Abstract

In this essay Anna Kouppanou expands the notion of metaphor from its received meaning to refer to an embodied and material process of connectedness that transforms the domains that it brings together. Because of metaphor's reliance on materiality and exteriority Kouppanou turns to literary texts, which she calls “metaphoric machines.” In doing so she sheds light on the specific way texts, as reading/writing technologies, work through metaphorical processes of association. Through the study of print and electronic literary texts Kouppanou shows that every medium brings contents and domains, such as space and time, together and indeed in specific ways, allowing different forms of association, selective organization, and filtering of information. She also underlines that the mappings between these domains often take place unexpectedly and not always between their respective parts. Finally, she discusses the need for literacies that make the reader/writer/user aware of the metaphorical-associative power of texts.