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Electronic Literature
ENGL 146EL - Winter 2006,  Rita Raley
Mon, 2/6 Maps & navigational structures

  1. Consider “Trip” as a road novel: how does it compare to this genre (a tradition extending back to Lewis and Clark and most famously including On the Road)? What is the meaning or significance of the road? How does “Trip” comment on the multiple meanings of “detour”? How does it comment on navigation and exploration? How would you characterize the style and tone of this text? What is the relationship between this tone and hypertextual “browsing”? A few weeks ago we outlined eight qualities of electronic hypertexts: one was that electronic hypertexts contain spaces to navigate. Explore this idea in relation to “Trip.”

  2. Exploratory vs. constructive hypertext: is “Trip” a narrative environment that the reader simply explores, or is it a narrative environment that the reader makes? What is the extent of reader participation? In what way is the text interactive? How does the reader help to ‘construct’ the text? How did you read “Trip” (randomly, systematically, with repetition)? A few weeks ago we outlined eight qualities of electronic hypertexts: one was that electronic hypertexts are mutable and transformable. Explore this idea in relation to “Trip.”

  3. Narrative: how is “Trip” structured? Of what does it consist? How would you map or storyboard it? What is the story? What is the relationship between this story and the text as a whole? In what ways does the text provide and/or thematize narrative closure? We have spoken a bit about postmodernist novels as open-ended systems (e.g. texts that have multiple endings or negate their endings): how would you situate “Trip” in relation to this idea? Would you characterize the narrative as experimental or conventional? Why?

  4. Images and interactivity: How do the visual devices (maps, road signs, titles, etc.) work in “Trip”? What is their purpose? What effects do they have for text and reader? In what sense do they deliver interactivity as Koskimaa explains it (“the future of interactive fiction is dominantly visual (and probably, based on virtual reality devices)”? How would you link the visual and the spatial components of this text? A few weeks ago we outlined eight qualities of electronic hypertexts: one was that electronic hypertexts contained and was constituted by “dynamic images.” Explore this idea in relation to “Trip.”

  5. Montage and assemblage: what for you are the differences between turning a page and jumping from California to Texas, for example, in “Trip”? How would you describe the process of putting the text together? What would be one example of a narrative sequence? In what sense might we speak about “Trip” as a literary version of the montage and/or cut-up technique? How do the various parts come together: do they form an organic unity? Can we speak about “Trip” in terms of collaborative writing ? A few weeks ago we outlined eight qualities of electronic hypertexts: one was that electronic hypertexts are generated through fragmentation and recombination. Explore this idea in relation to “Trip.”


 



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