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Hypertext Fiction & Digital Poetries
ENGL 165LT - Fall 2002,  Rita Raley
Tue, 10/22 Combinatorial Writing and Ergodic Text

In this class we will begin to put digital textuality in dialogue with two moments of experimental writing: the 1920s (Dada, Tristan Tzara) and the 1960s (Oulipo, William S. Burroughs & Brion Gysin).

What is it about hypertext that makes it available to being read in terms of cut-ups, combinatorial writing, and writing under constraint? In what sense does the logic of these other moments and modes of experimental writing inform hypertext?

Oulipo's "literature machines" generate texts according to rules, codes, procedures. What is the "potential" of this mode of composition?

Some of the themes and issues we will address include the following: authorship (including collaborative writing between computer and user); writing as assemblage; writing as mixing (musical analogies).


 



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