Hypertext is the emerging literature of the World Wide Web. Experimental hypertext fiction creates linked narratives with no beginnings or ends, literary mazes that can never be read twice in the same way. The possibilities of hypertext composition challenge established notions of literary form, leading critics to argue about how hypertext will transform research, editing, models of reading and writing, and the nature of literacy itself. Novelists and film makers attempt to imagine the future of a wired society, while corporate culture strives to cash in on the World Wide Web.
In this course, we will explore emerging forms of hypertext through readings of cyberpunk fiction; novels about the boundary between human and artificial life; movies that use cyborgs and virtual reality to speculate about the role of technology in society; hypertext fictions on the web; critical theory about the future of electronic writing, the definition of cyberspace, and the future of literature in an age of hypertext.
No computer expertise is required. Students will contribute regularly to their own Blog, will construct their own web pages, and will collaborate on a large, multi-authored website on the topic of file downloading.
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Group
3 Site under construction |
File
Sharing and Copyright |
Creative
Commons Pub |
| Jay Clayton |
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