Session 7: 22nd February Room 822

Hypertext environments may or may not be productively thought of as essentially different from the conventional contexts of literacy practices, but their appearance has certainly generated a good deal of discussion on the nature of reading and writing, on forms of argumentation and on rhetoric. These discussions also relate to older concerns relating to epistemology and so to methodology.

Exploration of the critique of the linear form of argument and of scientific method.
Exploration of new approaches to composition.

Essential Preliminary Reading

Douglas, J. Y. (1998). Will the Most Reflexive Relativist Please Stand Up: Hypertext, Argument and relativism. Page to Screen: Taking literacy into the electronic era. I. Snyder. London, Routledge.

McGann, J. (n.d.) Comp[u/e]ting Editorial F[u/ea]tures.

Additional Reading

Dowling, P.C. (2004). Quixote's Science: public heresy/private apostasy.

Kaplan, N. (2000). Literacy Beyond Books: Reading when all the world's a web. The World Wide Web and Contemporary Cultural Theory. A. Herman and T. Swiss. New York, Routledge.

Hunter, L. (1999). Critiques of Knowing: Situated textualities in science, computing and the arts. London, Routledge.

Joyce, M. (1998). New Stories for New Readers: Contour, coherence and constructive hypertext. Page to Screen: Taking literacy into the electronic era. I. Snyder. London, Routledge.

Miles, A. (2001). "Realism and a General Economy of the Link." Currents in Electronic Literacy Fall 2001 (5).

Ryan, M.-L., Ed. (1999). Cyberspace, Textuality: Computer technology and literary theory, Indiana University Press.

Sirc, G. (1999). "What is Composition ...?" After Duchamp (Notes Toward a General Teleintertext). Passions, Pedagogies and 21st Century Technologies. G. E. Hawisher and C. L. Selfe. Logan, Utah State University Press.

Sosnoski, J. (1999). Hyper-readers and their Reading Engines. Passions, Pedagogies and 21st Century Technologies. G. E. Hawisher and C. L. Selfe. Logan, Utah State University Press.

Coursework Title

What questions are raised for the practices of composition, argumentation and/or method by the increasing visibility and use of hypertextual environments?