Name – Jheel Barad
Roll No.: 12
Enrollment No.: 4069206420210003
Paper no: 204
Paper code: 22409
Paper name: Contemporary Western Theories and Film Studies
Sem.: 3 (Batch 2021- 2023)
Submitted to: Smt S.B. Gardi Department of English, M.K. Bhavnagar University
E-mail- jheelbarad@gmail.com
Digital Humanities
Digital humanities promotes understanding of culture through digital technology. The perspective that stands out most prominently in digital Humanities is the interest of the theorist in hypertext. researchers have shown the convergence of hypertext and poststructuralist theories. For example; George P. Landow in the book ‘Hypertext;: the Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology’ (1992) makes a very insightful and exhaustive study of this kind. it is therefore worth knowing the parallels between hypertext and postmodern/ poststructuralist ideas
Introduction to Stuart Moulthrop’s ‘You Say You Want a Revolution? Hypertext and the Laws of Media’
Stuart Moulthrop, in his essay offers an insightful account of the history, nature and function of hypertext. He discusses the convergence of hypertext and contemporary critical theory in particular.
The first part of his present is the history of hypertext.
The second part of a balanced view of the role and utility of hypertext and
The last part discusses the relation of hypertext to contemporary critical theory.
Unlike many supporters of hypertext and hypermedia, Mouthrop does not expect hypertext to bring any Revolutionary change in human culture.
Origin of Hypertext:
The concept of hypertext originated with Vannevar Bush in 1945. He was science advisor to President Roosevelt and an Electrical engineer who designed an early computer. He wanted to build a machine called ‘Memex’ to help researchers organize disparate sources of knowledge. His project did not succeed but the appearance of electronic computers on the academic scene proved that his predictions were right and practically viable. The next development in this direction was the creation of an animation game called ‘Adventure’ by artificial intelligence researchers in the early 1960s. This was the first hypertextual narrative. Around this time, Theodor Holm Nelson, an American philosopher, sociologist and expert in information technology coined the term hypertext. His dream project was to create a worldwide network of information he called this project ‘Xanadu’. one of the noted computer scientists Douglas Engelbart, one of the pioneers of the user interface design, entered into the collaboration with Nelson. They prepared a hypertext system called FRESS (file retrieval and editing system) around University in the early 1970. Nelson saw hypertext as a dynamic computing system in which readers could both use and change the textual corpus.
Relation of Hypertext to Humanities:
"non-sequential writing -- text that branches and allows choices to the reader, best read at an interactive screen. As popularly conceived, this is a series of text chunks connected by links which offer the reader different pathways"
-Ted Nelson
Moulthrop mentions some critics and their works that finally took note of hypertext and its utility in the study of humanities. Jay David Bolter’s ‘Writing Space’ (1991) offers a historic view historical view of hypertext; Ted Nelson’s ‘Literary Machines’ presents for the first time the study of hypertext in hypertextual form; George Landow’s ‘Hypertext’ (1992) discusses the hypertext within the context of both the poststructuralist and postmodern theory. Moutthrop refers to the datedness of the technology that we use and the human tendency to look for the new. he agrees with objection that hypertext has not fully lived up to its promises in the sense that it has not caused the expected revolution to materialize by replacing the old information order with the new one. but he argues that such expectations in the postmodern context do not make much sense.
Jean Baurillard proposed his theory of simulation. He argued that in the postmodern condition representation is replaced by simulation and therefore there is no reality but hyperreality.
Jean- Francios Lyotard French philosopher and the literary theorist rejected all traditional literary and cultural narratives as a grand narrative and their consequent failure in explaining the complexity of the postmodern condition.
Donna Harraway, an American feminist critique has carried out interdisciplinary studies of technology and gender. Her approach to science, gender, nature and humanity has challenged the common sense and assumptions of and about this field.
By referring to these theorists with many different pursuits, Mouthrop brings out the parallel between hypertext and electronic medium.
Necessity and distinctiveness of Hypertext:
Moulthrop Argues that it should not be dismissed as a local movement and as a preserve of a few in the technological elite. In order to prove this he relates and compares hypertext to the postmodern notion of simulation. simulation is a postmodern Theory proposed by Baudrillard which states that there is nothing real and primary in the original and pure sense in the world. The other connection of hypertext is to the vision in a dream seen by S.T. Coleridge as described in his famous poem ‘Kubla Khan’. Moulthrop sees no problem with revising Coleridge’s dream in a new post modern context when the line of distinction between reality and dream is blurred and the concept of originality is complicated. Through computation this dream becomes a reconstruction of text not as a fixed series of symbols but a variable access database in which the reader/ writer can forge new links. Ted Nelson’s project xanadu is one such reconstruction of this dream.
In his discussion of the usefulness of hypertext more does not disregard the troubles that the concept of populism may cause, he mentions two problems-
The first is that such social/ textual order will give benefits to only a few and that those benefited will not understand the responsibility of distributing accept Among many
The second problem is that information has virtually become equivalent to capital. textuality shapes information, but this could be appropriated by the capitalist system to their benefit.
Moulthrop proceeds to explain the projected function or role of hypertext in creating a social/ cultural order based of populism. he offered his explanation in the framework of the four questions provided by Marshall Mcluhan in his work on media and Technology which word posthumously published as ‘The Laws of Media: The New Science’ in (1988), formulas four basic questions that can be asked about any invention. Moulthrop applies these four questions and interprets hypertext accordingly.
Here are the four question and answers in brief:
McLuhan first question- What does hypertext enhance or intensify?
The answer: Hypertext enhances our sensitivity.
The second question- What does hypertext displays or render obsolete?
The answer: Hypertext displaces ‘post- literacy’ in the age of television and revives typographical culture.
The third question- What does hypertext retrieve that was previously Obsolete?
The answer: hypertext retrieves literacy
The fourth question- What does hypertext become when taken to its limit?
The answer: When taken to its limit hypertext becomes a new cultural space.
Features of Hypertext-
Hypertext is an electronic text that contains links to other texts. It is a form of textuality composed of blocks of words and links that opens several other reading links. it is not limited to text but includes Graphics, images, videos and sound. it is open to change and accessible to all. it is not based on any absolute and it remakes and is remade constantly.
Hypertext is not linear and compact. It is multilinear in the sense that it draws from several discrete sources and actively encourages users/ researchers to explore other media and fields of thought by making several further other links available within the body of the text.
Users/ readers can customize the hypertext to the form and appearance they find best suited to their utility, purpose and Desire.
Electronic links provided within the hypertext reconfigure text and create an ever- multiplying and ever- changing chain. This history of reconfiguration moves text, readers and writers into a new writing space.
The multiple reading links shift the power balance between reader and writer. Reconfiguration of the author and the authorial real property constantly takes place as the reader and the role of the author reconfigures his text.
Hypertext is a network of connection to other texts. thiscan as well be understood as connections of knowledge which are distributed throughout the network. it is neither localized nor restricted to a particular electronic space or memory.
Networking leads to democratization of the entire process of knowledge creation and distribution. Separations like main text or original text at annotation create hierarchical distinctions. But hypertext removes such distinctions.
Moulthrop offers a balanced, impartial and insightful assessment of hypertext and convincingly claims that electronic media has the potential to create a new social cultural order.
Patterns of Hypertext
Hypertext presents itself as a multi-dimensional cognitive environment where linguistic, graphic, visual and audio elements intersect in a network structure. Digital writing is transitory, changeable, open, infinitely reproducible, and mostly online.
The dimensions of the text are distributed from centralized to distributed.
Patterns of hypertext texts
The vector with side branches
E.g.: Inanimate Alice
Complete Graph
Network
E.g.: My Body - a Wunderkammer
Tree
E.g.: The Incipit
Maze
Flowchart
Works Cited
Inanimate Alice - Inanimate Alice, https://inanimatealice.com/. Accessed 5 November 2022.
“Come funziona.” THe iNCIPIT, https://theincipit.com/come-funziona/. Accessed 5 November 2022.
Kulkarni, Anand B. An Introduction to Literary Theory and Criticism. Orient BlackSwan, 2016.
McDaid, John, and Arthur Newkirk. “Bernstein: Patterns of Hypertext.” Eastgate Systems, https://www.eastgate.com/patterns/Print.html. Accessed 5 November 2022.
“'my body' - a Wunderkammer & (Shelley Jackson).” Electronic Literature Collection, https://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/jackson__my_body_a_wunderkammer/index.html. Accessed 5 November 2022.
Ryan, Marie-Laure. Narrative as Virtual Reality 2: Revisiting Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015.
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