Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology

Linking post-structuralist theory and developments in hypertext text technology, Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology was for many the definitive work on hypertext during the 1990s and established hypertext as a field of serious critical discourse. 

CONTENTS

1. Hypertext and Critical Theory

Hypertextual Derrida, Poststructuralist Nelson?
The Definition of Hypertext and Its History as a Concept
Other Convergences: Intertextuality, Multivocality, and De-Centeredness
Vannevar Bush and the Memex
Virtual Texts, Virtual Authors, and Literary Computing
The Nonlinear Model of the Network in Current Critical Theory
Cause or Convergence, Influence or Confluence?
Analogues to the Gutenberg Revolution
Predictions

2. Reconfiguring the Text

From Text to Hypertext
Problems with Terminology: What Is the Object We Read, and What IsText in Hypertext?
Verbal and Nonverbal Text
Visual Elements in Print Text
Dispersed Text
Hypertextual Translation of Scribal Culture; or, The Electronic Manuscript
Argumentation, Organization, and Rhetoric
Beginnings and Endings in the Open Text
Boundaries of the Open Text
The Status of the Text; Status in the Text
Hypertext and De-centrality: The Philosophical Grounding

3. Reconfiguring the Author

How I Am Writing This Book
Virtual Presence
Collaborative Writing, Collaborative Authorship
Examples of Collaboration in Intermedia

4. Reconfiguring Narrative

Hypertext and the Aristotelian Conception of Plot
Narrative Beginnings and Endings
Michael Joyce¹s Afternoon: The Reader¹s Experience as Author

5. Reconfiguring Literary Education

Threats and Promises
Reconfiguring the Instructor
Reconfiguring the Student
Reconfiguring the Time of Learning
Reconfiguring Assignments and Methods of Evaluation
Examples of Collaborative Learning from Intermedia
Reconceiving Canon and Curriculum
What Chance Has Hypertext in Education?

6. The Politics of Hypertext: Who Controls the Text?

Answered Prayers; or, the Politics of Resistance
The Marginalization of Technology and the Mystification of Literature
The Politics of Particular Technologies
Hypertext and the Politics of Reading
The Political Vision of Hypertext; or, The Message in the Medium
The Politics of Access
Access to the Text and the Author's Right (Copyright)