Bare WitnessudHow electronic literature can facilitate critical empathy, convey complex narratives andudbring us closer through the poetics of interactivity

摘要

This paper contends that interactive eBooks designed for tablet devices promise new ways of reading, interpretation and imagination, which offer entryways to poetic and literary insights by providing affordances that support and extend complex narratives in multi-sensorial ways though engagements in witnessing and embodiment. I argue that storytelling needs to change in order to accommodate new digital literacies and the complexity of human experience. I deconstruct this claim by looking at supporting theories in digital storytelling, trauma and recovery, witnessing, spiritual activism, sound, and polyphony of experience. As a method of investigation, I examine the composition of [Bare] Witness, the multi sensorial eBook I authored that portrays my personal traumaudnarratives, as a proof of concept prototype.