Alan Liu, English 165HL (Hyperliterature) Study Materials: Class Notes

This page contains materials intended to facilitate class discussion (excerpts from readings, outlines of issues, links to resources, etc.). The materials are not necessarily the same as the instructor's teaching notes and are not designed to represent a full exposition or argument. This page is subject to revision as the instructor finalizes preparation. (Last revised 4/12/01 ) (recommended browser)

Preliminary Class Business
A Rough Timeline of the Origin of Hypertext Literature
Hypertext vs. Printed Book
References

Some Reference Points for Discussion

Preliminary Class Business

Class alias: english165HL@humanitas.ucsb.edu
Project workshop next Thursday. Students should be prepared to break into teams
Web-authoring workshop, Thur. April 26th, 3:30-5
Tech-support Drop-In Hours in South Hall 2509:
Jennifer Jones: Tue., Thur., 9:30-11:30 am
Eric Weitzel: W 9-11 am, F 1-3 pm

A Rough Timeline of the Origin of Hypertext Literature

For a more detailed chronology, see Stuart Moulthrop, "A Subjective Chronology of Literary Hypertext"

1940-50's 1970 1980 1990 2000

WW II, Transition from Modernism to "Postmodernism"	Counterculture, Poststructuralism, Personal Computer	Beginning of Hypertext Theory & Practice	WWW
Bush, Borges	Barthes, Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze & Guattari
	Ted Nelson	Michael Joyce Jay Bolter George Landow J. Yellowlees Douglas Nancy Kaplan Stuart Moulthrop Storyspace Eastgate Inc.

Ted Nelson in the 60s and 70s: the original guru of hypertext (invented the term) who was part of the countercultural moment itself (anti-authoritarian, anti-linear, libertarian) (cf., dedications to Literary Machines)

Project Xanadu | Vision Statement | Ted Nelson home page
George Landow, Carolyn Guertin, Michael Joyce (Storyspace) from the generation of critics and practitioners who first implemented hypertext, acting on the belief that they were making real the ideological and theoretical claims of the countercultural moment:
- George Landow, from Hypertext 2.0:
  
  "The parallels between computer hypertext and critical theory are of interest at many points, the most important of which, perhaps, is that critical theory promises to theorize hypertext and hypertext promises to embody and thereby test aspects of theory, particularly those concerning textuality, narrative, and the roles or functions or reader and writer." (p. 2)
- Carolyn Guertin, from Queen Bees and the Hum of the Hive:
  1. "Honeycombing: Open Forms in Hypertext and Women's Writing"

Hypertext vs. Printed Book

Thesis 1: hypertext is different because it "shows" what poststructuralist theory only imagines:

George Landow, Hypertext 2.0, p. 2
Carolyn Guertin, Queen Bees and the Hum of the Hive:

Thesis 2: hypertext is merely a more extreme version of the printed book:

Ted Nelson, Literary Machines 90.1 (1/17)
George Landow, Hypertext 2.0, pp. 4

So what is the relation between hypertext and the book?

The example of John Milton's Paradise Lost
- Print version (from Merritt Y. Hughes, ed., John Milton: Complete Poems and Major Prose [Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957])
- Hypertext version from The Milton Reading Room (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/pl/book_1/index.html)

References

Supplementary links for this class on Study Materials page

These class notes are for a course in the Transcriptions Project | Page content by Alan Liu | 4/12/01">4/12/01 | [Top]