Electronic Textuality

Senior Seminar: English 255

Winter 1995

Course Description

Broadly conceived, this course will explore the implications of electronic textuality for literature and literary studies. As computer technology continues to proliferate through the culture, questions fundamental to the literary enterprise such as "What is a text?", "What is an author?" and "What is a reader?" are asked with fresh urgency and answered in new ways. The changes affect every literary period, from ancient to modern. More and more canonical texts are available in electronic form, allowing analytical techniques to be used that would be difficult or impossible if done by hand. In addition, many canonical texts are now available on CD-ROM, where the text is enhanced by sound, video, and images as well as more traditional textual commentary. In contemporary literature, a new genre of interactive fiction is appearing that depends for its effects on electronic media. Pedagogy is being transformed as well. When the lines of communication run through the computer, traditional kinds of instruction that place the teacher at the head of the class are disrupted and replaced by styles of learning and interaction that are modular rather than linear, horizontal rather than vertical. Finally, theory is also affected. Computers use modes of signification that are distinctively different from oral speech or print texts; the implications of this shift are only beginning to be realized. The seminar will explore these and related issues through face-to-face and on-line interactions and experiences.

Course Procedures and Requirements

Our normal seminar meetings will take place on Wednesday 3:00-5:50 pm, in Rolfe 3114. In addition, two studio sessions will be arranged during the weeks of February 9 and March 15, when we be interacting with electronic texts directly. The times and places for these sessions will be announced.

Participants will be asked to read all of the texts on the syllabus, which include both print and electronic texts, and come to the seminar prepared to discuss them vigorously. In addition, each participant will be asked to take responsibility to lead the discussion for one of the texts we will be reading, introducing it with a brief five-minute presentation and posing questions the class should consider.

Instead of the usual seminar paper, participants will be asked to design a hypertext on a topic of their choice and be prepared to demonstrate it during our final studio session on the week of March 15. This can be a critical analysis of one or more of the texts in the course, an hypertext edition of a canonical work, or some other project appropriate to the seminarÕs focus. You should start thinking about what you want to do immediately; to complete the project in time, you will need to begin it no later than the third week of class. Accordingly, I will ask for abstracts describing your project on February 1. Storyspace, in both IBM and Macintosh format, will be available as an authoring tool. In addition, Hyperties, an authoring program appropriate for low-memory systems, will also be available in Macintosh format. Or you may use another program if you have access to it and are familiar with it.

To facilitate your research in electronic environments, each participant will also be asked to complete a series of tasks designed to familiarize you with the Internet and the incredible variety of information available through it. These include getting an email account, joining a listserv discussion group, browsing on bulletin boards and checking out the World Wide Web. Information on these assignments will be handed out on a weekly basis.

Grades will be calculated as follows: hypertext project, 50%; Internet assignments, 20%; class discussion (including leading discussion), 30%.

Reading List

Baudrillard, Jean. The Ecstacy of Communication. (Print).

Bolter, Jay. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. (Print).

Borges, Jorge. Ficciones. (Print).

Gibson, William. Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive. (Electronic).

Joyce, Michael. afternoon. (Electronic).

Landow, George. Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. (Print).

Lanham, Richard. The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and The Arts. (Print).

Malloy, Judy. "It's Name was Penelope." (Electronic).

Mann, Roy. Poetry in Motion. (CD-ROM).

Pavic, Milorad. Dictionary of the Khazars. (Print.)

Postman, Neil. Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. (Print).

Internet Assignments

January 11-18. Get an email account; send a message telling me that you are on-line to hayles@humnet.ucla.edu. To increase the usefulness of email to you, you will need to know how to download and upload files. When I receive your message, I will send a response that you should download onto your disk, edit to answer the questions, and return to me via electronic mail.

January 18-25. Make an address list of everyone in the class and send everyone a posting adding to class discussion or commenting on the reading. Join a listserv discussion group; see information sheet on groups available and how to join them. Lurk until you know the netiquette, then send a posting. Forward a copy of your posting to me on email, along with information about which listserv you joined and what you learned so far.

January 25-February 1. Use gopher and finger to retrieve information appropriate to your hypertext project. See information sheet for procedures and information. Download, print, and bring to class on February 1.

February 1-8. Retrieve a document relevant to your project from an ftp site. See sheet for suggestions and procedures. Download, print, and give me a copy for my files.

February 8-15. Retrieve information from the World Wide Web using Mosaic. See information sheet for procedures and information. Send me an email message telling me what you found and how to access it.

For Your Information: Books about the Internet

The Internet: Complete Reference. Harley Hahn et al. (Osborne McGraw-Hill). $29.95.

The Internet Navigator. Paul Gilster. (John Wiley). $24.95.

The Whole Internet UserÕs Guide and Catalog. Ed Krol. (OÕReilly). $24.95.

Netguide. Peter Rutten et al. (Random House).$19.

Internet Starter Kit. Adam Engst. (Hayden). $29.95.

Navigating the Internet. Mark Gibbs et al. (Sams Publishing). $24.95.

Cruising Online. Lawrence Magid. (Random House). $25.

Internet Guide for New Users. Daniel Dern. (McGraw-0Hill). $27.95

How the Internet Works. Joshua Eddings. (Ziff-Davis). $24.95.

Syllabus

Wed., Jan 11. Introduction.

Wed., Jan 18. Jay Bolter, Writing Space. (Analysis of the shift from print to electronic textuality and its implications; comparison of electronic textuality to deconstruction.)

Wed., Jan 25. Michael Joyce, afternoon; Borges, "Garden of the Forking Paths." (Comparision of hypertext as a literary form in electronic and print media. Evaluation of critical claims of Bolter against experience of hypertext in computer and print.)

Wed., Feb. 1. George Landow, Hypertext. (Analysis of changed functionality of reader, writer, and text. Discussion of pedagogical implications of hypertext.)

Week of Feb. 8 (time and place to be arranged): Poetry in Motion; "It's Name was Penelope"; Neuromancer trilogy. (Experience with interactive fiction; with literary texts embedded with software so that they can be manipulated in ways useful to literary scholars; experience with literary texts enhanced by multimedia.)

Wed., Feb. 15. Richard Lanham, The Electronic Word. (Exploration of the aesthetic dimensions of electronic textuality; comparision of electronic textuality with goals, purposes, and methods of classical rhetoric.)

Wed., Feb. 22. Pavic, Dictionary of the Khazars. (Comparision of print text structured like a hypertext with hypertexts in electronic format. Advantages and limitations of print; implications for narrative of hypertext structure.)

Wed., March 1. Baudrillard, Ecstasy of Communication. (Theoretical implications of electronic textuality; its link with broader shifts in culture and in literary theory.)

Week of March 15. (Time and place to be announced.) Demonstration of hypertext projects of seminar participants.

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