E-Literature and Hypertext
3-unit course at Marylhurst University, Spring 2014
NOTE SOME CHANGES TO THE SCHEDULE
I modified the schedule to accommodate students who don’t have iPhones and so couldn’t easily read DEVICE 6 and TOC, both of which are exclusive to iOS. Last term, I taught English Lit & New Media students, all of whom have iPads as part of their curriculum. I forgot that this Hypertext & E-Lit class blends majors from around MU! 😉
SEE RECORDED CLASS SESSIONS BELOW
GRADED ASSIGNMENTS
This 3-unit class will be tallied on a 100 point scale.
50 points for class discussion due each week before the Google Hangout.
This works out to 5 points/week. Comments posted after the Google Hangout will receive no credit. The Hangouts are not mandatory; I offer them as an added benefit, a way of fostering community and quickly advancing your knowledge of e-lit. Whether or not you engage in the Google Hangouts in real time, they serve as each week’s deadline for posted comments.
Each week I offer more reading than you may want to do. This is to offer you the expertise of how to scale up each week’s topic. I expect each student will engage carefully the first item of each week’s reading. That’s what your discussion topic grades will be based on.
RATING SCALE
Exceptional: students articulate their own experience of engaging the e-lit in concrete terms and then reflect on what that experience has taught them. Students read others’ comments and engage in class discussion at a high level.
Satisfactory Students speak in general terms about their experience and offer concrete details that demonstrate a robust engagement. Engagement with others happens well but irregularly.
Underdeveloped Students speak in general terms without mentioning concrete detail. Engagement with other students is cursory or non-existent.
No Credit Students participate irregularly. Their posts lack attention to detail and focus. As quarter progresses, these students are not building their cumulative knowledge base and reflecting that in their weekly posts.
50 points for final project due 6 June 2014 at 5PM Pacific.
This can take ONE of two options:
–create a short story or critical essay in Twine;
–write a traditional analytic essay about two works of electronic literature we studied [1250-1750 words with accompanying images or links as necessary.]
Schedule of Readings
WEEK 1 — E-LIT = Computers + Stories + Readers
History of Writing Surfaces: edu-tech timeline by undergraduate students at Ohio State
Tully Hansen, “Writing”
Arielle Stambler, “This is Not Writing”
Leonardo Flores, I Love E-Poetry overview (Optional: this 7-minute video is a deep dive into how the I Love E-Poetry resource works.)
GOOGLE HANGOUT WED. APRIL 2, 8:30-9:30PM
WEEK 2 — SOUND
[Students WRITE: post a 150-word comment on your blog or on Discussion Board about the work you’re assigned below. Also read 1 post that isn’t about your assigned work & offer a couple of sentences in response. If you don’t understand the work, do a little digging online. Figure out one thing you think is important. What do you want to convey to other students in this class?]
John Cage, 4’33”
Student authors: AnneLise Bunch, Kinsey Campbell, Tara Lee Campbell
David “Jhave” Johnston, MUPS
Student authors: Rachel Blume, Megan Harrison, Katie Brooks, Haley Spaeth
Maria Mencia, “12 Birds Singing Other Birds’ Songs”
Student authors: Jacob Carlsen, Kelley Davis, Kelly Gibson
Dan Waber, ((Oh))
Student authors: Judy-Ann Goza, Lacey Hughes, Brian Jahan
Alan Bigelow, “This is not a poem”
Student authors: Brandy Lewis, Genevieve Perrin, Bailey Perriman, Richard Wheelock
Brian Kim Stefans, “Star Wars, One Letter at a Time”
Student authors: Rachel Kramer, Krista Lanhoe, Ken Schultz
GOOGLE HANGOUT TUES. APRIL 8, 8:30-9:30PM
WEEK 3 — MAKE YOUR OWN 4’33”
Use the 4’33″ app. On Moodle or your blog, share your thoughts about our sound poems and location-based storytelling (see my curatorial statement “Curation is Convergence”). The app is $.99. Give a listen to at least 3 other ambient sound poems before you write about it.
If you use an Android, here are two alternatives:
1) review 4 ambient sound poems located on this map found on the John Cage Foundation website. Write a short post on Moodle of your impressions.
2) make your own sound poem using a voice memo program on your phone. Load the sound file to either Moodle or to your own website.
Kathi Inman Berens, “Curation is Convergence”
Katherine Hayles, chapter “E-Literature: What Is It?” in Electronic Literature: New Horizons For the Literary” (book). Also available online here.
GOOGLE HANGOUT WED. APRIL 16, 8:30-9:30PM
WEEK 4 — WEEK 4 — CONCRETE POETRY History & Today
Concrete Poetry (Wikipedia entry)
Adam Lisckiewicz, Feeld Work
Dan Waber, “Strings”
For help with Adam’s visual poetry, check out Leo Flores’ short post about AFEELD on I Love E-Poetry.
ALSO: Order this class’s second book, VNIVERSE. Total cost including shipping: $19.
GOOGLE HANGOUT TUES. APRIL 22, 8:30-9:30PM
WEEK 5 — Hypertext –> TWINE stories
Judy Malloy, Uncle Roger (Malloy’s introduction and section 1, “File 1: A Party in Woodside”)
Mattias Conrady, Alice Falling. This is a short adaptation of the beginning of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. It will show you how Twine works, and you should see right away its similarities to (and differences from) early hypertext.
GOOGLE HANGOUT WED. APRIL 30, 8:30-9:30PM
OPTIONAL:
Michael Joyce, Twelve Blue
Katherine Hayles, Electronic Literature: New Horizons For the Literary (book) pp. 23-42; pp. 59-74.
anna anthropy, And the Robot Horse You Rode In On [warning: this game contains some scenes that are violent & sexual. If you dislike the story, stop. Just read enough to get a sense of how anthropy uses the form to move a story.]
WEEK 6 — TWINE how to build your own!
Even if you plan to write a traditional essay as your final assignment, I’d like each student to engage the Twine how-to materials this week. For discussions on Moodle, I expect you’ll have looked at all of these posts for this week.
Due June 6th, your final project will give you the option to write either a creative work or a short reflective essay about a work of e-lit we’ve studied. SHORT is perfectly OK; longer is also OK. Mostly I would like you to have the experience of playing in Twine and testing how it creates new ways of orienting yourself to the writing process. If you play around and you hate it, you’re welcome to write a traditionally-formed essay.
These resources will get folks oriented in TWINE. Be weird and other design tips by Mark Sample & anna anthropy
Creating Interactive Texts with Twine, short post by Anastasia Salter
Twine how-to video (7:23) by Twine creator Chris Kilmas
Twine how-to screenshare by Anna Anthropy
Start working on your own TWINE project….. it’s a great medium for your final project! 🙂
Free Twine hosting here: philome.la
GOOGLE HANGOUT TUES. MAY 6, 8:30-9:30PM
WEEK 7 — MULTIMODAL NOVEL
David Clark, “88 Constellations for Wittgenstein (to be played with the left hand)”
Hayles’ talk about 88 Constellations at M.I.T. May 4, 2012: watch the first 20 mins of this video.
GOOGLE HANGOUT WED. MAY 14, 8:30-9:30PM
WEEK 8 — E-LIT & The BOOK: an experiment in poetry across book & browser (and iPad, if you own one)
Stephanie Strickland, Vniverse.
Note: Vniverse is three objects: 1) a book; 2) a browser-based “textual instrument for exploring a sequence of poems” made in Shockwave (2002); an iPad app (2014). If you don’t own an iPad, no problem. We will explore how the book and the browser “instrument” (and app, if you own an iPad — the app is free!) work in tandem to produce knowledge.
GOOGLE HANGOUT TUES. MAY 20, 8:30-9:30PM
WEEK 9 — Final Project Workshop
Workshop your Twine projects OR your final essays.
GOOGLE HANGOUT WED. MAY 28, 8:30-9:30PM
WEEK 10 — WHAT WE LEARNED
We’ll discuss your almost-done Twine projects and review what you learned in this class.
GOOGLE HANGOUT TUES. JUNE 3, 8:30-9:30PM
Your final project is either a TWINE piece (creative writing or a short reflection on e-lit), OR a 1250-1750-word analytical essay about 2 works of e-lit we studied. It is due FRIDAY JUNE 6 at 5PM Pacific time.
INTRODUCTORY VID by KIB
Week 1: Not/Writing; Not/Reading
Week 2: Sound Poetry
Week 3: Make Your Own 4’33”
I made an error, and the recording of this session is not available.
Week 4: Visual Poetry
Week 5: Hypertext Then & Now
Week 6: Twine Workshop
Note that this session lays out requirements for the final assignment, which accounts for 50% of your grade.
