Ongoing Challenges for Digital Critical Editions

This chapter focuses on the issues at stake in digital scholarly edition, commenting on the main challenges and opportunities that the use of digital technology, computers, and dynamic schemas in online publication of critical editions entails. It emphasizes how the new digital environment can modify and perhaps extend textual criticism's scope and reach. Particular attention is given to societal, epistemological, and cultural factors that can influence the evolution of the discipline; to the rapid change and transformation rhythm; to the inherent instability of new digital environments; and finally, to the multiplicity of the varied representational frameworks that can compete within a digital structure.