Travels in Cybertextuality. The Challenge of Ergodic Literature and Ludology to Literary Theory

Critical Writing
Language: 
Year: 
2009
ISBN: 
978-951-39-3653-2
Pages: 
395
Record Status: 
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Abstract (in English): 

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)

Critical writing referenced:

Title Author Year
Digital Poetics: The Making of E-Poetries Loss Pequeño Glazier 2001
Writing Machines N. Katherine Hayles 2002
A Clash between Game and Narrative Jesper Juul 1998
New Media Poetry: Poetic Innovation and New Technologies Philippe Bootz, Jim Rosenberg, E. M. de Melo e Castro, John Cayley, Eduardo Kac, Eric Vos 1996
Biopoetry Eduardo Kac 2011
Digital Literature: From Text to Hypertext and Beyond Raine Koskimaa 2000
Ontological Boundaries and Methodological Leaps: The Importance of Possible Worlds Theory for Hypertext Fiction (and Beyond) Alice Bell 2011
Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology George P. Landow 1992
Wittgenstein, Genette, and the Reader's Narrative in Hypertext Gunnar Liestøl 1994
New narrative pleasures? A cognitive-phenomenological study of the experience of reading digital narrative fictions Anne Mangen 2006
The Language of New Media Lev Manovich 2000
Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction Nick Montfort 2005
Some Joyces, Not an Eco: Introduction to Instruments and Playable Texts Stuart Moulthrop 2008
Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace Janet H. Murray 1998
Literary Machines: The report on, and of, Project Xanadu concerning word processing, electronic publishing, hypertext, thinkertoys, tomorrow's intellectual revolution, and certain other topics including knowledge, education and freedom Theodor Holm Nelson 1993
What you click is what you get? - Die Stellung von Autoren und Lesern in interaktiver digitaler Literatur Anja Rau 2000
The Structure of Hypertext Activity Jim Rosenberg 1996
Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media Marie-Laure Ryan 2015
Avatars of Story Marie-Laure Ryan 2009
Fashionable Noise: On Digital Poetics Brian Kim Stefans 2003
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Scott Rettberg