkable, as Alessandro Ludovico notes in the blurb of his 2013 monograph Post-digital Print: “In the post-digital age, digital technology is no longer a revolutionary phenomenon, but a normal part of everyday life”. Postdigital thus describes a collective process of familiarisation: a permanent embedding of digital media in the reality of everyday life, to such an extent that, as Negroponte suggests, it is more noticeable in its absence than in its presence: “Like air and drinking water, being digital will be noticed only by its absence, not its presence” (Negroponte 1998). The term postdigital has emerged in a variety of academic disciplines to describe an era in which digital media and related technologies have become the dominant aesthetic, social, and epistemological paradigm. The widespread discourse on the postdigital (since 2000) is inextricably linked to the techno‐ logical developments that have shaped this shift and that form the basis of the material reality of the postdigital age. Stephen Abblitt identifies three components that have significantly influenced and conditioned the digital paradigm, which, through its technological developments and innovations, forms the foundation for the postdigital era: “the mechanisation of calculation, the storage and retrieval of information in coded form, and the automatic execution of a sequence of operations critical to the advent of the computer age” (2019: 98). The tangible markers of the postdigital age, as well as possible abstractions of them in cultural-theoretical terms, will be discussed in more detail below. Without burrowing further into the intricate debates surrounding the defini‐ tions of digital and analogue, I would like to highlight what is significant for my conceptualisation of the postdigital. As Florian Cramer rather bluntly puts it, it is “a term that sucks - but it is useful” (2015: 13). Nontheless, it is worth noting the terminological and conceptual ambiguity surrounding the terms digital, postdigital, and their related compounds (e.g. digital mediality, postdigital aesthetics), as “the digital in ‘post-digital’ should not be understood in any technical-scientific or media-theoretical sense, but rather in the way the term is broadly used in popular culture” (2015: 15). When discussing digital media in an overall changed mediascape, the focus is not solely on the precise technical conditions of the “digital”, 3 but rather on the secondary developments associated 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 378 Anna-Lena Eick not even have to be related in any way to electronic computers of any other kind of computational device” (2015: 17). This conceptual fuzziness is vividly illustrated by an example from the field of music: “The fingerboard of a violin is analogue: it is fretless, and thus undivided and continuous. The fingerboard of a guitar, on the other hand, is digital: it is divided by frets into discrete notes” (2015: 18). 4 The term “postmigrant” [in German: das Postmigrantische] originates primarily from the socio-cultural context in Germany (cf. Foroutan 2019; Yildiz and Hill 2018). While the concept of a society in which migration and related phenomena are no longer new or alien can undoubtedly be applied to other national and cultural contexts, it is important to note that the situations in (mostly Western) immigration countries can differ significantly, even in terms of classifying a post-migrant social composition. These differences are due to specific historical circumstances, for example, the respective ways in which different countries have dealt with the colonial past and the varying degrees of active engagement with it. By taking these factors into account, we can develop a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of the postmigrant condition in different national contexts, recognising both the commonalities and the particularities shaped by each country’s historical experience. 5 Shermin Langhoff, former artistic director of the Gorki Theatre in Berlin, points to the subversive and critical potential inherent in the concept of postmigration, which (at least initially) is not a fact but rather a “social vision” that has yet to be realised (Langhoff 2018: 301). The postmigrant paradigm aims to provide “cross-ethnic explanations for core socio-political conflicts over recognition, equality of opportunity and participation in pluralist democracies” (Foroutan et al. 2018: 15; my translation). Such a state of affairs must be seen as a vision for the future and a goal to be strived for - and not as a social status quo that has already been achieved (cf. Hodaie and Hofmann 2024: 3). with the digital revolution: the widespread availability of digital technologies (e.g. smartphones, Big Data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence) and the accessibility of digital spaces (e.g. the Internet or social media). Therefore, the attributions and characteristics linked to the digital are primarily grounded in individual experiences with digital media in everyday life. These “(post)digital” possibilities - especially in the colloquial sense - have increasingly become routine in both their presence and application. This connection is encapsulated in the concept of the postdigital. 2.2 Post-Migration Alongside the process of familiarisation with the impacts of the digital trans‐ formation, another ‘post-concept’ has been circulating since the turn of the millennium: post-migration or the post-migrant. 4 This concept also aims not only to just identify or address a changed overall situation but to describes processes of familiarization. Central to this are migratory movements and the socio-cultural negotiations they entail, which have become ubiquitous, at least in theory. 5 In this context, the concept of the post-migrant signifies 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 Dimensions of the Digital in Contemporary Literature from a Postmigrant Perspective 379 that migration and spatial mobility are no longer novelties in an increasingly globalised world. Here, too, the prefix ‘post’ is not used to suggest the end of migration (see Foroutan 2019: 54); rather, it challenges binary categories of (non-)belonging in favour of embracing ambiguities and hybridities within migration societies. A purely temporal interpretation of the ‘post’ prefix is therefore inadequate in the case of the post-migrant (as well as the postdigital), since it “misjudges the critical potential that is originally inherent in the postmigrant”, as Hodaie and Hofmann aptly point out (2024: 3; my translation). In the case of the post-migrant, the prefix refers to the “overcoming of a dichotomous paradigm based on natio-ethno-culturally constructed dimensions of difference and belonging” (Mecheril 2010: 14; my translation). The critical (and sometimes activist) potential of the post-migrant, as invoked here, is to radically deconstruct “migration as an explanatory variable for alterity” (Foroutan et al. 2018: 15; my translation). In this sense, the ‘post’ in post-migrant presupposes an active questioning of existing discourses and demands a critical positioning towards hegemonic world and social orders. Following this line of thought, Yildiz and Hill identify the post-migrant as a concept that “requires overcoming thought patterns, rethinking the entire field in which the discourse of migration is embedded, [in short: ] as a contrapuntal interpretation of social conditions” (2018: 89; my translation). Descriptive categories that have frequently been used to classify texts in a transcultural context, such as “migration literature” or “refugee literature” risk promoting a special status and marginalisation of the phenomena in question, ultimately leading to the perception that authors writing from a “migration background” operate outside the national literary canon. To overcome these pit‐ falls of binary dichotomies, Moritz Schramm proposes adopting a postmigrant perspective, particularly when analysing contemporary literary texts. Migration and its consequences can be experienced and perceived by all members of an immigration society and by dissociating these issues from any special group affiliation, a broader examination of the topic becomes possible “just beyond binary logic” (Schramm 2018: 83; my translation). Regarding the post-migrant era, Petersen and Schramm note that the ha‐ bitualisation of migration in our societies leads directly to the need for a fundamental re-conceptualisation and reconfiguration of some deeply rooted and often unquestioned foundations of society and social coexistence. They argue that assumptions such as the idea of a homogeneous national identity, the clear-cut division between ‘us’ and ‘them’, the notion that migration is a deviation from the norm, and the belief that mainstream society sets the standards to which minorities must adapt, are outdated and need to be re- 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 380 Anna-Lena Eick examined to reflect the realities of a globalised and (post)migratory world (see Petersen and Schramm 2017). Accordingly, Hodaie and Hofmann emphasise that any “reductionist knowledge production about migration” and the closely related “hegemonic readings of migration” (2024: 3; my translation) must be proactively suspended in terms of the post-migrant paradigm and replaced by a social and cultural normalisation of the phenomena in question (i.e. migration and a post-migrant state of society). The new ways of thinking addressed here - in line with the affordances of the post-migrant paradigm - aim at normalising of post-migrant compositions of societies and include, for example, institutional reforms that promote inclusivity, updated education policies, and frameworks for more diverse societal participation. Such processes of adaptation primarily seek to integrate diversity into the fabric of the (now post-migrant) society while explicitly addressing the complexities of a heterogeneous demographic structure. The homogeneity and singularity of the assumption of a dominant culture (in German: ‘Leitkultur,’ see Tibi 1998), the constitution of societies as nationally or geographically limited entities, and the underlying questions of so‐ cial belonging as restrictive mechanisms of exclusion can thus be fundamentally overcome and rethought of as heterogeneous, fluid and, above all, pluralistic concepts. These perspectives are in turn intrinsically linked to altered logics of representation and adapted terminologies. This includes the need to critically examine the extent to which it is still appropriate, in terms of wording and nomenclature, in a post-migrant society, to distinguish, for example, between migrants and natives or, at the level of literary production, between a national and a so-called ‘intercultural’ canon. Altered literary forms of representation in post-migrant contexts fundamentally reject binary categorisations, for example by employing narrative methods of multiperspectivity and polyphony, or by textually exploring liminal spaces (i.e. the virtual space as a supposedly secure realm or one of negotiation). In doing so, they challenge established notions of homogeneous societies and cultural identities, foreground marginalised voices, and reinterpret discriminatory stereotypes (including those deeply embedded in institutional structures). 2.3 Triangulation of the Postdigital, Postmigrant, and Postcolonial Perspectives These calls for profound changes in adapted terminology, innovative cogni‐ tive and/ or narrative scripts, and new mindsets can similarly be applied to our ‘media condition’ following the digital transformation of our cultures 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 Dimensions of the Digital in Contemporary Literature from a Postmigrant Perspective 381 6 The term “media condition” used here to describe the overall mediascape “after the digital transformation” is a conceptual and terminological borrowing from the “postmedia condition” [in German: “post-mediale Kondition,” or “postmedialer Zustand”] outlined by Peter Weibel (2004, 2012). Weibel describes the influence of “old” and “new” media (here: non-technical versus technical media) as a so-called post-media condition: “Consequently, this state of current art practice is best referred to as the post-media condition, because no single medium is dominant any longer; instead, all of the different media influence and determine each other. The set of all media forms a universal selfcontained medium. This is the post-media condition of the world of the media in the practice of the arts today” (Weibel 2012). The following insight from Weibel can be productively applied to the media condition “after digital transformation” (or: a postdigital media condition), including the new - and constantly changing - post-digital media mix: “With the experiences of the new media we can afford to take a new look at the old media. With the practices of the new technological media we can also embark on a fresh evaluation of the practices of the old non-technological media” (Weibel 2012). 7 In this respect, both concepts can be said to advance epistemological innovations to a certain extent. Following Foucault, the episteme can be described as “the total set of relations that unite, at a given period, the discursive practices that give rise to epistemological figures, sciences, and possibly formalised systems” (Foucault 1973: 191). This notion is particularly applicable to the concepts of the post-migrant and the postdigital, as both operate as frameworks that reconfigure existing discourses and knowledge systems. In their epistemological dimension, both concepts illustrate how and societies into a postdigital condition, 6 especially in its epistemological dimensions. These epistemological shifts include, among other things, the decentralisation of (authoritative) knowledge and (hegemonic) power, the firm anchoring of alternative interpretations of cultural identities, and a focus on the marginalised experiences of migration beyond mechanisms of exclusion. However, the possibilities inherent in digital platforms, for example, challenge the mechanisms of hegemonic gatekeeping as much as they risk reproducing them. Digital media potentially allow marginalised voices to reshape dominant discourses on migration, identity, and belonging. In the course of the digital transformation that has led to our current postdigital age, fundamental and epistemological shifts have occurred that have not yet been fully theorised in the context of (conceptual) reconfigurations, (terminological) reformulations and socio-cultural repositionings, especially from a post-migrant perspective. The entrenchment of both migration and digital mediality presents a signif‐ icant challenge to established schemas and socio-cultural assumptions (e.g. the assumption of a fixed notion of identity or belonging directly tied to the place of birth). Both the post-migrant and the postdigital condition serve to discursively demarcate processes of negotiation, as well as to initiate or potentially interrupt them. They promote the redefinition of contemporary epistemologies by challenging established binaries and power structures. 7 The 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 382 Anna-Lena Eick epistemes shape and transform the conditions under which knowledge is produced, legitimated, and practised in contemporary contexts. 8 Florian Cramer proposes the equation as a heading: “postdigital = postcolonial” (2015: 14). He states: “Postcolonialism does not in any way mean the end of colonialism […] but rather its mutation into new, less obvious but no less pervasive power structures that have a profound and lasting impact on languages and cultures” (15). 9 With Yildiz (2005: 327-329), Castro Varela and Dhawan (2015), and Terkessidis (2019), it should be noted that the concept of the post-migrant was also established in the context of postcolonialism and even more as an “analogy to the discourse on postcolonialism” (Yildiz 2021: 71; my translation) and is therefore historically and genealogically rooted in the postcolonial discourse from the 1990s onwards, the issues addressed (Eurocentrism, hegemonic historiography), and the challenges identified (irritating hegemonic orders, opening new horizons of experience). postmigrant perspective, for example, conceptually diminishes the distinction between ‘foreign’ and ‘native’, and rejects Eurocentric and exclusive notions of belonging, while the postdigital perspective questions the boundaries between digital and analogue as well as the notion of a place of origin in a globalised and digitalised world (and in contrast to a geographically detached virtual space). These conditions foster new ways of conceptualising identity, social relations, belonging, and communication. This, in turn, creates an inextricable link between the concepts of both the post-migrant and the postdigital and the antecedent concept of post-colonialism, 8 which, in terms of discursive history, directly precedes the emergence of the post-migrant framework. 9 As Bartels et al. observe, the ‘post’ in post-colonialism marks “a critical perspective and forms of ideological positioning that are ‘post’ colonial in that they question, critique, refract, subvert, or offer alternatives to colonial trajectories of ordering the world” (2019: 2-3). The attributes and goals ascribed to post-colonialism can partly be translated into the post-conceptualisations discussed above. The intertwining of postmigrant, postdigital, and postcolonial concepts reveals complex power dynamics in contemporary discourses. All three conditions share ongoing transformative effects rather than marking definitive endpoints. In all three cases, the prefix signifies - among other things - the inevitable consequences of the new intellectual traditions (in the case of the “post-digital,” Murray 2020: 448). A postcolonial perspective is, for example, inherently tied to the effort of exposing and undermining the reproduction of epistemic violence, which sustains colonial legacies and their associated inequalities. This impact is particularly amplified within the postdigital era, as digital media can extend the scope of structural inequalities through, for example, digital platforms and algorithms privileging dominant narratives, and potentially obscuring resistance due to information and data asymmetry (see Grünberger 2021: 219f.). 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 Dimensions of the Digital in Contemporary Literature from a Postmigrant Perspective 383 The postdigital mediascape hence presents both opportunities and challenges for postcolonial and postmigrant contexts, necessitating a critical analysis of how digital mediality and its underlying technologies reshape established con‐ cepts, terminology, and theoretical frameworks. For instance, the postcolonial dichotomy of ‘periphery’ and ‘centre’, traditionally shaped by geographic and power-based hierarchies, is confronted by the virtual space, which is often perceived and described as open and decentralised. Similarly, Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of the ‘Third Space’ (Bhabha 1994: 54), originally rooted in cultural hybridity, can be reinterpreted in the postdigital realm as a digital (i.e. virtual) space where new forms of identity and interaction emerge, altering its charac‐ teristics and terminological implications. This possible interplay underscores the need to rethink such concepts in light of the transformative impact of digital transformation. Postmigration, postcolonialism, and a postdigital status quo influence sociocultural coexistence, underlying self-understandings, and their epistemological implications with comparable intensity. Thus, these three concepts not only exhibit conceptual parallels but also share content-related correlations, thereby inscribing themselves, through their terminology, into a tradition of postconceptualities. Having established the relevance and interconnectedness of these three post-conceptualisations, the following section delves deeper into the emerging research field that examines postdigital dimensions in contemporary literary texts from a post-migrant perspective. This exploration will focus on the field’s connections to existing cultural theories, particularly those that integrate digital mediality. By doing so, I intend to develop a theoretically grounded foundation for the subsequent cursory insight into contemporary German literature through a postmigrant lens. 3 Digital Transformation and Culture To combine the postdigital age with a postmigrant perspective, while continuing and transcending postcolonial thought, cultural studies approaches offer the most promising way forward. These approaches, which examine (cultural) exchange through the lenses of mobility, migration, and digital mediality, provide a solid foundation for integrating these interrelated concepts. The former have been explored under the headings of ‘interculturality’ (see Lescovec 2011; Heimböckel and Weinberg 2014), ‘transculturality’ (see Welsch 1994, 2001; Waldenfels 2006), and ‘hyper-culturality’ (see Byung-Chul Han 2005), all of which share a fundamental departure from the notion of culture as a closed 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 384 Anna-Lena Eick 10 Herder’s “sphere ideal” characterises cultures as self-contained systems and “selfcontained spheres” (Schachtner 2014: 228), constituted internally by postulated homo‐ geneity and externally by explicit demarcation (cf. Welsch 2012: 27). Regardless of which orientation and conceptual contours within cultural theory one wishes to follow, the current state of research and consensus is that culture is to be understood as “permeative and not separatist” (Welsch 2012: 26; my translation), and that metaphors of networking, interweaving, and rhizome are more suitable as guiding principles for culture than the metaphor of the metaphorical sphere (cf. Welsch 2012: 28f.). sphere. 10 The latter, in its omnipresence, has frequently been identified as a potential factor influencing phenomena of cultural change and exchange. Addressing digital transformation alongside transcultural negotiation efforts, particularly in the context of migration, concepts such as transculturality and transnationality are used to make sense of socio-cultural developments intricately linked to the rise of digital media (cf. Schachtner 2015: 228). Similarly, media theorist Friedrich Kittler, as early as 1986, advocated for the integration of cultural studies and media transformation, emphasising the transformative effect of culture on media change: “One can only know as much about people as the media can store and transmit” (Kittler 1986: preface; my translation) thus pointing to the fact that “culture is [always] a product of its technologies” as Hartmann concisely puts it (2008: 254; my translation). This perspective is reflected in concepts of interculturality, transculturality, and hyper-culturality, which offer various points of contact with a postdigital condition and map possible interactions. In the edited volume Von der digitalen zur interkulturellen Revolution, Ursula Reutner poses the crucial question of whether “the digital revolution […] actually leads to an intercultural revolu‐ tion” (2012: 25; my translation). She focuses primarily on the possibilities for intercultural dialogue between two cultures by drawing on a concept of interculturality, and thus examines the juxtaposition of self and other, which allows her to highlight the process of boundary-crossing. In her analysis of interculturality and alterity, Ortrud Gutjahr also concludes that, from an intercultural perspective, cultural exchange often crosses borders in such a way that the “inter itself ” (Gutjahr 2002: 353; my translation) becomes the central focus. This interstice - a concept that shares its prefix with the most prominent representative of digital mediality, the Internet - facilitates the negotiation and shifting of boundaries (cf. Hofmann 2006: 12). Digital mediality, too, is characterised by boundary-crossing, or more precisely, by a state of increased permeability (both materially and conceptually). Virtual spaces, for example, greatly expand and simplify opportunities for communication and participation for individuals - at least in theory. Consequently, culturally specific processes of negotiation and exchange are also fostered in the digital realm, which functions 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 Dimensions of the Digital in Contemporary Literature from a Postmigrant Perspective 385 as a resonant and projective environment with unique potential for addressing polysemy, hybridity, and ambiguity. Transcultural approaches furthermore offer points of contact with digital mediality, particularly under the auspices of fluidity, dynamism, and interde‐ pendence - qualities inherent in various cultural representations and sociopolitical negotiation processes. Kimmich and Schahadat, for example, argue that globalisation and the digital revolution are transforming cultures so radically that they can no longer be understood in purely territorial terms or tied to homogeneous communities (see Kimmich and Schahadat 2012: 8). The resulting “mutual permeations” (Kimmich and Schahadat 2012: 8; my translation) - or, as Wolfgang Welsch calls it, “transculturation” (Welsch 2012: 29; my translation) - in turn have implications for the use, integration, and understanding of digital mediality. The research outlined in the relevant interand transcultural theoreti‐ cal approaches shows that these frameworks engage with medial transformation processes, partly reflecting their significance. In many cases, they suggest a fundamental and dynamic interrelation between what has to be identified as a postdigital mediascape and transcultural dynamics. The philosopher Byung-Chul Han takes this a step further with his concept of hyper-culturality, explicitly positioning the nexus between cultural transfer and digital transformation at the centre of his research. While one may not agree with all of Han’s techno-positivist positions, it is significant that he identifies the developments of globalisation and the associated worldwide digital networking (i.e. the Internet) as a culturally revolutionary moment. According to Han, the process set in motion by globalisation and digitalisation “more or less abolishes for us the concept of culture with all its fundamental coordinates - space, time, identity, memory”, as Weertje Willms aptly summarises (Willms 2016: 65; my translation). Han describes contemporary society as an Internet-based, globally networked hyperreality that is directly linked to the digital revolution in its constitution and development: “Hyper-culturality presupposes certain historical, socio-cultural, technical, or media-related processes [such as digital transformation]” (Han 2005: 60; my translation). While the concepts of interand transculturality primarily treat the digital transformation as a symptomatic and marginal phenomenon, the implications of digitalisation for culture and society are centrally anchored in the concept of hyper-culturality. However, this interrelationship has not yet been sufficiently theorised or systematically investigated within the fields discussed so far (especially from the perspective of literary and cultural studies). The link between digital transformations and transculturality, while occasionally vague 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 386 Anna-Lena Eick 11 However, this development does not sufficiently differentiate the various parameters of influence (in terms of mediality on the one hand and culturality on the other) of this increase in complexity. In the research discourse, the undifferentiated coupling of transculturally relevant topics with the effects of the postdigital status quo has often led to a conflation of the concepts of the digital transformation of society and culture and globalisation or to the assumption of an arbitrary relationship between the two developments. This is problematic, as it allows the parameters of influence on a changing social and media situation, which are initially addressed by both concepts - each separately - to become mixed and thus blurred. 12 For example, in their work Doing Digital Migration Studies, Leurs and Ponzanesi (2024) provide clarification on how deeply the impacts of the digital transformation have influenced migration studies. The anthology explores the intersection of digital technologies and migration, offering insights into how digital practices shape migrant experiences and belongings. 13 It has often been pointed out that art and literature, in particular, can be understood as both reflections of and reactions to changing media situations. Kittler (1999), Bolter and Grusin (1999), and Hayles (2008), among others, argue, albeit from different perspectives, that media changes are steadily reflected in artistic practice (e.g. literature) and unspecific, allows for addressing the increasing complexity of modern societies in a highly globalised world. 11 At this point, it can be concluded that the relationship between the digital transformation and cultural development calls for - and indeed produces - new ways of thinking and perceiving, thus having a significant impact on processes of negotiation in terms of cultural identity, nationality, culturality, and the establishment or disruption of socio-cultural orders as represented in art and literature. 12 4 Approaches to the Postdigital Condition: A Literary Spectrum? The lasting impact of the digital transformation of culture and society on contemporary life is reflected in the postdigital condition in literature, not only through thematic explorations but, more importantly, through a fundamental renegotiation of literary production, distribution, reception, and, crucially, narrative representation. AI-supported processes, for example, are expanding the range of creative writing possibilities, while new digital platforms are revolutionising the dissemination of literary works - transformations that, in turn, influence reading habits and foster more interactive forms of literary reception (cf. McGurl 2021). However, and this is the central focus of the delineation of the emerging field of research presented in this contribution, literary representation also functions as a mirror of the evolving mediascape. 13 This is evident in the integration of, 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 Dimensions of the Digital in Contemporary Literature from a Postmigrant Perspective 387 in a variety of ways, and that this reflection affects both the content and the form of, for example, literary works. It is crucial to understand the reflection of media changes in literature as a continuous process, which further emphasises the close connection between media development and cultural production. 14 Since the early 2000s, the postdigital condition has attracted the interest of a wide range of disciplines. To illustrate the breadth of the postdigital debate in existing research, I would like to mention a few studies as examples: Ludovico’s Post-Digital Print: The Mutation of Publishing Since 1894 (2012) examines the evolution of publishing from a media history perspective and concludes that there is no one-way street from analogue to digital, but that couplings occur in both directions. In Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing (2016), Matthew G. Kirschenbaum provides a digital humanities perspective in his examination of the introduction of word processing software and how this transformed literary production and writing as a cultural practice. Lev Manovich’s The Language of New Media (2002) examines the aesthetics of digital media from the perspective of media and film studies. In Radiant Textuality (2001), Jerome McGann’s literary studies focus on how digital technologies and the World Wide Web are transforming traditional methods of textual analysis and literary studies. Sy Taffel’s Perspectives on the Postdigital: Beyond Rhetoric of Progress and Novelty (2016) is devoted to various attempts in cultural and media studies to define the term ‘postdigital’, concluding that the concept goes far beyond a mere rhetoric of progress and allows for a critical examination of the embedding of digital technologies in social, economic, and political contexts. or reference to, multimedia constellations, characteristics of digital mediality, and the innovative aesthetic strategies associated with them. Literature, as a seismograph, can thus serve as an indicator of the effects of the ‘postdigital condition’. It is important to emphasise again that this condition is not new but has long since become an established reality of the mediascape surrounding us. A growing body of cultural, media, and literary studies since 2000 has explored the changing relationship between culture and a postdigital media‐ scape, since “digital media and worldwide networking […] have significantly changed and are significantly changing the perception and reflection […] as well as the possibilities and status of contemporary literature” (Kreuzmair and Schumacher 2022: 1; my translation). This phase following the digital revolution is characterised by “far-reaching, irreversible social change [and] an enormous diversification of cultural possibilities” (Stalder 2016: 10f.; my translation), making it particularly relevant to transcultural questions. The diverse disciplinary approaches to the postdigital phenomenon reflect its wideranging impact, and this heterogeneity is similarly evident in literature and the arts, where engagement with the postdigital condition manifests in multiple ways. 14 The digital transformation - and the affordances of the postdigital age - have undoubtedly reshaped all aspects of the literary field (cf. Bourdieu 1992). 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 388 Anna-Lena Eick 15 While studies such as Postdigital Storytelling (Jordan 2020), Digital Modernism (Pressman 2014) and The Aesthetics of Net Literature (Gendolla and Schäfer 2002) focus primarily on texts whose concrete constitution depends on machine codes, hypertext structures, and networks, Elias Kreuzmair and Eckhard Schumacher’s Literatur nach der Digitalisierung (2022) and Anna Weigel-Heller’s Fictions of the Internet (2018), for example, convincingly show that non-web-based texts also increasingly reflect and negotiate medial transforma‐ tions. The habitualisation to digitality has created a new context in which aesthetics, strategies of representation, and modes of literary production are redefined, alongside shifts in reading practices and critical reception. The fundamental transformation of the literary system is driven and conditioned by various components: Gendolla and Schäfer, for example, highlight a complex and dynamic “coexistence, juxtaposition and interweaving of media-technological, social, economic and, not least, aesthetic developments and radical upheavals” in what they describe as a postdigital “paradigm shift in literary communication” (Gendolla and Schäfer 2002: 1f.; my translation). The possible effects of this shift - observable in literary works that emerge in a state after the digital transformation - can be understood as part of a fluid spectrum. At one end of this spectrum lies electronic literature (cf. Hayles 2008) or net literature (cf. Hartling 2002), which refers to a form of literature that is digitally “born” - or, to put it less dramatically, created and encoded within a digital environment (cf. Pressman 2014: 2; Alexenberg 2011). At the other end are those literary works that engage with digital practices, comment on them, or explore their cultural implications, yet remain firmly rooted (both materially and programmatically) in the analogue medium of the printed text or intentionally non-networked forms of literature. Contemporary literary texts in a postmigrant context increasingly demonstrate that even a textually indexed - and thus non-web-based - engagement with digital mediality is becoming more relevant. 15 These texts reflect and negotiate medial transformations by applying what I term postdigital poetics; they engage with the postdigital condition through textual strategies, meta-reflexive commentaries, or hybrid aesthetic forms. This engagement influences, challenges, and reshapes both medial and literary structures, as well as modes and logics of representation beyond mere utilisation as a narrative backdrop for the storyworld. In this way, a decidedly non-web-based literature can critically and productively engage with the phenomenon of digital mediality and with the broader shifts within the postdigital media landscape - particularly in the realm of fiction. Accordingly, a non-web-based, text-immanent approach to the forms, func‐ tions, and characteristics of digital mediality can furthermore, or perhaps even 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 Dimensions of the Digital in Contemporary Literature from a Postmigrant Perspective 389 more effectively, challenge “contemporary culture and its reigning aesthetic values” (Pressman 2014: 2) - an achievement that Pressman, for her part, attributes ‘only’ to electronic or digital literature. My approach, however, shifts the focus to the manifestations of the postdigital in analogue print literature and thus raises a crucial question: How does the postdigital manifest in contemporary analogue literature, and to what extent can this perspective be linked productively to a post-migrant perspective? 5 Expansion of Existing Frameworks: Media-Transformative Components of the Postdigital An examination of contemporary literary analysis in the postmigrant context reveals that its conceptual foundation is often rooted in postcolonialism (cf. Göttsche, Dunker and Dürbeck 2017; Felbel 2012; Yildiz 2022). This reliance is reflected in an orientation towards, and the adoption of, postcolonial terminol‐ ogy, frequently drawing on the works of Gayatri Spivak, Homi K. Bhabha, and Edward Said. Concepts originating in postcolonial studies, such as hybridity, Third Space, and the dichotomy of periphery and centre, have undoubtedly facilitated, if not enabled, a productive engagement with culturally relevant developments, advancing both literary analysis and postcolonial knowledge production (see Bartels et al. 2019). However, the intersection of postcolonial and post-migrant approaches (cf. Yildiz 2022; Hodaie and Hofmann 2024) has thus far largely overlooked the fact that the digital transformation has brought about not only technical and economic but also profound epistemological and perceptual shifts. These shifts extend beyond technical and economic dimensions to influence cultural discourse, social structures, and knowledge production, fundamentally reshaping the very frameworks through which we analyse literature. A triangulation of these post-dynamics - post-digitalisation, post-migration, and prior: post-colonialism (see Flick 2011) - offers a long-overdue expansion of perspectives on transculturally relevant issues. Within the framework of the postdigital, it becomes particularly important to examine how digital transformation processes shape the perception, contouring, and representation of key concepts, terms, and phenomena in the context of global cultural developments. Thus, I ask: how does the omnipresence of digital mediality influence the logic of literary representation, particularly in relation to the pre‐ sentation and negotiation of transcultural challenges? This perspective remains an underexplored research area and suggests that a post-migrant perspective on contemporary literary explorations of culturally relevant phenomena could 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 390 Anna-Lena Eick 16 The specific nexus of temporality and postdigitality has already been explored by Kreuz‐ mair and Schumacher in their volume Literatur nach der Digitalisierung: Zeitkonzepte und Gegenwartsdiagnosen (2022), especially in Schumacher’s essay: “Gegenwartsverge‐ genwärtigung: Über Zeitdiagnosen, literarische Verfahren und Soziale Medien.” 17 Jessica Pressman, for example, describes electronic literature as necessarily “compara‐ tive” (2017: 248), arguing that literary approaches no longer “compare only language and text, but also the media formats and ecologies that support them” (2017: 248). In my view, this understanding can also be applied to texts that engage with digital mediality outside of the digital space. Analyses of texts that refer to postdigital mediality (without necessarily being tied to web-based structures) can support a paradigm shift within comparative literature that links and expands the understanding of literary texts to include a postdigital medial component. benefit from incorporating a - yet to be fully defined - postdigital dimension into literary analysis. The formal and aesthetic influence of digital mediality on literary texts, often reflected by an increasing presence and relevance of digital media in metafictional or meta-poetological engagement, highlights the need for such critical evaluation. Established analytical and narratological frameworks, which hardly account for a radically changed mediascape and thus cultural develop‐ ments, are becoming increasingly inadequate. For example, in view of the growing relevance of virtual spaces and the detachment of culture from a purely territorial location, it is worth questioning whether geographical and local origins still influence identity-forming processes to the same extent. Given this interweaving of topics, it is therefore ever more important to examine which of the established analytical tools reach their limits in addressing the effects of digital transformation and to consider how they might be adapted to emerging cultural and media-linguistic paradigms. Such a re-conceptualisation could, for example, engage with a reflection on the following dichotomies through a postdigital lens: proximity/ distance, self/ other, periphery/ centre, here/ there, belonging/ exclusion, origin/ residence, and past/ future versus simultaneity. 16 Given literary studies’ recent critical engagement with the categories dis‐ cussed above, one may wonder how literary studies can address the multiple challenges posed by the triangulation of postdigitality, postmigration, and - by extension - postcolonialism in analysing literary thematisations of the cultural status quo. Beyond examining net literature that has migrated to the digital space, it remains crucial to consider, from a media-comparative perspective, how the mediascape of the postdigital era necessitates adjustments in methodological approaches and analytical frameworks, particularly in (transnational) studies of literary engagements with post-migrant realities. 17 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 Dimensions of the Digital in Contemporary Literature from a Postmigrant Perspective 391 18 On the plurality of the concept of origin in literary and cultural studies, see Rössler and Zink (2025). The transposition of digital aesthetics and formal language into literary texts reflects central aspects of the culture of digitality. Characteristic features of digital culture, in which “more and more people, across an increasing range of fields and with the help of ever more complex technologies, [are required to] participate in the negotiation of social meaning” (Stalder 2016: preface; my translation), include “referentiality”, “algorithmicity” and “communality” (Stalder 2016: 13; my translation). Moreover, Christina Schachtner identifies “flows, differences, hybrids and belonging” as central paradigms of the digital, which can help “relate social development to technological change in the form of digital media” (Schachtner 2009: 4; my translation). Across the spectrum of these characteristics (from literature born digital to non-web-based engagements with digital mediality), we find numerous references to characteristics, attributes, and features of a specifically postdigital condition, or digital mediality. The systematic study of the transposition, references, and interrelations between postdigital, post-migrant and postcolonial contexts in contemporary literature thus presents promising research avenues. An in-depth analysis of these inter‐ relations not only deepens our understanding of the interplay between digital transformation and literary production but also creates a productive connec‐ tion with the post-migrant perspective in contemporary literary discourse - ideally extending beyond a restrictive national canon. This approach therefore promises innovative insights into the literary representation and negotiation of identity, belonging, and cultural exchange in the postdigital age, thereby complementing and enriching existing research and nomenclatures. A potential starting point for this exploration is the reconceptualisation of possible notions of (cultural) identity within a postdigital framework. This will be illustrated by spotlighting three examples of contemporary German literature that explicitly engage with or reflect on digital mediality, offering brief but telling insights into the intersection of cultural identity and postdigital contexts. 6 Points of Departure: Digital Spaces and Identity Negotiation in Postdigital Literature Notions and negotiations of cultural identity appear to be particularly influ‐ enced by media transformations in the context of digital change, especially in their inherent plurality. 18 A fixed and geographically anchored concept of home and origin, seen as directly shaping identity and personality development, 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 392 Anna-Lena Eick stands in stark contrast to the notion of digital space as a hybrid, virtual realm characterised by fluidity (cf. Schachtner 2009) and projection. The negotiation of identity therefore no longer takes place solely through direct confrontations (e.g. with family members, the country of origin, or the parents’ mother tongue), but increasingly shifts to the Internet and the sphere of social media. Mithu Sanyal’s Identitti - as an exploration of cultural identity and its manifestation through the cultural practice of tying the sari - examines this kind of identity search 2.0: “A few short online tutorials [on how to tie a sari] later, Nivedita paraded alongside Priti [her cousin] down Kettwiger Straße with a bag of french fries in her hand and a whole new world of possible identities in her heart” (Sanyal 2022: 100). In addition to the explicit positioning of digital mediality in relation to transcultural explorations of cultural identity, belonging, and the appropriation of cultural practices relevant for the individual sense of self, digital mediality is structurally embedded in Sanyal’s text. Both the blog posts of the protagonist Nivedita, in which she critically engages with postcolonial theory and practice under her pseudonym Identitti, and the fictitional Twitter messages concerning a scandal surrounding her professor, Saraswati, are directly dependent on digital mediality. The scandal erupts when Professor Saraswati, a renowned scholar of Postcolonial and Race Studies who presents herself as a Person of Colour, is revealed to be a white German woman. This revelation sends shockwaves through the academic community, especially via social media, forcing Nivedita to re-evaluate her beliefs and confront complex questions about race, identity, and authenticity. Twitter [now known as X], as well as her blog, in this context, serve as possible (critical) echo chambers, reflecting the dynamics of public discourse in the postdigital age: It was all so far beyond comprehension that, for one wild moment, Nivedita was thrilled to not have to think about [her ex-boyfriend] Simon, as the throbbing vein of tweets flowed like a veritable river, following her meandering path deeper into the labyrinth. But no matter how many livid twists and turns she scrolled through, it seemed the Monster [the online mob] was always waiting right around the corner […] (Sanyal 2022: 42). While Identitti, as a novel in prose, textually plays with the adoption of set pieces from simulated Twitter messages, which conform to the typographic form and character restrictions of Twitter, Senthuran Varatharajah’s Vor der Zunahme der Zeichen is presented, according to Anna Weigel-Heller as an example of a “fiction of the Internet” or, more precisely, as a postdigital adaptation of an epistolary novel in Facebook dialogues. 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 Dimensions of the Digital in Contemporary Literature from a Postmigrant Perspective 393 19 Based on the timestamps, which are in the novel right aligned to the sender’s name (as was common on Facebook Messenger in 2016), the recipient can estimate the intervals between each communication and draw conclusions about production, reflexivity, and intensity of the shared content as well as about the course and flow of the conversation. Furthermore, the symbols integrated typographically into the text allow conclusions to be drawn about the device used for communication (computer or smartphone) and thus about the location and situation of the respective sender. The presence of a smartphone icon at the edge of the text therefore indicates that a message has been sent from a mobile device, explicitly distinguishing it from PC-based communication (which presumably affects the length and quality of the communication). Varatharajah’s novel consists solely of dialogues via Facebook messages, and virtual space here is used to explore the protagonists’ background and to negotiate the sometimes negative experiences associated with fleeing to and arriving in Germany (e.g. racism, discrimination, and generational conflicts). The instant messaging service creates and maintains a virtual space that functions as a non-binding, communicative place of exchange. This enables different life realities and cultures to converge - detached from specific places and times - in the form of nearly simultaneous events localised in virtual space. The supposed distance between two strangers is textually transformed into an identity-forming proximity and intimacy in the virtual realm: Valmira Surroi (18 : 43) “I don’t know why I am writing to you” Senthil Vasuthevan (18 : 45) “The things we touch, touch us back in places where we are numb to them. The things we see, see us in places where we are blind to them […] I have written into the void and you write back in places where I am blind and numb to you.” (Varatharajah 2016: 49f.; my translation) In Varatharajah’s novel, the temporal lag that is otherwise characteristic of textually mediated communication is reduced by the formal-aesthetic orienta‐ tion of the conversation as depicted in Facebook messages. While the classical epistolary novel suggests “immediacy because the distance between experience and narrative seems small” (Clauss 2007: 99; my translation), the illusion of immediacy in the sense of communicative synchronicity is even more intensified in the realm of the Internet. Virtuality, non-locality as well as the increased speed and efficacy of the digital communication result in a conversation that perpetually remains in (communicative as well as medial) limbo. An artificial, textually produced status emerges at which the recipient can participate on various levels. 19 The depicted quasi-synchronous interaction allows the two protagonists, Valmira and Senthil, to respond and react directly to each other. 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 394 Anna-Lena Eick Their exchange is formally anchored in digital space and, through the specific configuration presented by Varatharajah, opens an intimate platform for ex‐ change on shared questions of origin, identity, and life in Germany. However, the aforementioned aspects of communication, intimacy, simulta‐ neity, and non-locality represent only one side of the implications of a postdigital condition in a global cultural context. Digital transformation encompasses not only the positive attributes associated with added value and utility but also its downside: low-threshold surveillance options by repressive state apparatuses, media manipulation (e.g. through AI or algorithmic control), and information regulation. This aspect is central to Anna Schentke’s novel Kangal (2022), in which the Turkish state’s app-based surveillance of dissidents enters the postmigrant reality of an activist who has fled Istanbul for Frankfurt. The supposed safety of the protester, who goes by the pseudonym Kangal, in the shelter of the Internet turns out to be a dangerous illusion: “Kangal intervenes. She knows no change of location; she lives in the electronic memory” (Schentke 2023: 59; my translation). Even digital space, in its dimension as a hyper-archive and international network, is not immune to surveillance and denunciation, since, despite its seeming openness, it is used for surveillance purposes: “We were being watched even before we knew it. When they made us feel it, we logged in via other countries” (Schentke 2023: 68; my translation). This exemplary sketch of manifestations of the postdigital in contemporary German literature, read from a postmigrant perspective, hints at the profound presence and ambivalence of a postdigital condition - a fluctuating dichotomy of possibilities and dangers, potentials and limitations. This overview suggests that the role of digital dimensions in literary texts is both expansive and varied, while, of course, numerous other phenomena also come into play in these works of which only a few examples can be highlighted here. 7 Conclusion The postdigital age emerges as a field rife with ambivalence, where opportu‐ nities and risks are intricately interwoven. On the one hand, digital spaces offer new possibilities for solidarity, participation, and democratic processes. On the other, they harbour the potential for increased control and exclusionary mechanisms that can reinforce or even exacerbate existing social and cultural inequalities. The supposed universality of digital technologies contrasts sharply with the persistence, and in some cases the intensification, of these inequalities. The postdigital condition, as outlined in this contribution, is particularly important within post-migrant social structures and can be engaged with aes‐ 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 Dimensions of the Digital in Contemporary Literature from a Postmigrant Perspective 395 20 Textually mediated reactions to medial shifts in the sense of the postdigital paradigm in the context of transcultural negotiations can also be found, for example, in Exit West (2017) by Moshin Hamid, in Rebecca F. Kuang’s Yellowface (2023), or, implicitly, in works by Faïza Guène such as La Discrétion (2020) and Shida Bazyar’s Nachts ist es leise in Teheran (2016) and Drei Kameradinnen (2021). To further establish this research desideratum, it would be necessary to clarify the extent to which postdigital aesthetics or the manifestation of postdigital mediality can be abstracted for literary analyses and thus be even more detached from the (explicit) thematic consideration of (post-)digital mediality. This desideratum will be addressed by my habilitation project provisionally titled: “Postdigital Poetics of Belonging: Narratological and Intermedial Approaches to Contemporary Analogue Fiction”. 21 The combination of post-migrant and postdigital perspectives offers fruitful connec‐ tions to memory studies, especially in the context of the Internet as a digital archive. Astrid Erll, a leading voice in memory studies, emphasises the importance of media in cultural memory processes. In the postdigital age, this concept is extended to digital mediality. Digital spaces and web-based archives can be used to store, construct and disseminate memory content. This is also increasingly important in transcultural contexts and beyond specific digital medialities (e.g. beyond the Internet), for example thetically, medially, and discursively within the realm of literature. In addition to formal-aesthetic explorations of digitality and the incorporation of digital forms into literary texts (such as hybrid, mixed-media formats), one can identify a substantive examination of the functions, potentials, dangers, and relevance of digital media in literary texts with a post-migrant orientation. The constitution of the digital sphere within these texts, for example, enables the creation and thematisation of digital network structures, which can act as communitybuilding elements, facilitating the exchange and accessibility of information and (cultural) knowledge. Cultural production, and literature in particular, can no longer be considered independent of digital transformations. Changes in structure, perception, pro‐ duction, and reception - shaped by the digital - are leading and will continue to lead to a rethinking of literature, its role, and its functionality. Adopting a postmigrant and postdigital perspective enables us trace these structural and perceptual shifts across contemporary literary texts in various languages. 20 This, in turn, allows for an exploration of literature’s transcultural potential within the context of ubiquitous media change. This potential is realised as digital spaces enable the intersection of diverse cultural experiences, creating new forms of cultural and medial exchange within literature. This emerging field of research, which combines digital transformation, postmigrant perspectives, and the transcultural potential of literature, offers new insights into the production, reception, and development of literary prac‐ tices in the postdigital age. It also provides promising connections to related fields in cultural studies, such as memory studies and techno-criticism. 21 As the 10.24053/ REAL-2024-0017 396 Anna-Lena Eick when memory narratives are shown to be shaped and reshaped by the specific properties of digital media. Studies such as Memory in the Digital Age by Storm and Soares (2024), Cultural Memory in the Digital Age by Thylstrup (2018) and Erinnern im Internet by Sommer (2018) are examples of the emergence of this tendency and point to the transdisciplinary orientation of the topic around the postdigital condition. digital mediascape evolves, so too must our understanding of literature’s role in navigating this transformation. The intersection of postdigital, postmigrant, and postcolonial perspectives opens new avenues for critical inquiry, prompting a rethinking of how cultural narratives are created, interpreted, and understood in the postdigital era. Works Cited ABBLITT, S. 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