Multiliteracies in ELA Classrooms

Thank you to everyone for listening and participating in our presentation today! I wanted to share a few of my thoughts about the site we perused together (eliterature.org) as well as pose a few additional comments/questions about this topic.

For one, I highly encourage you to browse through the EL volumes when you have some more time, as there are very interesting and thought provoking pieces in the collections. When viewing the various “texts”, I felt extremely challenged to open my mind to a world without physical limitations. The possibilities are endless! Several classes ago, Teresa spoke about her experience of sharing e-lit. She mentioned facing antagonism and outright hostility while speaking to a group of experienced instructors.  While I am a huge fan of reading in print form and I loved learning about “canonical” texts throughout my education, I am greatly encouraged by the way in which e-lit challenges our stiffened definitions about what constitutes “true” and “valuable” literature. While the visual/audio/artistic expression characteristic of some e-lit can feel like an overwhelming sensory experience at first, I must say I’m entranced by the idea of literature, art and multimedia that enriches and informs culture through a hybrid response. In its interactive nature, e-lit takes familiar technological processes and applies them in a different context: one in which various tools are harnessed to enhance and even create an entirely new kind of story. I like the idea that the use of technology in e-lit is not just a “bells and whistles” approach used to grab attention. Rather in this context, we are invited to investigate the meta- aspects of literary production and technology that are part and parcel with creating a meaningful experience.  I’ll finish off with a interesting thought that came out of lingering after class with our instructors: since the curriculum has shifted in recent years and we are no longer teachers of English Language only but of English Language Arts, how is e-lit just as, if not better suited in some cases to this curriculum? With scholarship that continues to critically investigate and challenge notions of the “canon”, how is e-lit a valuable tool uniquely positioned to aid students in their growth as “literate” individuals in the 21^st century?

-Irene

• Hypertext fiction and poetry, on and off the Web
• Kinetic poetry presented in Flash and using other platforms
• Computer art installations which ask viewers to read them or otherwise have literary aspects
• Conversational characters, also known as chatterbots
• Interactive fiction
• Novels that take the form of emails, SMS messages, or blogs
• Poems and stories that are generated by computers, either interactively or based on parameters given at the beginning
• Collaborative writing projects that allow readers to contribute to the text of a work
• Literary performances online that develop new ways of writing

Our Role

Important questions

1. Is electronic literature really literature at all?
2. Will the dissemination mechanisms of the Internet and the WWW, nu opening publication to everyone, result in a flood of worthless drivel?
3. Is literary quality possible in digital media, or is electronic literature demonstrably inferior to the print canon?

 

Facade

The e-story “facade” describes a dinner party between a married couple. As the reader interacts with the conversation, the party quickly circles around the couple’s marriage. This work is revolutionary as it can accept any type of language produced by the user and assimilate it into the outcome of the narrative.

LINK: http://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/mateas_facade.html

 

Electronic Literature is Not Print

• Relies on different language.  Need to begin with computer code; an entirely different source language.
• Hypertextuality.
• Cool factor.
• Involves more genres than just literature (digital arts, computer games, and other forms associated with networked and programmable media).
• Also “deeply entwined with the powerful commercial interests of software companies, computer manufacturers, and other purveyors of apparatus associated with networked and programmable media” (24).
• “[E]lectronic literature can be seen as a cultural force helping to shape subjectivity in an era when networked and programmable media are catalyzing cultural, political, and economic changes with unprecedented speed” (24).  This is the key point.  How?  For real?  For the better?  This notion can be connected to McLuhan.
• Espen J. Aarseth suggests e-lit to be “a purely ideological term, projecting an unfocused fantasy rather than a concept of any analytical substance” (21).
• Is e-lit an attack on the imagination and bound for obsolescence?
• Reliant on “the grid.”  Privileged genre?

 

E- Literature – Preservation, Archiving, and Dissemination

How exactly is e-literature preserved and archived? While there are methods to preserving physical work (as books, for example, can endure for centuries if printed on quality paper), how does the archiving of digital media take place? In her article, Hayes mentions that libraries, librarians, conservators and preservationists allow physical work to be conserved, but that no such method or mechanisms exist for electronic literature. This situation is further complicated by the fact that digital media is incredibly fluid – it is constantly changing and its direction is often uncertain (often due to software and hardware updates), making it unplayable or unreadable on newer systems.

The answer to this, according to Hayles, is The Electronic Literature Organization, which has taken a proactive approach to this crucial problem of preservation with the new PAD initiative (Preservation, Archiving and Dissemination Initiative). They collect, in their words, “innovative and high quality” works and compile them in a collection that features 60 recent works of electronic literature, includes brief descriptions of each work, a note by the author(s), a keyword index, and make it available to the public – all while preserving and archiving it. It is, essentially, an online electronic library.

Hayles also mentions that an article available on the ELO website called “Acid-Free Bits” by Nick Montfort and Noah Wardrip- Fruin, offers tips for authors on how to preserve their electronic literature. The tips advise authors to pay attention to how they digitally present their work, and make recommendations such as utilizing open systems instead of closed systems (open systems allow unrestricted user access while closed systems do not), choosing community-directed systems over corporate driven systems, and adhering to good programming practices by supplying comments and consolidating code.

Hayles closes the article by discussing what she calls a “visionary” proposal that is discussed in the essay “Born Again Bits” (Alan Lui et al). The authors in this essay make the proposal of an “X Literature Initiative”, which basically makes the argument that since XML – which is Extensible Markup Language – is and will continue to be the most widespread form up web markup language, it should be a means through which e-literature can be preserved. The proposal also puts forth the idea that a set of practices and tools can allow old works of e-literature to be migrated to XML – allowing e-literature of all ages to be encoded and preserved in the same manner.

Discussion Question:

In her article, Hayles mentions that when it pertains to the preservation of e-literature, the PAD initiative only selects “innovative and high quality” works for their archival collection. In your opinion, what potential problems could arise when it pertains to what exactly is chosen for preservation? How accurate do you think the ELO is in choosing “good” literature that the future generation would find beneficial? Should there be some sort of checklist for what is deemed “high quality”, and thus, preserved in the ELO’s collection?

 

The above statement seems rather obvious and straightforward.  Hayles argues that electronic literature is characterised by its digital nature which is reliant on code (an entirely different source language), as well as its hypertextuality (I think we all understand this term).  Also, though it is ‘[l]ocated within the humanities by tradition and academic practice, electronic literature also has close affinities with the digital arts, computer games, and other forms associated with networked and programmable media.  It is also deeply entwined with the powerful commercial interests of software companies, computer manufacturers, and other purveyors of apparatus associated with networked and programmable media” (24).  Alright, fine, but who cares?  I don’t recall anyone getting all up in arms about classifying electronic literature as print (though I’ve been ill-informed many times before).  What becomes important and worthy of debate, however, is the way in which “electronic literature can be seen as a cultural force helping to shape subjectivity in an era when networked and programmable media are catalyzing cultural, political, and economic changes with unprecedented speed” (24), and in a different way than print media does.  The larger question then becomes whether or not these changes are having a negative or positive affect on us.

This idea of media and how we use it changing the nature of our culture and subjectivity isn’t new.  Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore wrote in their 1967 publication The Medium is the Massage (produced by Jerome Agel) that “All media work us over completely.  They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected” (26).  This sounds not only a bit dramatic, but enticingly believable.  But is it?  If we get back to Hayles’ work and think about electronic literature, in what ways has it changed us, and if it has are we better off because of it?  She writes, “Much as the novel both gave voice to and helped to create the liberal humanist subject in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, so contemporary electronic literature is both reflecting and enacting a new kind of subjectivity characterized by distributed cognition, networked agency that includes human and non-human actors, and fluid boundaries dispersed over actual and virtual locations” (24).  But is her characterisation of this new subjectivity accurate and/or sufficient?  Also, who or what are these non-human actors?

On the positive side of things I think we might say that we are introducing greater and more rapid access to information, but how is this changing our subjectivity?  Are we becoming more intelligent more quickly because of it?  I think this notion is highly debatable.  In an educational context we might say that electronic literature and hypertextuality are meeting the educational needs of students who learn differently than the verbal/linguistic types (according to Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences) who have always been favoured in a print literature setting.  Of course we also might argue that e-lit/hypertexts are feeding a highly distractible ADDesque generation of kids who above not being able to focus aren’t engaging with their imaginations as they once did, and as a result require more and more external sources of entertainment, satisfaction and gratification.

In her book A Theory of Adaptation, Linda Hutcheon writes about the telling and showing modes of texts.  The telling mode comprises the written word- the print based novel, and the showing mode in the realm of the visual- plays and films (22).  She writes:

In the telling mode […] our engagement begins in the realm of imagination, which is simultaneously controlled by the selected, directing words of the text and liberated- that is, unconstrained by the limits of the visual or aural.  We can stop reading at any point; we can re-read or skip ahead; we hold the book in our hands and feel, as well as see, how much of the story remains to be read.  But with the move to the mode of showing, as in film and stage adaptations, we are caught in an unrelenting, forward-driving story.  And we have moved from the realm of the imagination to the realm of direct perception- with its mix of both detail and broad focus (23).

Where does electronic literature fit into this theorization, and perhaps specifically hypertexts?  If we are to take Hayles assertion that electronic literature is not print literature then we must place it in the realm of the visual- the showing mode.  Do we then agree with Hutcheon’s idea that in this mode we are moving away from our imaginations when we engage with electronic literature and hypertexts?  And bringing McLuhan et al. back into the conversation with Hayles and Hutcheon, in what specific ways does electronic literature alter our subjectivity, sociocultural interactions, and ultimately, our lives?  Or should we be placing electronic literature, perhaps nebulously, in the divide between the telling and showing modes?

Adam.

Works Cited

Hayles, N. Katherine. “Electronic Literature: What is it?” http://eliterature.org. Jan. 2 2007. Web. 5 Jul 2013. <http://eliterature.org/pad/elp>.

Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Adaptation. New York: Taylor & Francis Group, 2006. Print.

McLuhan, Marshall, and Quentin Fiore. The Medium is the Massage. Ed. Jerome Agel. Corte Madera, CA: Gingko Press, 2001. Print.

Electronic Literature is such a fascinating topic, and during my preparation for my group’s presentation, I learned more than I ever thought I would. After reading Elizabeth Hayle’s article, an aspect of e-lit that really stood out for me was the issue of preserving and archiving work so that it would be available for future generations. What intrigued me about this topic was the fact that I had never (ever!) even thought about the importance of preserving e-lit, and really had no idea how the process would even work. This article really emphasizes the point that digital media is not something that remains stagnant, it is constantly changing, and “whereas books printed on good quality paper can endure for centuries, electronic literature routinely becomes unplayable (and hence unreadable) after a decade or even less” (Hayles). Although I am aware of the fact that both software and hardware are constantly changing and improving, I had never really thought of the fact that they can change to the point where certain programs can become completely incompatible, and thus, lost.

Today, we are so used to the constant flow of new editions of our favourite electronic items, and because they almost always support the programs of earlier editions of the same device, “losing” any type of electronic work/composition is usually not an issue. What we must keep in mind is the fact that this scenario may not ring true when there is a 20 or 30 year age gap between different editions of the same device. This fact emphasizes the point that in order to make the innovations of today available for tomorrow, preservation and archiving must seriously be considered.

Besides the issue of archiving electronic literature, something else that I am really interested in is the idea of comparing the different experiences one may have with print literature (a plain old book) and an online digital novel. I had the opportunity to read some digital novels online, and I found that while they were incredibly engaging and entertaining, I simply just prefer reading a physical book. In my case, I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that I cannot sit in front of my computer screen for very long, and also, that I equate reading with peace and quiet. I am interested in hearing what my classmates have to say, and look forward to hearing their different perspectives.

 

Works Cited

Hayles, N. Katherine. (2007). Electronic Literature: What is it? The Electronic Literature Organization. <http:eliterature.org/pad/elp.html>

 

—– Natasha Randhawa