We Become One
In this podcast, I examine the relationship that Bolter envisions between the writer and the reader in electronic literature. Since he describes a situation in which the reader can share authorship with the writer through active readership, I tried to create a like situation in which I as a reader shared authorship with writers whose work I had already read.
Credits Include:
Carroll, Lewis. “The Jabberwocky.” Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. 1872.
Plato. The Republic. Penguin Classics Edition. 2005.
Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. 1997.
Schulman, Tom. The Dead Poets Society. Tombstone Pictures. 1989.
Shakespeare, William. “Hamlet.” The Norton Shakespeare. 1997.
Whitman, Walt. “O Captain! My Captain!” Leaves of Grass. 1900.
November 6th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Jenna,
It took me a while and a couple of listens to orient myself in your post. This last time, I listened with head phones and one track on the left and the other on the right, perhaps feeling something like the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, always a little worried the waves would come crashing down upon me.
But there are ways you manage to keep your sense about you (or about me). I especially appreciated the careful (and ironic) selection of some of the texts that you “snipped:” “to thine own self be true,” and “so that you may contribute a verse” (never mind that it was lifted from a source that was lifting from another source).
In ending on the tone you do, I take it you agree with Birkerts over against Bolter, or that you would at least hasten to remind Bolter that we do need print for very good reasons. So Johns is interesting on this point–if we can come up with the social practices and institutions to stabilize print, maybe we have less to fear than Birkerts believes. But Bolter suggests an alternative to Johns that we didn’t get to touch on in class: electronic text doesn’t want fixity, doesn’t need unity. It will teach us other ways of maintaining knowledge. Who’s right? Guess we’ll wait and see.