literary theory

This panel attempts to initiate a dialogue on the implications of hypertext between information theorists and literary theorists, writers of texts and designers of text systems. Though the panelists base their views on several years of practical work with hypertext in education, they are concerned with broader social and conceptual problems raised by this technology — its likely effect on the way we teach ourselves and others to understand texts and the way we use those texts to construct an orderly (or disorderly) world. It seems important to raise these issues at Hypertext '89 because hypertext is rapidly being recognized by humanists as a crucial and revolutionary enterprise. This recognition creates an opportunity for humanists and scientists to convene a productive dialogue which could have great significance both for hypertext and for the future of the humanities.

(Source: ACM)

Since the demise of the 'Golden Age' of literary hypertext (Coover 1999) and the theoretical debates surrounding online and offline electronic literature that followed in its wake, the study of digital fiction in particular has undergone a significant paradigm shift. Recent research has moved from a 'first-wave' of pure theoretical debate to a 'second-wave' of close stylistic and semiotic analysis. While the theoretical intricacies of second-wave digital fiction theory have been well debated (e.g. Ciccoricco 2007, Ensslin 2007, Ensslin and Bell 2007, Bell 2010 forthcoming), the discipline and practice of close-reading digital fiction require a more systematic engagement and understanding than offered by previous scholarship. With this in mind, the Digital Fiction International Network ('DFIN', funded by The Leverhulme Trust since January 2009) has been exploring new avenues of defining and implementing approaches to close-reading, with the tripartite trajectory of developing a range of tools and associated terminology for digital fiction analysis; of providing a body of analyses based on the close-reading of texts, which are substantiated by robust theoretical and terminological conclusions; and of fostering a collaborative network of academics working on inter-related projects.

In following this agenda, this paper offers a comparative approach to second person narration in two exemplary digital fictions: geniwate and Deena Larsen’s satirical flash fiction, The Princess Murderer (2003), and Jon Ingold's interactive fiction mystery, All Roads (2006 [2001]). We aim to explore the extent to which print-oriented narratological approaches to the textual 'You' (e.g. Herman 1994) apply to the texts under investigation and suggest theoretical tenets arising from their distinct (inter-)medial and ludic qualities (cf. Ryan 1999). Of particular interest will be the ways in which the reader and his/her role in the cybernetic feedback loop are constructed textually and interactionally.

(Source: Authors' abstract for ELO_AI)

This thesis aims to investigate digital methods of signification in order to examine the impact of the apparatus on poetic expression. This is done through a critical analysis of the translation process from analogue to digital, in the sense that even as we read a page we are in fact translating sight into sound. The resulting effects of this change in form are explored in order to understand their impact on meaning-making in the digital realm. Through this interrogation the comprehension and definition of ePoetry (electronic poetry or digital poetry) is extended, by exposing the unique affordances and specificities of digital expression. Digital poetry theorists such as Loss Pequeño Glazier posit that the emerging field of electronic literature is composed of interweaving strands from the areas of computer science, sociology, and literary studies. This is reflected in the interdisciplinary nature of this thesis, which necessitates an engagement with the broad areas of translation, literature, and digital media studies. Currently the pervasiveness of digital technology and access to the Internet means that the creation and consumption of online content such as ePoetry is becoming seamless and apparently effortless. Whilst recent studies have explored electronic literature as a field, there is a noticeable deficit of research that specifically focuses on ePoetry, a deficit that this thesis seeks to rectify. Within this work cybernetic and technosocial theories of communication are drawn on which provide as much emphasis on the apparatus, as is afforded to the author and reader. Traditional poetry criticism is problematised with reference to its suitability for application to online works in order to develop a comprehensive ePoetry rhetoric that explores not only what is being said, but also crucially how it is being said. Theories of translation are also used as a context in which to analyse the transposition of poetry from analogue to digital. This framework then forms the basis for a study that explores the move from print to pixel by analysing qualitative ePoet interviews as well as their corresponding ePoems.

The dissertation’s main point of departure is the clash between explicit and implicit presuppositions, conceptualisations and generalisations in print-oriented literary theoretical paradigms and a plenitude of empirically verifiable anomalies and counter-examples to them found in digital and ergodic works of literature. The behaviour of these counter-examples is explained by cybertext theory that addresses the often neglected issue of the variety of literary media. Both the empirical counter-examples and the empirically verifiable differences in the behaviour of literary media allow us to expand and modify literary theories to suit not just one traditionally privileged media position but all of them. Therefore, in the first half of the dissertation, literary theory and narratology are viewed and modified from the perspective of slightly revised cybertext theory. In this process theories of ergodic and non-ergodic literature are integrated more closely and several so far non-theorized ways of manipulating narrative time, regulating narrative information, and generating narrative instances are located and theorized. In the second half of the dissertation, the role of cybertext theory and the position of ergodic literature are reversed as they are viewed from the perspectives provided by ludology and game ontology. This is necessary to better situate ergodic literature in the continuum of other ergodic phenomena and between interpretative and dominantly configurative practices. To this end a provisional and formal paradigm of ludology is first constructed and synthesized from previous ludological research and then applied to newer forms and genres of ergodic literature such as textual instruments.

(Source: University of Jyväskylä)

A wide-ranging literary essay, what Joyce dubs a "theoretical narrative," surveying the desire for media "transparency," an ideal that retains its allure even after philosophers and theorists have revealed its illusoriness.

Installed as a double issue of starting in the winter of 96/97, contributors sought to explore through literature a transition already evident in the culture at large, where technology had enabled narratives of all types to undergo transformation by the image.

The first editors of the thread were Steve Tomasula and Anne Burdick.

(Source: ebr, thread editors' statement.)

This is an amazing anthology of writings by members of the group known as Oulipo, including, among others, Italo Calvino, Harry Mathews, Georges Perec, Jacques Roubaud, and Raymond Queneau. Put simply, this group, which was founded in Paris in 1960, approaches creative writing in a way that still has yet to make its impact in the United States and its creative writing programs.

Rather than inspiration, rather than experience, rather than self-expression, the Oulipians viewed imaginative writing as an exercise dominated by what they called "constraints." Quite commonly, they would attempt to write stories, for instance, in which strict rules had to be imposed and followed (for example, Georges Perec's notorious novel A Void, which was written without the use of the letter "e").

 While a major contribution to literary theory, Oulipo is perhaps most distinguished as an indispensable guide to writers.

(Source: Dalkey Archive Press catalog.)

This rich collection is far more than an important work of criticism by an extraordinary poet; it is a poetic intervention into criticism. "Artifice of Absorption," a key essay, is written in verse, and its structures and rhythms initiate the reader into the strength and complexity of the argument. In a wild variety of topics, polemic, and styles, Bernstein surveys the current poetry scene and addresses many of the hot issues of poststructuralist literary theory. "Poetics is the continuation of poetry by other means," he writes. What role should poetics play in contemporary culture? Bernstein finds the answer in dissent, not merely in argument but in form--a poetic language that resists being easily absorbed into the conventions of our culture.

Insisting on the vital need for radical innovation, Bernstein traces the traditions of modern poetry back to Stein and Wilde, taking issue with those critics who see in the "postmodern" a loss of political and aesthetic relevance. Sometimes playful, often hortatory, always intense, he joins in the debate on cultural diversity and the definition of modernism. We encounter Swinburne and Morris as surprising precursors, along with considerations of Wittgenstein, Khlebnikov, Adorno, Jameson, and Pac-Man. A Poetics is both criticism and poetry, both tract and song, with no dull moments.

(Source: Book jacket)

Equally interested in what is and what could be, Cybertext Poetics combines ludology and cybertext theory to solve persistent problems and introduce paradigm changes in the fields of literary theory, narratology, game studies, and digital media. The book first integrates theories of print and digital literature within a more comprehensive theory capable of coming to terms with the ever-widening media varieties of literary expression, and then expands narratology far beyond its current confines resulting in multiple new possibilities for both interactive and non-interactive narratives. By focusing on a cultural mode of expression that is formally, cognitively, affectively, socially, aesthetically, ethically and rhetorically different from narratives and stories, Cybertext Poetics constructs a ludological basis for comparative game studies, shows the importance of game studies to the understanding of digital media, and argues for a plurality of transmedial ecologies.

(Source: Continuum online catalog.)