ccr 760: hypertext rhetorics

course materials

The following represents my best guess as to what we'll be reading, unless availability presents a problem. We will also read a number of articles, some bound into a course reader, and others from the web. Please note the recommended category at the bottom.

Books

• George P. Landow, Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology
• Michael Joyce, Of Two Minds: Hypertext Poetics and Pedagogy
• Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Nostalgic Angels: Rearticulating Hypertext Writing
• Espen Aarseth, Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature
• Jane Yellowlees Douglas, The End of Books--or Books without End? Reading Interactive Narratives

Hypertexts

• Michael Joyce, Afternoon, a Story
• M. D. Coverley, Califia

Recommended

I strongly recommend that you purchase and read Jorge Luis Borges's Labyrinths before we meet--I will be discussing it in some detail during our first class meeting. Borges's stories will provide a conceptual and aesthetic background for our work with hypertext, and you will find that a large number of hypertext theorists rely on JLB for epigraphs and examples. I will be ordering copies of Borges as a recommended text for the course.

Also, if you are completely unfamiliar with HTML, I recommend that you track down some introductory materials, and do what you can to practice before the course begins. No familiarity is required, but some would be helpful. There are plenty of tutorials on the WWW, and I have several copies of HTML for Dummies that I'm willing to loan out. Thus, I won't be ordering an HTML guide for the course, but am happy to recommend one.