The Subcutanean Variorum
Proposal Type
Individual Talk
Location
Algorithms & Imaginaries
Start Date
July 2026
End Date
July 2026
Abstract
In February 2020 Aaron Reed published Subcutanean, a queer horror novel in which every copy is different. While the printed book (or ebook) reads as a cohesive, linear textual object, it is born-digital, just as much a work of electronic literature as a hypertext novel or interactive poem. “Each time a book is ordered,” Reed explained in his plenary address at the 2020 ELO Conference, a different version of the text is rendered from a source text containing many possible variations of individual words, sentences, and even entire scenes” (“Subcutanean”). That source text is written in a bespoke markup language Reed has playfully called .quant—a nod to the principle in quantum mechanics that a particle can exist in multiple states at once (“A Minimal Syntax”). In 2025 Reed released the full text and source code of Subcutanean—along with 10,000 variants of the novel—under a Creative Commons CC-BY-4.0 license, freeing up students, teachers, researchers, and readers to share, remix, and even sell Subcutanean, so long as the original work is attributed to Reed (“Subcutanean Code Release).
Given the vast number of unique versions of Subcutanean, the novel defies standard approaches to understanding textual variants, a point made by literary scholar Andrew Ferguson in his 2020 talk about the novel. Reed’s work “poses a problem that is perhaps new to textual studies,” Ferguson observes, “in that it is essentially impossible to produce a variorum text of Subcutanean, that is, a compendium of all published versions of the text, for the purposes of scholarly comparison and additions” (Ferguson). Challenge accepted! With Reed’s tacit permission through his Creative Commons License, I have been building The Subcutanean Variorum, a digital workbench that allows readers to compare any two or three copies of the novel side-by-side to discover how the story shifts between versions. But that side-by-side comparison is just the most basic feature of the variorum. The variorum is preloaded with 25 unique seeds, but it also lets users generate new versions and include them for comparison. The digital workbench includes multiple view modes, including a Track Changes mode that shows word- and sentence-level additions, deletions, and revisions between multiple copies of the novel. The Collation mode shows changes at the paragraph level, quickly revealing which paragraphs have changed the most between versions. The Subcutanean Variorum is also designed with critical code studies scholars in mind. Researchers can track global variables throughout the novel, and expose the source code of any paragraph, revealing the interplay between the .quant markup and the rendered text. Other features of the variorum include textual annotation, keyword search, a word differential analysis between variants, and much more.
In my presentation I will demo the Subcutanean Variorum, highlighting how it has deepened my own understanding of the novel. I will also discuss the best practices of textual studies that informed the variorum’s design, as well as where those best practices fell short, as Ferguson anticipated—and the alternative, unconventional approaches I undertook to make the variorum a valuable tool for students and scholars alike. Finally, I will say a word or two about the technical process of building the variorum, which was assisted by Claude AI, and what this type of human-AI collaboration heralds for study of electronic literature.
Works Cited
Ferguson, Andrew. “Under the Surface: The Horrific Instability of Aaron A. Reed’s Subcutanean.” 6 July 2020, Electronic Literature Organization Conference 2020, https://stars.library.ucf.edu/elo2020/asynchronous/talks/28.
Reed, Aaron. “A Minimal Syntax For Quantum Text.” Medium, 29 June 2020, https://medium.com/@aareed/a-minimal-syntax-for-quantum-text-ac5b34308593.
Reed, Aaron. “Subcutanean: Reading and Discussion.” 16 July 2020, Electronic Literature Organization Conference 2020, https://stars.library.ucf.edu/elo2020/live/plenaries/4.
Reed, Aaron. “Subcutanean Code Release.” Subcutanean, 2025, https://subcutanean.textories.com/. Accessed 26 Jan. 2026.
The Subcutanean Variorum
Algorithms & Imaginaries
In February 2020 Aaron Reed published Subcutanean, a queer horror novel in which every copy is different. While the printed book (or ebook) reads as a cohesive, linear textual object, it is born-digital, just as much a work of electronic literature as a hypertext novel or interactive poem. “Each time a book is ordered,” Reed explained in his plenary address at the 2020 ELO Conference, a different version of the text is rendered from a source text containing many possible variations of individual words, sentences, and even entire scenes” (“Subcutanean”). That source text is written in a bespoke markup language Reed has playfully called .quant—a nod to the principle in quantum mechanics that a particle can exist in multiple states at once (“A Minimal Syntax”). In 2025 Reed released the full text and source code of Subcutanean—along with 10,000 variants of the novel—under a Creative Commons CC-BY-4.0 license, freeing up students, teachers, researchers, and readers to share, remix, and even sell Subcutanean, so long as the original work is attributed to Reed (“Subcutanean Code Release).
Given the vast number of unique versions of Subcutanean, the novel defies standard approaches to understanding textual variants, a point made by literary scholar Andrew Ferguson in his 2020 talk about the novel. Reed’s work “poses a problem that is perhaps new to textual studies,” Ferguson observes, “in that it is essentially impossible to produce a variorum text of Subcutanean, that is, a compendium of all published versions of the text, for the purposes of scholarly comparison and additions” (Ferguson). Challenge accepted! With Reed’s tacit permission through his Creative Commons License, I have been building The Subcutanean Variorum, a digital workbench that allows readers to compare any two or three copies of the novel side-by-side to discover how the story shifts between versions. But that side-by-side comparison is just the most basic feature of the variorum. The variorum is preloaded with 25 unique seeds, but it also lets users generate new versions and include them for comparison. The digital workbench includes multiple view modes, including a Track Changes mode that shows word- and sentence-level additions, deletions, and revisions between multiple copies of the novel. The Collation mode shows changes at the paragraph level, quickly revealing which paragraphs have changed the most between versions. The Subcutanean Variorum is also designed with critical code studies scholars in mind. Researchers can track global variables throughout the novel, and expose the source code of any paragraph, revealing the interplay between the .quant markup and the rendered text. Other features of the variorum include textual annotation, keyword search, a word differential analysis between variants, and much more.
In my presentation I will demo the Subcutanean Variorum, highlighting how it has deepened my own understanding of the novel. I will also discuss the best practices of textual studies that informed the variorum’s design, as well as where those best practices fell short, as Ferguson anticipated—and the alternative, unconventional approaches I undertook to make the variorum a valuable tool for students and scholars alike. Finally, I will say a word or two about the technical process of building the variorum, which was assisted by Claude AI, and what this type of human-AI collaboration heralds for study of electronic literature.
Works Cited
Ferguson, Andrew. “Under the Surface: The Horrific Instability of Aaron A. Reed’s Subcutanean.” 6 July 2020, Electronic Literature Organization Conference 2020, https://stars.library.ucf.edu/elo2020/asynchronous/talks/28.
Reed, Aaron. “A Minimal Syntax For Quantum Text.” Medium, 29 June 2020, https://medium.com/@aareed/a-minimal-syntax-for-quantum-text-ac5b34308593.
Reed, Aaron. “Subcutanean: Reading and Discussion.” 16 July 2020, Electronic Literature Organization Conference 2020, https://stars.library.ucf.edu/elo2020/live/plenaries/4.
Reed, Aaron. “Subcutanean Code Release.” Subcutanean, 2025, https://subcutanean.textories.com/. Accessed 26 Jan. 2026.
Bio
Mark Sample is a Professor of Film, Media, and Digital Studies at Davidson College. His teaching and research focuses on algorithmic culture, digital narrative, and interactive design, while his creative work, like Content Moderator Sim and 10 Lost Boys, harnesses the expressive power of computation in order to critique contemporary life. No Time to Discourse, his most recent digital project, is a speculative atlas of future climate disaster.