notes on the canon

According to George Landow, “the American Heritage Dictionary has eleven separate definitions of the term canon, the most relevant of which is ‘an authoritative list, as of the works of an author’ and ‘a basis for judgment; standard; criterion.’”

Both of these senses of “canon” are contained within the definition of the literary canon—those works that have been singled out by critics and audiences to have lasting artistic value. Landow continues:

Belonging to the canon confers status—social, political, economic, aesthetic—none of which can easily be extricated from the others. Belonging to the canon is a guarantee of quality, and that guarantee of high aesthetic quality serves as a promise, a contract, that announces to the viewer, “Here is something to be enjoyed as an aesthetic object. Complex, difficult, privileged, the object before you has been winnowed by the sensitive few and the not-so-sensitive many, and it will repay your attention. You will receive pleasure; at least you’re supposed to, and if you don’t, well, perhaps there’s something off with your apparatus.”

It is clear in the preceding that Landow is somewhat critical of the idea of a literary canon. Though he correctly notes that it is not just critics (“the sensitive few”) but general readers and fans (“the not-so-sensitive many”) who determine what will continue to be read and cherished in the future.

Landow continues:

Works in the canon get read, read by neophyte students and supposedly expert teachers. It also means that to read these privileged works is a privilege and a sign of privilege. It is also a sign that one has been canonized oneself—beatified by the experience of being introduced to beauty, admitted to the ranks of those of the inner circle who are acquainted with the canon and can judge what belongs and does not.

“Privilege” is often a bad word in academia, and this is how Landow uses it. It implies a select few, a cognoscenti, who determine what we read, now and into the future.

There are two important things that need to be emphasized at this point about the canon:

1. Any canon changes over time and space. That is, what is considered canonical at one point in time, and in one place, is different in other times and places. What was canonical in nineteenth-century England is not necessarily canonical today in England, or in the United States. Ever hear of Charles Lamb or his work Essays of Elia? Probably not, but in the nineteenth century every school child or university student in English-speaking countries would have been able to quote Lamb by memory.

2. Canon is as much about exclusion as inclusion. Until recently, women and people of color were not included in the English literary canon. Now they are, due to the diligent efforts of many critics and scholars, both women and men, caucasians and people of color. In fact, the last fifty years, particularly in literature departments, are informally known as the “canon wars” because of the sometimes fierce debate about who should be in the literary canon. Of course, to make space for these women and people of color in the canon, some of the old writers have gotten displaced (see my comment about Charles Lamb above).

For some literary critics, most of what we read this semester would not be considered canonical, just because it is electronic. You would no doubt agree that some of the works we have read do not have much artistic or literary value. But quite a few are quite brilliant and deserve to be read by people in the future. The reason why the subject of the canon has been raised in this class is because we are now re-forming the literary canon to include digital works. Critics will have their favorites, but so too will common readers and, especially, students. When critics and readers eventually agree about a work, that will make it canonical.

All of you are part of this process of canon formation. Particularly in a world in which social networking is so prevalent, your opinions matter and help shape what future students will read in literature courses.

Though we haven’t discussed it much, the revision of the literary canon is at the heart of what is called digital humanities. The humanities more generally refer to the exploration of the human condition in the arts and the social sciences. Digital humanities refers to the application of computer and communications technologies to the work of scholars and teachers working in the arts and social sciences, particularly universities.

The Centre for Humanities Computing at King’s College, London University defines Digital Humanities this way:

The digital humanities comprise the study of what happens at the intersection of computing tools with cultural artefacts of all kinds. This study begins where basic familiarity with standard software ends. It probes how these common tools may be used to make new knowledge from our cultural inheritance and from the contemporary world. It equips students to analyze problems in terms of digital methods, choose those best for the job at hand, apply them creatively and assess the results. It teaches students to use computing as an instrument to investigate how we know what we know, hence to strengthen and extend our knowledge of the world past and present. (taken from the Digital Humanities page at Miami University of Ohio)

It seems likely that there will always be an audience for digital literature in universities. In fact, university students probably comprise the main audience for digital literature, in courses like ENGL278W. This is also true of literature in general: today, it is in school that most people read literature. In this sense, it will be university classes more than anything else that will determine the canon of digital literature.

Finally, we have also encountered the idea of the canon in the context of the canon vs. fanon debate in fan wikis.

In this sense canon is official source material developed by the official author or authors of a given fictional universe. For instance, for the Star Wars universe, this would be primarily George Lucas, but also the screenwriters who worked on screenplays and those who have written the novelizations of the films. elaborations in interviews, blogs, etc.).

Fanon is non-official source material (often filling in gaps in characters and stories in canon) which goes viral, becomes common knowledge in fan circles, and may eventually become canon if the canonical authors recognize it as such. On this page you can read more about the difference between canon and fanon, and some examples of fanon which became canon:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Fanon

The interesting thing about all this, in terms of this class, is that even fictional universes have a consensus of what is true in that universe, and what is not. That is, a fictional world can have agreed-upon or canonized truths. Meanwhile, unapproved fictions within the fictional world are untrue, or fanon. But when fanon fictions are canonized as canonical truths for a given fictional world. Also important is that, in the case of fan wikis, it is fans who drive the process, not the canonical authors.

Works Cited:

George Landow, “The Literary Canon”
http://www.victorianweb.org/gender/canon/litcan.html

Digital Humanities (Miami University of Ohio)
http://www.units.muohio.edu/technologyandhumanities/field.htm

Brett Cohen on “SAVIOUR”

“SAVIOUR”
MrLightening
Storymash
http://storymash.com/u/MrLightening/pubofole/

“SAVIOUR” is a short tale of how quickly life can change for even the greatest of us. In the story there is a doctor who sees himself as being smarter and better than those around him. Everywhere he goes he brings an air of pompous grandeur, the sort of guy who doesn’t think that anyone is on his level, but he counteracts this with an inner telling of how noble he is. This doctor walk around comparing the good he does for people to the good others do, especially his neighbors, and comes to the conclusion that even though he feels he is above all others, the good he does for others outweighs his arrogance. He is brought to the reality of how fragile he is when all of the sudden a tool box is dropped on his head and he is no longer able to use that big brain of his. The story has just one chapter.

The story has only one author, named MrLightening. Besides “SAVIOUR” this author has posted two other stories called “The Park” and “Portrait of the Widower.” There are two comments on “SAVIOUR”. The general drift is that it is profound and that the story is something that could happen in real life. My comment would be something like: “The story is wonderful, very easy to read and well put together. I really enjoyed it.”

The story is rated 4.1 out of 5. I would rate it as a 4. I think the story is worth continuing. I would add a story from his early child hood, what happened to make him feel as if he had to project himself above others. Afterwards, I would show how his life is after the doctor leaves the hospital, following his accident.

Brett Cohen

Bradley Cranford on “A Possible Piece of Spleen”

“A Piece of Possible Spleen”
honeygloom, dogdeity11, and writerwannabe
Storymash
http://storymash.com/u/honeygloom/hegenetu/

I only read the opening chapter, but the story as I understand it is about someone who is looking at the frozen, shattered remains of a human. This person was obviously someone that the narrator was familiar with, possibly a love interest, but that is not made clear. The shattered individual is a woman, and the narrator implies that the way in which this person became frozen was not natural. The narrator decides that he/she must try to organize the parts and eventually put her back together, and that is where this chapter ends.

This story has ten different chapters, written by several different authors that seem to be collaborating and taking turns adding chapters to the story. They are honeygloom, writerwannabe, and dogdeity11. The main author, honeygloom, was active on the site for about three years and got mostly very good ratings on what he/she wrote. The author had mentioned in one of her comments that she “loves stories with hateful characters that you still somehow root for,” which is probably a good explanation of the types of characters that she builds in her own stories. Other titles this author has worked on at Storymash are called “The Games Lucifer Plays” and “Lesson Learned.”

There are comments and reviews about “A Possible Piece of Spleen”, and the reviews and comments are almost all positive. Most of the commenters have nothing but praise for, and interest in, what the author has written. I find the work interesting personally because of the mysterious nature of the introduction to the story and how the author reveals just enough to get you interested but leaves enough unknown so that you want to keep reading. I also enjoyed how she included science and a science-fiction aspect to the story which was unexpected.

This story is rated a 4.5/5 on the site. I would rate this work similarly, with a rating of maybe slightly under 4.5. This story is definitely worth continuing, because the introduction was so mysterious and intriguing that you almost have to know more. I would probably continue it in a similar mysterious fashion for a while longer, revealing more and more facts about the situation slowly over time to draw the reader in even more before fully involving the reader in the major conflict of the work.

Bradley Cranford

David Daniel on “Ragnarok? Really”

“Ragnarok? Really”
Immer Schreiben
Storymash
http://storymash.com/u/Immer_Schreiben/kahanuro/

“Ragnarok? Really” is about a town bewildered and distraught by the unproven belief that the world is going to end. The main character of the novel serves as the only somewhat sane person throughout the story. Everyone panics when the horn of Thor was blown, thus signaling the world is going to end. At this point if anyone were to smile or show any sign of happiness they would be looked down upon. The main character unfortunately does this but then attempts to bring sanity back to the people by claiming that his “dance” will stop Ragnarok from happening. The story is just a single narrative on its own with no previous or subsequent chapters.

The story has only one author, named Immer Schreiben. The author has written a bunch of works. They are “Ragnarok? Really?”, “How to Keep Your Teacher from Being Sacked”, “Dear Ms. Rokes, Politician Style”, and 14 others.

There are no comments on this work. It received 2.8 stars out of 5, so it wasn’t the best story. If I were to comment I would say that the story ended rather poorly. I was disappointed about how the story suddenly just ends with the main character realizing that maybe the world is actually going to end, and pretty much figuring out that if you can’t beat them, join them.

Instead of continuing the story, I would cut out the ending and add an adventure in which the main character goes on a search for evidence that the world is going to end. This would add a lot of adventure and entertainment to the story rather than just ending it with a boring realization.

David Daniel

Drew DePoy on “The Park”

“The Park”
MrLightening
Storymash
http://storymash.com/u/MrLightening/derevavi/

“The Park” is about a man named Keith who wakes up to find his wife and daughter missing. He gets a phone call from the abductor telling Keith what he has done. Keith goes throughout the day in torture because he knows there is nothing he can do to get his family back. He is sent to a locker by the abductor where he reads an envelope saying he will get his family back in exactly one year. The story has eight separate chapters, each of which can be navigated to by the train-like graphic at the bottom of the page.

“The Park” has only one author who goes by the name of MrLightening. When I clicked on MrLightening’s profile, it did not give any background information. It says he joined the site on April 8th, 2011 so maybe he just hasn’t put up a profile yet. Besides “The Park,” this author has also posted two other stories called “Saviour” and “Portrait of the Widower.”

Most of the comments to the story were from people trying to promote their own stories on different websites, and one guy asked the author to read his story. Only one comment actually talked about the story, and they said it was good. My comment: Good idea for a story; you don’t see many stories dealing with pedophiles because it is a sensitive topic. You could have made the story more dramatic, so as to draw the reader into the story more. Also, a follow up story would be beneficial to see if the abductor actually returns his family to Keith.

“The Park” got a rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars. I think this rating is a little generous. I thought the actual abduction part could have been more exciting. The story also talked about how 300 children were abducted as well, which makes it less personal, and thus takes away from the story. The ending disappointed me as well because it didn’t really solve the problem and ended abruptly. I would have given this story 3 stars. The story is definitely worth continuing because it ends on a cliff-hanger and nothing is solved at the end of the story. A follow up story would really enhance the content for the reader.

Drew DePoy

Semester Project Presentation Prompt

Next week each of you will be doing a presentation on your semester project in progress. We will be going in alphabetical order, so folks in the beginning of the alphabet need to be ready to present on Monday (25 April).

Your presentation should be 3-5 minutes. If it goes any longer than 5 minutes, I’ll need to cut you off. Since there are 34 students in class, we’ll need to keep it tight if we want to get all the presentations done in one week.

You’ll want to give a basic description of your project, and what it will look like when it’s finished. Having something visual to show would be great, though, obviously, you don’t have to present a finished project. Showing something like a table of contents page, or an opening page or entry, would work.

You’ll want to say something about the interface or navigation structure of your project. You’ll also want to discuss the medium you have chosen to work with, and how that medium affects your story or poem. (For instance, if you choose to work with a wiki, how does the fact that other people can change what you’ve done affect how you tell your story—or does it? If you choose to work with hypertext, how does random navigation and a non-linear narrative affect how your tell your story, and how others read it?). Another way to discuss the medium is to discuss the genre: all our genres are distinguished by the medium they use.

In your presentations, as in your project “manifestos,” you’ll also want to address some of the concepts we’ve dealt with in class such as multimedia, interactivity, immersion, database; also digital subjectivity and the factuality/fiction divide (your project, to qualify as a digital object, must deal with at least one of those concepts, but not necessarily most or all of them).

I’m very interested to see what you all do with the genres and ideas we have discussed in class.

notes on fact vs. fiction

As we have witnessed and discussed in this class, the line between fact and fiction online is blurry. Some take advantage of this situation in malicious ways: scamming and spamming people, taking over the online identities of strangers in order to steal information and ultimately their money. Some take advantage in order to create art in the form of literature. We have seen numerous examples of such art works this semester.

Let’s look at some examples of the fudging of facts into fiction.

Recently, Stephen Colbert responded to a factual error (to put it charitably) made by Jon Kyl in a speech in the U.S. House of Representatives. As part of a budget debate, Kyl said that “90%” of what Planned Parenthood did was abortions. Checking the public disclosure statements of Planned Parenthood, Colbert discovered that actually only 3% of Planned Parenthood’s budget went to abortion. The rest went to medical care for women.

Kyl later issued a statement saying that what he said about Planned Parenthood was “not intended to be a factual statement.” It was, apparently, intended to be a fiction that looked an awful lot like fact. In other words, a lie.

It was a great example of what Colbert calls “truthiness“: it’s true because someone wants it to be true, based on a personal or political agenda. That is, it’s subjective truth masquerading as objective truth.

Colbert then began a Twitter campaign in which people would say “truthy” things about Jon Kyl in a tweet, and then conclude with #notintendedtobeafactualstatement. This incited all sorts of creative acts of fiction, including yours truly who tweeted (on behalf of his digital literature class):

“Jon Kyle is a cyborg. Which is why he doesn’t understand women’s reproductive health. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement”

For more on this, check out these links:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/24039/october-17-2005/the-word—truthiness

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/12/colbert-fox-friends_n_847930.html
http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement

Blurring the border between fact and fiction is nothing new in communications or literature. In fact, every big advance in communications usually leads to a period of time in which it is not clear what is fact and what is fiction, which some people use to their advantage for good (art) or ill (scams).

When print was first popular, and literacy expanding, there were many such literary hoaxes. Pamela (1740), by Samuel Richardson, is considered by many as the first novel in English. It was hugely popular and thought at first as a true story. It was something of a literary hoax, in that the novel was based on a letter-writing manual and included a document by a fictional reverend praising the novel, pretending it was real. Richardson’s rival, Henry Fielding, published a parody of Pamela, called Shamela, in which he pokes fun at Richardson’s characters and story, but also attacks Richardson for including the fictional reverend’s puff piece. In doing this, it is also likely that Fielding wanted to make money on the Pamela craze. Fielding later wrote another work using Richardson’s characters.

Like I said, consciously confusing fact and fiction is nothing new.

In this class, we first encountered it when we read Julian Dibble’s “A Rape in Cyberspace.” You’ll recall that Mr. Bungle, the demented clown, simulated rape in a MOO. It turns out that Mr. Bungle was in fact a whole dorm of randy college students. So in this case, we had people who were pretending to be someone they weren’t, for malicious purposes. And the fiction of rape was actually quite a factual experience for the people on the receiving end of Mr. Bungle’s transgressions.

http://www.juliandibbell.com/articles/a-rape-in-cyberspace/

We also looked at fake Facebook profiles and Phweets (phony Twitter feeds). Again, what appeared to be factual in many cases was fiction. And again, some people use this confusion in malicious ways (hacking into profiles in order to get financial information), and others for artistic reasons.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/159492/15_fake_and_funny_twitter_accounts.html

We saw many examples of fake blogs. Some of these “flogs” were fiction blogs, used to create characters and stories, and some were “flack” blogs, blogs that were part of a surreptitious advertising campaign. As an example of the latter there was Jim and Laura and their cross-country trip visiting various Walmarts. It turns out later that they were paid by an advertising company hired by Walmart. In their blog entries, there was no mention of anything bad at Walmart. All that had been edited out by the advertising company.

Another, much more sophisticated, example is the PotatoFools ARG. An ARG is an alternative reality game. On the PotatoFools wiki it is defined thus: “an ARG is an Alternative Reality Game, not augmented but Alternative. It uses a real world context to solve puzzles using a community based group to eventually lead to a bigger goal.” In this case it offered a pseudo-conspiracy in which events and facts were manipulated by people working for an advertising campaign for the soon-to-be-released console game Portal 2.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1824635

The advertising campaign built around Jay Z’s book “Decoded” could probably also be considered a ARG.

http://bing.decodejay-z.com/?fbid=mokr-deCAWw&wom=false

Less tricky and more like literary fiction are the celebrity parody blogs we looked at in class, such as those at newsgroper.com. For instance, there is a celebrity flog by “the Donald,” Donald Trump.

http://www.newsgroper.com/donald-trump

Now we are more likely to see celebrity parody flogs and phweets. For most of these it’s satirical and fun, but, again, when the border between fact and fiction is not clear, it can have more serious implications. For instance, when someone impersonates a political figure, some people might take it seriously, and it can affect domestic policies and geopolitical arrangements. This is especially true, as in the example below, when hackers use celebrity accounts (and accounts of newsmakers) to send out pornography or gather financial information from people.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/26/twitter-phishing-hack-hit_n_477977.html

We’ve also read wikis that willfully confuse fact and fiction. Because anyone can edit wikis, the line between fact and fiction in wikis is always blurry, because there are many opportunities for “truthiness.” This is very true of Wikipedia. For instance, some legislators have their aides edit pages that say less than flattering things about them or their policies. To their credit, Wikipedia editors usually revert these pages fairly quickly, if the legislators are prominent enough. This is why college professors won’t let you cite Wikipedia in papers: it’s quite possible that the entry you cite has a biased perspective, or that it has been edited since you saw it. In this way it lacks authority.

In terms of fiction wikis, there does not seem to be much malicious hacking on wikis. But there are many writers that use wikis artistically, in terms of literature. For instance, there is the Wikipedia parody Uncyclopedia. If you didn’t know better you would think Uncyclopedia and Wikipedia are one in the same. Their similarity in look is a good part of the fun, and the artistry.

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Then there are fiction wikis that are more complicated, in a good way. The Imagine wiki, in Wikia, is an online encyclopedia for things that don’t exist. This is not a parody but a wiki that allows people to define and describe things that they have invented in their imagination, often as part of a larger fictional project.

http://imagine.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Similarly, there are wikis that try to define what is true in the context of a larger fictional universe. Examples would be Harry Potter wikis, Twilight wikis, and Star Wars wikis (link below). What is true in a given fictional world is considered “canon.” But then there are the versions of the characters and the stories in fan fiction. On many sites, this is called “fanon.” At Wookiepedia, fanon “applies to certain ‘facts’ that may have been accepted as a truth by a large number of fans, although not necessarily true, and thus either replaces an established canonical fact in the minds of those fans, or fills a plot-hole.” In some cases, the canonical authors of a fictional universe will accept fanon assertions, thus making them canonical. The important thing to take from this is that even in fictional worlds, people are concerned about facts and fictions, and try to distinguish what is “truthy” from what is “truth” in that given world.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Fanon

rgn writing exercise

For our in-class writing assignment today you will be composing a RGN, or a “randomly generated narrative.” That is, you will create a simple story based on the results of a Google search. You will also be taking notes that will help you do this.

1. Think of a string of search terms (e.g. “running down the street”). Record the search term string in your notes.

2. Enter the string of search terms into a Google search box.

3. Click on one of the links and see what’s there. Jot down some notes about what you’ve seen and IMPORTANT cut and paste the URL into the document you’re using to write your notes.

4. From there, you may follow a link and see what’s there. In your notes, you might want to note the possible connection (or lack of connection) between the page where you are now and Google search results page (from which you followed the link). Once again, be sure to record the URL of the latest page you have visited.

5. Or you might stay on the Google search results page and follow another link. If so, do what you did in #3 above.

6. When you have looked at five or more pages, start thinking about composing a narrative that explains and connects the pages you have seen. It’s possible that you began with a narrative in mind (with your string of search terms); that’s fine. Or a narrative emerged as you looked at different pages. But it’s also possible that you can’t see the narrative until you start looking at your notes and do some preliminary writing.

Note that multimedia elements (video, images, sound files) are fair game for inclusion in your narrative. But your narrative itself will be made up of words. That is, you are embedding multimedia elements in a textual narrative, rather than just linking together multimedia elements.

This is what you are turning in today:

• the search term string you used
• your notes
• URLs of all the pages you’ve visited
• a narrative of five or more sentences that attempts to connect and make sense of your Google search

You don’t have to write out a story per se. What you turn in could be a sketch or an outline. It would be helpful to embed (not necessarily making a link) your URLs in your narrative.

FINAL NOTE: I would prefer that you send me your assignment in the form of text pasted into an email rather than a MS Word attachment. That way, all the URLs will be active.

Notes on the Database

The database is something we take for granted in our digital world. If it’s digital, it means that is basically is made up of information (a long string of zeros and ones), and information needs to be stored. In the digital world it is stored in files, which are themselves stored in databases, which are often smaller subsets of larger databases, etc. Everything we have studied in this class has had, at its “back end,” a database of some kind. Hypertext, multimedia poems, MOOs, interactive fiction, flogs, and fiction wikis all need some kind of database to function. And in order to read them, you need to use some kind of interface (a program or application).

In The Language of New Media, Lev Manovich defines the database as “a structured collection of data. The data stored in a database is organized for fast search and retrieval by a computer and therefore, it is anything but a simple collection of items. Different types of databases—hierarchical, network, relational, and object-oriented—use different models to organize data” (218).

As mentioned, a large proportion of works of digital literature are databases in a basic sense. “They appear as collections of items on which the user can perform various operations—view, navigate, search.” Particularly online, “the world appears to us as an endless and unstructured collection of images, texts, and other data records, [so] it is only appropriate that we will be moved to model it as a database” (219). Given that the database is an “endless and unstructured collection” of data, we need an interface to make use of it.

In terms of traditional, print literature, particularly prose, we can consider the print object as a form of database (of words, pages, chapters, etc.). The normal manner of interfacing such a database is the narrative. But in a digital environment, the narrative is a bad interface. It is constantly undermined by the shear amount of data and the many different ways of accessing it.

Manovich writes: “As a cultural form, the database represents the world as a list of items, and it refuses to order this list. In contrast, a narrative creates a cause-and-effect trajectory of seemingly unordered items (events). Therefore, database and narrative are natural enemies. Competing for the same territory of human culture, each claims an exclusive right to make meaning out of the world,” (225). Part of this is that databases are made to be interfaced in different ways, and encourage random access. In contrast, a narrative is a privileged interface, and discourages random access.

Creating a work of digital literature “can be understood as the construction of an interface to a database. In the simplest case, the interface simply provides access to the underlying database.” But it is also possible “to create different interfaces to the same material,” (226-227). In that sense, database and narrative can be collaborators.

That is, although they are “natural enemies,” narrative can still be part of digital literary works. However, instead of being the privileged interface, as in print, narrative is but one interface among others in the digital realm.

In Patchwork Girl Shelley Jackson created many interfaces to her work (indexes, charts, trees) but fails to tell a coherent story. That is because she does not have a unifying narrative as an interface. The result tends to be confusion and disinterest. To be fair, her approach is similar to many artists coming to digital literature from an experimental modernist or post-modernist perspective, including most early hypertext authors.

Some digital authors now speak of the database as a new kind of genre. The name they usually give to this new digital genre is the archive. An archive gives to the reader/user a database of materials (including images, texts, audio and video files) without privileging any of them, allowing the reader/user to access them randomly. However, a good archive will include—along with a good navigation structure—at least one file that functions as a narrative, even if it’s only a “how to” page.

One thing that complicates all this, something Manovich does not really address, is the whole question of poetry. Many, if not most, poems today make no use of narrative. How do we access the “database” of the poem? Through striking images, allusion, rhythm, and the artful and musical use of language, perhaps? Or that certain je ne sai quoi? However you look at it, there are multiple “interfaces” to poetry.

Maybe this is why, as we have observed in this class, poetry seems to translate better to the digital realm than prose—particularly, long works of prose. Lacking a strong, linear narrative, and with multiple ways to access the material, the poem is ready-made to be “ported into” a database. (It doesn’t hurt that poems are often much shorter, both in line and page length.)

It might be helpful to think about database as it relates to the other aspects of digital literature, such as its multimedia, interactive, and immersive qualities.

Multimedia: The database of the digital work offers a variety of objects to view and engage. Print objects offer this as well, with this difference: a multimedia object offers multiple interfaces, rather than just one as in print, including navigation by image (graphical interface, icons, etc.)

Interactive: Offering multiple interfaces to the database of the digital work, the reader (or “user”) has multiple possibilities—multiple paths—for navigating the work. This makes it more interactive. Particular forms of interactivity in play: VIEW, NAVIGATE, SEARCH, and SORT. Each of these offers a different way to interface the data of the digital object. This means that it is the user organizes the material, and creates the narrative on the fly, depending upon the choices made.

Immersive: Digital objects “seek the real by multiplying mediation so as to create a feeling of fullness, a satiety of experience” (Bolter and Grusin 53). This is one aspect of remediation, according to Bolter and Grusin, what they call “hypermediation.” That is, by increasing the data, and interfaces to the database (which also means increased multimedia and interactivity), digital objects create a sense of immersion. This is something that databases are particularly good at doing.

As important as database is for structuring, and accessing, data, most times we do not notice or think about the database when we read/use digital literary objects. It might just be running quietly in the background, doing what it’s supposed to do. But then often times narrative, in print literature, works the same way. It’s just there to get us to where we want to go; it gives us the “pay-off.”

Works cited:

Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Boston, MA: MIT Press, 2002.

team exercise: fiction wikis

The team assignment for today has two parts.

The first part is fairly simple: find a wiki, explore it a bit, and then provide a general description (more on that below).

The second part is to compose and upload a chapter or article to the wiki you have chosen.

At the end of the exercise, please email me your description and the URL of your uploaded chapter or article.

You should find a wiki at Wikia. (Mostly because you don’t have to have a login to do so at Wikia.) Links to Wikia sites are below.

Part I: General description

Consider the following questions:

1. Who is the audience for the wiki? What kind of people use the wiki? Can you find out profile information?

2. What kind of tools are available for collaboration at the wiki?

3. What kind of fiction wiki is your wiki? (collaborative hypertext, collaborative interactive fiction, collaborative serialized fiction, collaborative world construction, collaborative faux encyclopedia)

Part II: Contribution

Again, in the second part you will compose a chapter or article and upload it to your wiki.

If you like, you can do one of the wikis that have been presented today. They are listed here:

http://engl278w.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/team-g-presents-fiction-wikis/

Or you can choose another Wikia wiki:

Fiction Wikia:
http://fiction.wikia.com/wiki/Fiction

ConWorlds Wiki:
http://conworld.wikia.com/wiki/Welcome_to_Conworlds

Imagine Wiki:
http://imagine.wikia.com/wiki/ImagineWiki

Have fun!