We talked a little bit about Web 2.0 in class last night, so I thought I would post this video clip on the subject that I heard about from Dr. Michael Day. The video (which I think is excellent) was created by Dr. Michael Wesch, assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University.
Be sure to turn up the volume on your speakers. The music adds a lot to the experience...in my opinion.
YouTube video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g
Dr. Wesch's faculty bio page:
http://www.ksu.edu/sasw/anthro/wesch.htm
According to our class syllabus, we'll discuss Web 2.0 in depth on 2/18.
Enjoy!
2/5/08
2/4/08
web of polysemy
points i find useful:
1. "the author does not precede the works" (foucault 118-19) - leaving it open for the hypering of multiple authors - against ownership, copyright
2. "if we are accustomed to presenting the author as a genius, as a perpetual surging of invention, it is because, in reality, we make him function in exactly the opposite fashion" (foucault 119) - the ideological, traditional politicized category is "constraining," not the actuality - has to be that system of constraint - reducing the danger which the author presents - questions of power (not primarily individuality or not individuality per se)
3. "fiction and its polysemous texts" (foucault 119) - polysemy - multiplicity - democracy
4. "the author is a modern figure, a product of our society" (barthes - first page in our copy) - cf. ion (or woodmansee for that matter) - not a single person - not confined
5. "such distinctions really becoming invalid" (barthes 2) - interdisciplinary focus - not separation - peering over barriers between genres and categories
6. "one could talk here with brecht of a veritable 'distancing'" (barthes 3) - the distancing of the author, the narrowing, the focus, the diminishing of the one - monolithic - entity of power - into dispersal, sharing (btw - brecht?!)
7. "a text is ... a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash" (barthes 4) - obvious application
8. "to refuse god and his hypostases - reason, science, law" (barthes 5) - devil's-advocate argument in a nutshell
9. "classic criticism has never paid any attention to the reader" (barthes 6) - "the reader is the space on which all the quotations that make up a reading are inscribed without any of them being lost" (also barthes 6) - the continuity is in the reader - the monolith is the "author" concept - a focus on the community
1. "the author does not precede the works" (foucault 118-19) - leaving it open for the hypering of multiple authors - against ownership, copyright
2. "if we are accustomed to presenting the author as a genius, as a perpetual surging of invention, it is because, in reality, we make him function in exactly the opposite fashion" (foucault 119) - the ideological, traditional politicized category is "constraining," not the actuality - has to be that system of constraint - reducing the danger which the author presents - questions of power (not primarily individuality or not individuality per se)
3. "fiction and its polysemous texts" (foucault 119) - polysemy - multiplicity - democracy
4. "the author is a modern figure, a product of our society" (barthes - first page in our copy) - cf. ion (or woodmansee for that matter) - not a single person - not confined
5. "such distinctions really becoming invalid" (barthes 2) - interdisciplinary focus - not separation - peering over barriers between genres and categories
6. "one could talk here with brecht of a veritable 'distancing'" (barthes 3) - the distancing of the author, the narrowing, the focus, the diminishing of the one - monolithic - entity of power - into dispersal, sharing (btw - brecht?!)
7. "a text is ... a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash" (barthes 4) - obvious application
8. "to refuse god and his hypostases - reason, science, law" (barthes 5) - devil's-advocate argument in a nutshell
9. "classic criticism has never paid any attention to the reader" (barthes 6) - "the reader is the space on which all the quotations that make up a reading are inscribed without any of them being lost" (also barthes 6) - the continuity is in the reader - the monolith is the "author" concept - a focus on the community
What Is Hypertext?
Definitions of Hypertext
"I mean 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, "A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing and the Indeterminate"
“[T]ext composed of blocks of words (or images) linked electronically by multiple paths, chains, or trails in an open-ended, perpetually unfinished textuality described by the terms link, node, network, web, and path."
--Landow, Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology
“Both an author’s tool and a reader’s medium, a hypertext document system allows authors or groups of authors to link information together, create paths through a corpus of related material, annotate existing texts, and create notes that point readers to either bibliographic data or the body of the referenced text. . . . Readers can browse through linked, cross-referenced, annotated texts in an orderly but nonsequential manner.”
--Yankelovich, Meyrowitz, and van Dam, creators of Intermedia
"Hypertext is non-sequential writing: a directed graph, where each node contains some amount of text or other information....[T]rue hypertext should also make users feel that they can move freely through the information according to their own needs. This feeling is hard to define precisely but certainly implies short response times and low cognitive load when navigating."
--Jakob Nielsen, "The Art of Navigating Through Hypertext"
"It [the memex] affords an immediate step to associative indexing, the basic idea of which is a provision whereby any item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically another...When a user is building a trail [in the memex], he names it, inserts the name in his code book, and taps it out on his keyboard. Before him are the two items to be joined, projected onto adjacent viewing positions."
--Vannevar Bush, "As We May Think"
A Collection of Hypertexts
Victory Garden, by Stuart Moulthrop
Landow's Victorian Web
Computers & Composition Special Issue on Sound
iRhetoric Placeshifting, by Rich Rice
Kairos' PraxisWiki
Flickr Tags
Wikipedia entry on Foucault
"I mean 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, "A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing and the Indeterminate"
“[T]ext composed of blocks of words (or images) linked electronically by multiple paths, chains, or trails in an open-ended, perpetually unfinished textuality described by the terms link, node, network, web, and path."
--Landow, Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology
“Both an author’s tool and a reader’s medium, a hypertext document system allows authors or groups of authors to link information together, create paths through a corpus of related material, annotate existing texts, and create notes that point readers to either bibliographic data or the body of the referenced text. . . . Readers can browse through linked, cross-referenced, annotated texts in an orderly but nonsequential manner.”
--Yankelovich, Meyrowitz, and van Dam, creators of Intermedia
"Hypertext is non-sequential writing: a directed graph, where each node contains some amount of text or other information....[T]rue hypertext should also make users feel that they can move freely through the information according to their own needs. This feeling is hard to define precisely but certainly implies short response times and low cognitive load when navigating."
--Jakob Nielsen, "The Art of Navigating Through Hypertext"
"It [the memex] affords an immediate step to associative indexing, the basic idea of which is a provision whereby any item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically another...When a user is building a trail [in the memex], he names it, inserts the name in his code book, and taps it out on his keyboard. Before him are the two items to be joined, projected onto adjacent viewing positions."
--Vannevar Bush, "As We May Think"
A Collection of Hypertexts
Victory Garden, by Stuart Moulthrop
Landow's Victorian Web
Computers & Composition Special Issue on Sound
iRhetoric Placeshifting, by Rich Rice
Kairos' PraxisWiki
Flickr Tags
Wikipedia entry on Foucault
2/2/08
Malvolio's Reading Response for Week 4
It is only partly true that I never know where to begin or even what to say when responding to anything written by Barthes or Foucault. And quite obviously this statement needs to be explained right away. My problem isn’t really that I have nothing to say (quite the contrary), but, instead, that what I have to say is so often derogatory. Generally speaking, my reaction to anything produced by either of them is to observe that they seem to be doing little more than playing semantic and linguistic games in order to disguise the reality that, yes, children, the Emperor is in fact naked. These are not the sorts of comments that tend to endear me to my colleagues, particularly those with poststructuralist interests.
In any case, since I can’t say that my opinions have really changed all that much (unless we want to consider an intensification or sharpening a change), I’m not going to deal with them here – plenty of opportunity for that in class, should anyone be interested. Instead, I prefer to concentrate on Martha Woodmansee, whose scholarship and rigor and freedom from ideological pronouncements is rather refreshing when compared to what I’m afraid I can’t refrain from calling the intellectual posturing of Barthes and Foucault.
Woodmansee’s article is a fine and detailed historical account of the parallel developments in European (and specifically German) conceptions of authorship and copyright. Beginning (almost) with the genuinely useful statement that “the author in its modern sense is a relatively recent invention” (426 in our online edition), she proceeds to delineate both premodern and early modern legal conceptions of authorship as well as the whys and hows by which they gradually – in the German states through the course of the eighteenth century – evolved into the idea of the Author which Barthes and Foucault (not incidentally) are so assiduously trying to kill (don’t ask me why – I’ve never been able to figure out exactly what their problem is with what Foucault rather snottily keeps referring to as “the author function,” especially considering the inescapably monolithic status both have achieved as Authors of their respective Works – but I digress).
The history Woodmansee lays out provides invaluable context for our discussion of the complexities of the authorship/copyright issue in our own time: if the idea of the Author is so comparatively recent, then it follows that the notion of legal protection of authorial ownership of texts is even more recent (and yes, I am aware that I am totally avoiding the question of how precisely we define the idea of "text"). I would add that it is important to recognize that what Woodmansee describes are parallel developments: as the concept of authorial ownership of what Fichte called the “form” of ideas – the particular expression of thoughts and ideas which belongs solely to the individual creator – gradually takes hold, so develop legal protections safeguarding the rights of those creators over the dissemination of their expressions, or of the concrete textual forms of which they are identified as authors. Thus Fichte seems to advocate a concept of authorship not unlike that which we articulated in class last week: one of the key elements allowing a creator to exert some ownership over her ideas is the specific expression or form of those ideas that she alone has been responsible for constructing (and by the by, the use of the feminine pronoun here raises some interesting wrinkles that I'd like to address some time -- namely, how from the seventeenth century onward the participation of women in the creation of texts both through writing and publishing them helped evolve the modern concept of authorship, which I would think raises for feminist critics all sorts of interesting implications re: Foucault and Barthes).
As you’ve probably guessed, I have no particular problem with what for us is a traditional notion of authorship, nor do I question the right of individual authors to control who uses their creations, or how. And as a theater artist I also don't question the right of directors and actors and designers to be identified as authors of their own work, even when that work involves what may conventionally be seen as an infringement of the original author's work (good actors and directors understand that on some level they must rewrite the texts they choose to interpret). In my view, to return to the particular bugaboo with which I began this discussion, Barthes and Foucault, in railing against the tyranny of the Author, have only succeeded in replacing it with the tyranny of the Critic. Woodmansee at least provides solid historical reasons for why we conceive of authorship in the way we do. After all, whatever else they may be, texts are products of the human brain, expressions of human thought, human choice, and human will. Perhaps, as Foucault seems to suggest in one of his more lucid moments, our goal should not be to destroy the idea of the author, but to explore our own changing notions about just who the author is and what exactly it is that she does. This strikes me as far more useful than proclaiming the death of the author, especially considering the extent to which the reports of that death have been so greatly exaggerated.
Reading Response 2/4
From the Woodmansee article, we get a brief history of copyright law and how the contemporary idea of author emerged in the 18th century. Her focus is on German writers, like Gotthold Lessing and Friedrich Klopstock, who tried to make a living off the sale of their writings. It is apparent how discouraging it was for some, like Lessing, who ultimately had to take a job as court librarian. In a letter to his brother, Lessing went so far as to advocate writing as a part-time profession. Woodmansee notes about two centuries earlier, “Martin Luther had preached that knowledge is God-given and had therefore to be given freely” (433). The notion of a writer owning his or her work was slow to catch on in 18th century Germany.
Also at this time, piracy was widespread. Publishers would put out legitimate publications and shortly thereafter copied publications would be distributed at a lower cost. It seems public opinion was with the literary pirates, too; so there were many factors working against authors at this time. What is clear from the article is how our present model of what an author is came out of necessity: writers of this era were struggling to make a living and the laws we have in place today were created to protect them.
On the contrary, we read an argument calling for the "death of the Author" in the Barthes article. Barthes gives all the power to the reader, claiming the removal of the author is both necessary and inevitable. More importantly, authorship "impose[s] a limit on" a "text" and, ultimately "close[s] the writing." How accurate is our idea of authorship when nothing written is new? According to Barthes, a finished text is nothing but a "multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash." He would attribute our conception of the modern author to capitalism.
This idea is echoed in Foucault's, "What is an Author?" Both Foucault and Barthes seem to think that the function of the author (at least our idea of the author) is to limit or put a price on what should proliferate freely. Foucault points out that we view the author as creator, and we revere his manipulation of our language, when in reality he is a "regulator of the fictive" (119). Foucault goes on to say that this role of "regulator" is "quite characteristic of our era of industrial and bourgeois society, of individualism and private property."
Also at this time, piracy was widespread. Publishers would put out legitimate publications and shortly thereafter copied publications would be distributed at a lower cost. It seems public opinion was with the literary pirates, too; so there were many factors working against authors at this time. What is clear from the article is how our present model of what an author is came out of necessity: writers of this era were struggling to make a living and the laws we have in place today were created to protect them.
On the contrary, we read an argument calling for the "death of the Author" in the Barthes article. Barthes gives all the power to the reader, claiming the removal of the author is both necessary and inevitable. More importantly, authorship "impose[s] a limit on" a "text" and, ultimately "close[s] the writing." How accurate is our idea of authorship when nothing written is new? According to Barthes, a finished text is nothing but a "multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash." He would attribute our conception of the modern author to capitalism.
This idea is echoed in Foucault's, "What is an Author?" Both Foucault and Barthes seem to think that the function of the author (at least our idea of the author) is to limit or put a price on what should proliferate freely. Foucault points out that we view the author as creator, and we revere his manipulation of our language, when in reality he is a "regulator of the fictive" (119). Foucault goes on to say that this role of "regulator" is "quite characteristic of our era of industrial and bourgeois society, of individualism and private property."
2/1/08
will write for food
Hmmm….there is silence and then crickets chirping in my head when I think about what to write in response to our current blog discussion.
So, last Monday, I sat quakin’ in my boots, for fear that I would be called upon to discuss Plato, Aristotle and Quintilian (philosophy not my forté) – thank you T for bringing the whole darn book to class. (I wish I knew who is who with respect to screen names.) It appeared to me that on one side of the literary smackdown, B and T felt strongly that a virtuoso writer is the creator and owner of his/her work. What I heard T and B debating was that a. there will never be another Shakespeare, b. each author is unique and a few are great, c. great authors are geniuses born and deserve the credit and the money (per the FanFic debate). Our Woodmansee reading comes to mind here. (let me know!)
On the other side of the ring, M was discussing the distinctions for her between authorship and originality. What I heard her saying was that she could draw a stick figure while someone else simultaneously drew a stick figure on the other side of the planet. Whoever got to the copyright office fast enough would win the rights and that nothing out there is truly original. When I was reading Barthes for this week, the following quote reminded me of M’s debate -
“We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning(the ‘message’ of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.”
"The Death of the Author" by Roland Barthes (from Image, Music, Text, 1977)
The readings we had for this week have prompted me to consider a generic definition for authorship. It seems to me that culture dictates what an author is. Whatever the politics, economics, theologies, philosophies and technologies are of a culture at a certain point in time, define what an author is. First, we examined the classical idea of authorship as something that is divinely inspired or based upon a template of excellence. Now, we are reading about the romantic author. The birth of the author [copyright] seemed to be about putting food on the table. The death of the author seemed to be about having a full belly and contemplating how important/unimportant the role of the author is for the reader in understanding her work. The reading stated that the author cannot be separated from the fabric of his culture. The reader’s experience is more important than the author’s is.
So, what does that mean for today? I enjoy hearing the debates in class, because I see how complicated it is to wrangle a clear definition of authorship and to know where the line is between the reader and writer especially with a relatively new, digital, and instantaneous medium.
I would love to hear what other people are thinking about authorship and feedback about last Monday’s discussion.
humbly,
anna
p.s. does anyone in technology land know how to get the irritating ask.com toolbar off my browser?
So, last Monday, I sat quakin’ in my boots, for fear that I would be called upon to discuss Plato, Aristotle and Quintilian (philosophy not my forté) – thank you T for bringing the whole darn book to class. (I wish I knew who is who with respect to screen names.) It appeared to me that on one side of the literary smackdown, B and T felt strongly that a virtuoso writer is the creator and owner of his/her work. What I heard T and B debating was that a. there will never be another Shakespeare, b. each author is unique and a few are great, c. great authors are geniuses born and deserve the credit and the money (per the FanFic debate). Our Woodmansee reading comes to mind here. (let me know!)
On the other side of the ring, M was discussing the distinctions for her between authorship and originality. What I heard her saying was that she could draw a stick figure while someone else simultaneously drew a stick figure on the other side of the planet. Whoever got to the copyright office fast enough would win the rights and that nothing out there is truly original. When I was reading Barthes for this week, the following quote reminded me of M’s debate -
“We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning(the ‘message’ of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.”
"The Death of the Author" by Roland Barthes (from Image, Music, Text, 1977)
The readings we had for this week have prompted me to consider a generic definition for authorship. It seems to me that culture dictates what an author is. Whatever the politics, economics, theologies, philosophies and technologies are of a culture at a certain point in time, define what an author is. First, we examined the classical idea of authorship as something that is divinely inspired or based upon a template of excellence. Now, we are reading about the romantic author. The birth of the author [copyright] seemed to be about putting food on the table. The death of the author seemed to be about having a full belly and contemplating how important/unimportant the role of the author is for the reader in understanding her work. The reading stated that the author cannot be separated from the fabric of his culture. The reader’s experience is more important than the author’s is.
So, what does that mean for today? I enjoy hearing the debates in class, because I see how complicated it is to wrangle a clear definition of authorship and to know where the line is between the reader and writer especially with a relatively new, digital, and instantaneous medium.
I would love to hear what other people are thinking about authorship and feedback about last Monday’s discussion.
humbly,
anna
p.s. does anyone in technology land know how to get the irritating ask.com toolbar off my browser?
not that there's anything wrong with that
Maybe it doesn't matter, but I'm seeing two claims in this post by Lynn168:
For example, most of us would consider the final two seasons of Seinfeld to be legitimate and part of the Seinfeld universe (or whatever). But any diehard fan knows that the departure of Larry David, who deserves at least half the credit for the creation/ongoing spirit of the show, after season 7 introduced considerable changes into the show/work. The final two seasons relied heavily on slapstick and were really over the top, even as far as Seinfeld is concerned.
Many of the show's writers were different (a problem of authorship in itself) but the characters and primary setting remained the same. Yet, like your HP examples, here are clear cases where the cast of characters are alternately in situations or do things that would/would not be considered "normal." But I don't hear anyone arguing that George, Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer were "completely new." I think that is because it was authorized and believable.
In the Kenny Rogers Chicken episode, Jerry and Kramer switched roles--and it paid off in laughs for most people. At a basic level, the episode is just like fan fiction in that it plays around with these established character conventions. But these are not new characters, even though they are taken on and manipulated by different writers, because they went "back to normal" in the next episode.
But those seasons shaped characters in the same way characters are always shaped from show to show, season to season, or novel to novel--even when it's the same writer. My guess is that most people don't really think about who wrote the show or break it down into George 1994-1996, Larry Charles-era George, etc.; it's just George. But you could.
I guess to answer Lynn's question, I think at the point a "new character" is formed is the point at which it ceases to be FanFic. I could write a story about a character that acts like Han Solo but is called Harry Potter and lives in HP land, but what's the point?
I realize this may be apples to oranges. I really wanted to just share this link with you all, where you can read about how Emily Dickinson would fare in a rap battle.
- Someone who writes HP into a situation he normally wouldn't be in is creating a new character (since HP wouldn't be in a sexual situation, etc.)
- Someone who writes HP into a situation he normally would be in is creating a new character (since that someone is not J.K. Rowling).
For example, most of us would consider the final two seasons of Seinfeld to be legitimate and part of the Seinfeld universe (or whatever). But any diehard fan knows that the departure of Larry David, who deserves at least half the credit for the creation/ongoing spirit of the show, after season 7 introduced considerable changes into the show/work. The final two seasons relied heavily on slapstick and were really over the top, even as far as Seinfeld is concerned.
Many of the show's writers were different (a problem of authorship in itself) but the characters and primary setting remained the same. Yet, like your HP examples, here are clear cases where the cast of characters are alternately in situations or do things that would/would not be considered "normal." But I don't hear anyone arguing that George, Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer were "completely new." I think that is because it was authorized and believable.
In the Kenny Rogers Chicken episode, Jerry and Kramer switched roles--and it paid off in laughs for most people. At a basic level, the episode is just like fan fiction in that it plays around with these established character conventions. But these are not new characters, even though they are taken on and manipulated by different writers, because they went "back to normal" in the next episode.
But those seasons shaped characters in the same way characters are always shaped from show to show, season to season, or novel to novel--even when it's the same writer. My guess is that most people don't really think about who wrote the show or break it down into George 1994-1996, Larry Charles-era George, etc.; it's just George. But you could.
I guess to answer Lynn's question, I think at the point a "new character" is formed is the point at which it ceases to be FanFic. I could write a story about a character that acts like Han Solo but is called Harry Potter and lives in HP land, but what's the point?
I realize this may be apples to oranges. I really wanted to just share this link with you all, where you can read about how Emily Dickinson would fare in a rap battle.
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