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1. Hypertextual Rhythms (The Momentary Advantage of Our Awkwardness)

   Michael Joyce's paper, "Hypertextual Rhythms (The Momentary Advantage of Our Awkwardness)," addresses the historical moment of recent hypertext fiction. He will suggest that the common perception of hypertext as an awkward and opaque mode of discourse may actually make it easier to grasp its historical significance. Before the novelty of the electronic medium fades, and electronic text assumes the transparency that printed text now has, we may better understand it as a distinct representational form.

   Joyce presented this paper as part of a special session, "Hypertext, Hypermedia: Defining a Fictional Form," at the 1992 MLA Convention. The panel was chaired by Terence Harpold. Other panelists included pioneering hypertext authors: Carolyn Guyer, Judy Malloy, and Stuart Moultrhop.

   (Source: Humanist Archives Vol. 6 : 6.0338 Hypertext at MLA)

   Eric Dean Rasmussen - 01.01.2012 - 13:30

2. What Hypertext Is

   Over the past couple decades, as the term "hypertext" has gained a certain popular currency, a question has been raised repeatedly: "What is hypertext?" Our most respected scholars offer a range of different, at times incompatible, answers. This paper argues that our best response to this situation is to adopt the approach taken with other terms that are central to intellectual communities (such as "natural selection," "communism," and "psychoanalysis"), a historical approach. In the case of "hypertext" the term began with Theodor Holm ("Ted") Nelson, and in this paper two of his early publications of "hypertext" are used to determine its initial meaning: the 1965 "A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate" and the 1970 "No More Teachers' Dirty Looks." It is concluded that hypertext began as a term for forms of hypermedia (human-authored media that "branch or perform on request") that operate textually. This runs counter to definitions of hypertext in the literary community that focus solely on the link. It also runs counter to definitions in the research community that privilege tools for knowledge work over media.

   Scott Rettberg - 25.05.2012 - 14:15

3. Marking Transition: the Work of Neal von Flue

   For any regular Internet user, the hyperlink has become ubiquitous, almost rendered invisible
   through the frequency of its use. Trails in hypertext are meticulously laid out through the
   seemingly endless streams of data, connected by links imagined as points of intersection in the
   web. Links are used for reference, for navigation but also extensively in creative production, to
   fashion hypertextual narratives and images. It is in this realm of electronic literature, both visual
   and textual, that the function of the link shifts from the commonplace to a carrier of aesthetic
   potential.

   This presentation examines the aesthetic activation of the hyperlink as both an indicator of
   transition and site of transformation. It is a brief exploration of the hyperlink as a signifier, a
   mark both on and in the 'surface' of the digital text, through a close case study of two works by
   hypercomic creator Neal von Flue.

   Eric Dean Rasmussen - 21.06.2012 - 13:54

4. Shakespeare in Simlish? Responsive Systems and Literary Language

   There is a moment that can happen when reading/playing an interactive fiction. The system just presented some text, perhaps quite engaging or even beautiful. And then one tries to reply, using some of the same language, only to receive an error. The underlying system doesn't can't hear the language with which it speaks. The language it displays is written ahead of time, while the language it receives must be parsed and acted upon at runtime.

   There is something uneasy about this disjuncture, and one response is to try to avoid all such problems. Will Wright's Sims speak only in gibberish sounds and visual icons, so that the surface representation of language matches the very simple internal representation of what they can discuss. Chris Crawford currently plans for his new storytelling system to avoid the construction of English-like sentences found in Storytron — instead moving to an icon language intended to help players better understand the internal representations (much more complex than those in The Sims) on which his story system will operate.

   Eric Dean Rasmussen - 22.06.2012 - 16:55

5. When Digital Literature goes Multimedia: Three German Examples

   In February 2000 Robert Coover noticed the "constant threat of hypermedia: to suck the substance out of a work of lettered art, reduce it to surface spectacle". Coover's message seems to be: When literature goes multimedia, when hypertext turns into hypermedia a shift takes place from serious aesthetics to superficial entertainment. What Coover points out is indeed a problem of hypermedia. If the risk of hyperfiction is to link without meaning, the risk of hypermedia is to employ effects that only flex the technical muscles. Can there be substance behind spectacle? In this paper I discuss three examples of German digital literature which combine the attraction of technical aesthetics with the attraction of deeper meaning.

   Jill Walker Rettberg - 09.10.2012 - 22:12

6. Meta Discourse: An Investigation into Possibilities of Meta-Fictions in the 21st Century

   The old rites of literature are quickly starting to come to a head, and as we move through the 21st century we will find ourselves staring into new modes of expression of literary concepts that we have known only on the printed page for centuries prior. Meta-fiction not only allows for new ways of approaching a narrative but also new ways of approaching literature in general, including electronic literature. Questioning the boundaries between the reader and the writer, the audience and the performer, the characters in the text and the ones reading it, one might say that meta-fiction was one of the first forms of hypertext mediums in which the reader was encouraged to draw on outside influences and information to arrive at the heart of the text. This understanding of meta-fiction, then, makes it an appropriate place to begin an analysis of new modes of discourse and the variability of the messages presented. In such a textually-conscious style of writing, how does the narrative alter according to the mode of presentation while still retaining a questioning and awareness of the literary roots?

   Scott Rettberg - 07.01.2013 - 22:39

7. Textuality and Graphic Novels: Identity, Influence and Adaptation in V for Vendetta and Beyond

   This paper presents a multimedia/hypertext/PowerPoint presentation that focuses on the graphic novel V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd and the 2006 adapted film version of V for Vendetta, directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski. This presentation addresses the history of graphic novels and looks at recent trends in the medium, compares two scenes from the graphic novel with the film, and weaves in theoretical concepts such as the relationships between text and image, the use of simulation and semiotic analysis. Other issues discussed include the use of theatrics, masks and constructed identity in both texts. Finally, the presentation concludes with a look at the future of graphic novels and a call to further academic studies of this emerging textual medium and its growing life in virtual online forms.

   (Source: Author's abstract, 2008 ELO Conference site)

   Scott Rettberg - 09.01.2013 - 10:12

8. The Medium Is the Metaphor

   For one of my courses this fall, my first semester in the new Media, Art, and Text program at Virginia Commonwealth University, I created a short Flash piece on medium and a hypertext project on medium as metaphor, looking at eight texts—four print authors and four new media works. This presentation focuses on these projects.

   Scott Rettberg - 09.01.2013 - 10:20

9. Words and pictures ex machina? Hypertext and ekphrasis

   Following the concept of "remediation" and the premise that "all of our examples of hypermediacy are characterized by this kind of borrowing, as is also ancient and modern ekphrasis" (Bolter and Grusin, 1999: 44-45), I would like to take under consideration a literary work of Portuguese poet Vasco Graça MouraGiraldomachias / Em demanda de Moura (co-author Gérard Castello-Lopes; 2000). 

   Scott Rettberg - 09.01.2013 - 10:28

10. Mapping out Spaces for E-Lit Criticism

    This paper explores the process of discovering works of elit by focusing on the role of the online literary journal. The heyday of Web 1.0, the late 1990s, gave birth to the first generation of electronic literature. To support this emergent art form, this period also delivered a multitude of online literary journals that showcased hypertexts, kinetic poetry, animations, and interactive fiction as well as scholarly articles, interviews with authors, book reviews, and critical discourse. But as the Web became a more graphic-friendly navigation space and debates about cybertext vs. hypertext took centerstage in critical forums, celebration of electronic literature in web-zines and journals seemed to dry up. In the first few years of the twenty-first century, most of the literary journals that had flourished in the late '90s had ceased operations. What are the spaces for electronic literature and its discovery in the 21st century? How do these spaces or lack of them map and remap the field of electronic literature and its criticism?

    Scott Rettberg - 09.01.2013 - 11:56

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