There was also something that was being discussed on the lines of paintings and art being a form of literature, and I have to agree with those in the class who said that it is literature because one can develop stories from any kind of perspective that someone has about the picture. As a saying goes, a picture paints a thousand words. This is why I consider art a form of literature.

In the words of Forrest Gump… thats all I have to say about that.

 “…electronic literature is a ‘hopeful monster’ composed of parts taken from diverse traditions that may not always fit neatly together”/“hybrid by nature” (4)

 “hypertext fictions also mutated into a range of hybrid forms” (7)

 “the complex hybridization … between human cognition and the very different and yet interlinked cognitions of intelligent machines” (22)

 “a linguistic practice in which English is hybridized with programming expressions” (21)

 “The interiorized subjectivity associated with print has not disappeared, but it is being hybridized by a complex dynamic in which a subvocalized human voice … is no longer the primary goal of screen displays” (118)

 It seems that everything emerging in today’s culture is predestined to merge with some other form and become a hybrid/mutant. Does it mean then that the contemporary world with its tendency to “de-differentiation” (93) “deconstructing the boundaries” (9) to create “complex … formations” (47) is not able to produce pure forms any more?

Mine was a toss-up.  I liked Convergence Culture because it was easy to read and related to things that I like (except the Matrix and Star Wars).  I also have to say I enjoyed Macbeth because it was literature, fiction and didn’t make me wanna blow my brains out.

Let me know if you have any questions.

“Of the sixty works in the ELC [Electronic Literature Collection], perhaps a third have no recognizable words, virtually all have important visual components, and many have sonic effects as well.  By calling these works ‘literature,’ my co-editors and I hope to stimulate questions about the nature of literature in the digital era” (4

Wiki definition of Electronic Literature: Electronic literature is a literary genre consisting of works of literature that originate within digital environments.

Electronic Literature Organization definition of Electronic Literature: “The term refers to works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer” (http://www.eliterature.org/about/).

Dictionary.com definition of Literature: “Writings in which expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest, are characteristic or essential features, as poetry, novels, history, biography, and essays.”

After reading Hayles’ Electronic Literature, what is your definition of literature?  Do you draw a distinction between literature and electronic literature or does your definition of literature include electronic literature?  Are there non-digital works without words that would be considered literature?

“Anecdotal evidence as well as brain imaging studies indicate that “Generation M” is undergoing a significant cognitive shift, characterized by a craving for continuously varying stimuli, a low threshold for boredom, the ability to process multiple information streams simultaneously, and a quick intuitive grasp of algorithmic procedures that underlie and generate surface complexity” (117).

Wiki definition of Generation M: “The Internet generation, a term used to describe those who grew up during the birth and rise of the Internet.”

Is there a need for electronic literature because traditional literature does not stimulate Generation M’s multiple senses simultaneously?  What implications could this constant need for new stimuli have on our literature, movies, and other forms of entertainment?  How also will the constant stimuli changes affect the pedagogical strategies implemented from K-12 as well as higher education?  Will the text books for all levels of education need to evolve into a more electronic literature format?

“Rather than asking if there is evidence that the ‘literary’ novel may in fact be losing audience share to other entertainment forms, however, Fitzpatrick asks what cultural and social functions are served by pronouncements about the death of the print novel.   In my view, the situation is more complex than Fitzpatrick allows… young people are spending less time reading print books and more time           surfing the Web, playing video games, and listening to MP3 files.  Nevertheless, Fitzpatrick is certainly correct in pointing to the perception of print authors that they are in danger of becoming obsolete” (161-62).

Are print novelists at risk because of the amount of time people spend online (surfing the web, email, facebook, etc) or because people are reading electronic literature more frequently or have people just stopped reading novels?

“Also available are electronic book-like devices that can be taken to a bookstore where the electronic files comprising the text can be purchased, downloaded, and read at leisure on the device” (159-60).

What is the future of electronic readers such as the Nook and Kindle?  How will they affect print literature in the future?

As I was reading the print book, I was wishing I had a computer showing me the program/electronic literature source that Hayles was talking about simultaneously.  As far as I can tell, she talks about electronic literature sources that are not included on the disc.  Do you feel that the entire piece of literature should have been solely in an electronic format where the text about the literature was shown either directly before or after seeing the piece of electronic literature?

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/108283/e-readers-theyre-hot-now-but-the-story-isnt-over?mod=family-love_money

Pretty weird, right?  Here is a link to her site: http://www.sleeptrip.com/300loveletters/2.html  Some of the blocks of colors are linked to copies of her letters, so click around.

I wonder if anyone else has experienced this.  Have you been surprised at how your tastes have changed over the semester with regards to area preferences in English Studies?

These authors argue that children should be introduced to multiculturalism as soon as possible.  They explained it like this: children need to be introduced to multiculturalism in the same way that we introduce children to feminism.  For example, we (I use “we” to show collective ideology here (I have no daughters)) tell our daughters “you can be a firefighter” or “you can be a doctor.”  Starting from the time they are born, we want our daughters to believe that they are just as good as and equal to their male peers.  Similarly, these authors argue that we should start telling our children as early as possible things like, “some people have pinkish-yellow skin, and some people have darker skin, and some people have tan skin, but we can be friends with all people.”  These authors also say that we should talk about injustices (white privileged etc.) with our children early on too in order to show them that it’s not acceptable.

They argue that not talking about these issues early on shows our children that racial and ethnic issues are taboo.  This can be really dangerous, the authors explain, when children get to be older and they are making decisions about who they associate with.  The authors talk about their research of students in schools.  They found that children with social agency (popular kids) can choose who they are and are not friends with.  So if the students with social agency choose to have cross-ethnic or cross-racial friendships, then the students with less agency are likely to follow suit.  However, if the opposite takes place and the students with agency only form friendships with people of their own race or ethnicity, then cross-racial and -ethnic friendships become “uncool”.

Anyway, this is just something I was thinking about.  And maybe it could be helpful to your research, Chelsea?  Below is the link to the interview on NPR.  And I’ve also included the link to Bronson and Merryman’s website about their book.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112292248

http://www.nurtureshock.com/

Let me explain–these hypertexts are technologically behind. Many (if not all) of the websites were written in now outdated web languages and based on outdated design principles–like frames (Twelve Blue) and image maps (my body). Frames and basic HTML have all but been abandoned now-a-days for the seamlessness of CSS (cascading style sheets) web design. Flash is still popular in internet film, but not as a basis for website design. Many designers are working towards a CSS standard. They do this because Google can read websites written in CSS–it cannot read Flash-based websites. It’s intelligent business. Search engines will actually find you. Remember, Google is blind–which means Google must rely on text to tell it what the website is and does. CSS-based websites have text that Google can detect and read. Flash-based websites are built entirely out of images–any text is printed on a digital image (which Google cannot read as it only detects that the image is there–not what it is an image of and with no textual cues, it doesn’t know). So, there is no text to speak of on these sites. No text for Google to read!

I’m fairly certain these sites were written before the days of CSS because CSS is a much easier language to write in and makes for much prettier pages. These pages are bulky, and sometimes, a bit amateurish and even ugly in their design. Yeah, I’m going to go there. (Edit: I think I am going to go back and dig up the code of the webpages–I want to see how they are built. If there is CSS or just HTML–I’ve got a hunch that the code behind this might be unnecessarily complex by modern standards. They had to be unnecessarily complex to produce complex colors and images. Things have since simplified significantly. You don’t even have to build your own web presence anymore, Facebook or FreeCSSTemplates has built it for you.)

Anyway, Galatea was how all video games were written in the 1980s prior to the development of the first computer graphics in a time when a game could be produced by one solitary designer. Now, video games are told primarily through pictures. Instead of one person programming, we have software companies with teams and teams of people building our video games. A game hasn’t been the work of a single person in more than a decade. The people continuing to write text-adventures currently are IF-enthusiasts writing for free. I do not say this to discredit their creative efforts, I say it because–well–it’s true. (Even Emily Short admits it.) Interactive fiction can be published to some profit–but that “some profit” simply cannot compete with modern video games anymore.

These pieces of literature are part of our technological history. They are not the future–we have–technologically-speaking–moved past them. So, please everyone. Do not be so hard on yourselves. It is probably not you who is outdated.