The Jew's Daughter, her advocates and her relatives.....
If you felt frustrated about not being able to find the "meaning" or "story" in Twelve Blue, I am guessing that The Jew's Daughter is not a "good read" for you. As a way to think about how to "read" TJD, you might take a look at Lori Emerson's "My Digital Dickinson" in Vol 17.2 of The Emily Dickinson Journal (available through Project Muse on the Kean Library databases). Emerson suggests that digital reading strategies (such as those demanded by TJD) are pervasive and that they are changing the way we read texts in general.
Or you might consider TJD's ideology and focus are descendants of movements from both print (the Nouveau Roman) and film (French New Wave or Le Nouvelle Vague).
Within film, the French New wave movement also moved away from standard story forms. According to Craig Phillips discussion of New Wave on Green Cine, the form favored:
"jump cuts: a non-naturalistic edit, usually a section of a continuous shot that is removed unexpectedly, illogically; shooting on location; natural lighting; improvised dialogue and plotting; direct sound recording; long takes" and other representational innovations that created a different "reality" that what was being set forward by Hollywood. These new film-making techniques placed new demands on viewers and were the impetus for new interpretive conventions = conventions for going with the flow and making the kind of local, particular interpretations that fit with postmodern texts and readings.
You might also take a look at screen 402 in TJD - for a "summary/outline" of events. You might shift the paradigm in your own approach by "playing" with the text - as opposed to "reading" it. For example - try placing "page numbers" in the search box above the text. It goes way too fast but it can give a quick overview of the "shape" of the text.
Confessions regarding my own reading experience of TJD- Even on this second read, I come away with images and ideas, but I have a hard time remembering the text (words) that engendered those ideas. Taking notes (or building a map) feels counter intuitive (the wrong way?) to track a text that "flows". . . please let me know what you are coming up with by blogging about your own experience.
For next week:
Hypertext assignment: The link for the hypertext assignment is on this blog's home page under "Course Materials & Assignments". Please take note of the important dates on the bottom of the assignment If you have questions - bring them to class or post them on your blog. Remember - this is an English class - not a Technology class - so if you can plan your site - we will work together to get it onto the screen. What is important for you to do now is to do some brainstorming, freewriting, talking to friends about ideas for a hypertext project. Try to plan something that you could not do as a paper (non-hyperlinked) text. The link structure needs to be essential to your meaning or the experience of your work.
For next week, we will continue reading examples of hyperlinked texts - and talking about the kind of "writing" you will do for Project 1. Keep working on your idea/concept for your hypertext piece and post your writing to your blog. You might begin to map out scenes or think about how many links you will have and how you will use them. Remember - this is primarily a hypertext piece - like we have been reading so far - which means it is "texty" and that the users primary interaction will be through choosing links. The more writing you have the farther along you will be when we get to the "doing" part.
1. Read Disappearing Rain. http://www.deenalarsen.net/rain/ We are reading this work as an example of hypertext - and to think about some of the issues of networked fiction (see Larson's discussion with "unsolved mysteries" about linking their site to her story ).
2. Please familiarize yourself with how to use Google Drive and Google Docs - here is a free online tutorial that takes you through the basics: http://www.gcflearnfree.org/googledriveanddocs . In addition, we will start to explore "Google Sites" in anticipation of the hypertext assignment. Here is a comprehensive guide to Google Sites including video tutorials, and here is another link to different Google Sites Tutorial. You are encouraged to experiment with Google Sites- i.e. create your own "demo" site and play around with the possible infrastructure/links- use links to some of your Google Docs (which should be located on your own Google Drive). For further directions for Google Sites, you can click the help button, or check out http://www.steegle.com/Home. The "How to" and "FAQ" links may be useful. In many ways using software is like reading electronic literature - you just have to spend some time with it. I realize this is the first foray into using tools to create text. Have fun, spend some time exploring, and we will follow up with all of this next class.
3. Blog: A) Post your early ideas for the Hypertext Assignment (Project 1). B) Post your experiences with your demo google.site thus far - try to identify what kind of help you are going to need. C) Also, start to collect images you might want to incorporate into Project 1. Think of this week as the "image blog" -start collecting images on your Google Drive.
Or you might consider TJD's ideology and focus are descendants of movements from both print (the Nouveau Roman) and film (French New Wave or Le Nouvelle Vague).
In the Nouveau Roman, writers such as Claude Simon, Michel Butor, Alain Robbe-Grillet more or less ditched traditional narrative lines and characters and devoted themselves to creating works that explore context, effects of time and space, and the form of the "novel" itself. (For example, see Michael Delahoyde's discussion of Robbe-Grillet's Jealousy.
Within film, the French New wave movement also moved away from standard story forms. According to Craig Phillips discussion of New Wave on Green Cine, the form favored:
"jump cuts: a non-naturalistic edit, usually a section of a continuous shot that is removed unexpectedly, illogically; shooting on location; natural lighting; improvised dialogue and plotting; direct sound recording; long takes" and other representational innovations that created a different "reality" that what was being set forward by Hollywood. These new film-making techniques placed new demands on viewers and were the impetus for new interpretive conventions = conventions for going with the flow and making the kind of local, particular interpretations that fit with postmodern texts and readings.
You might also take a look at screen 402 in TJD - for a "summary/outline" of events. You might shift the paradigm in your own approach by "playing" with the text - as opposed to "reading" it. For example - try placing "page numbers" in the search box above the text. It goes way too fast but it can give a quick overview of the "shape" of the text.
Confessions regarding my own reading experience of TJD- Even on this second read, I come away with images and ideas, but I have a hard time remembering the text (words) that engendered those ideas. Taking notes (or building a map) feels counter intuitive (the wrong way?) to track a text that "flows". . . please let me know what you are coming up with by blogging about your own experience.
For next week:
Hypertext assignment: The link for the hypertext assignment is on this blog's home page under "Course Materials & Assignments". Please take note of the important dates on the bottom of the assignment If you have questions - bring them to class or post them on your blog. Remember - this is an English class - not a Technology class - so if you can plan your site - we will work together to get it onto the screen. What is important for you to do now is to do some brainstorming, freewriting, talking to friends about ideas for a hypertext project. Try to plan something that you could not do as a paper (non-hyperlinked) text. The link structure needs to be essential to your meaning or the experience of your work.
For next week, we will continue reading examples of hyperlinked texts - and talking about the kind of "writing" you will do for Project 1. Keep working on your idea/concept for your hypertext piece and post your writing to your blog. You might begin to map out scenes or think about how many links you will have and how you will use them. Remember - this is primarily a hypertext piece - like we have been reading so far - which means it is "texty" and that the users primary interaction will be through choosing links. The more writing you have the farther along you will be when we get to the "doing" part.
1. Read Disappearing Rain. http://www.deenalarsen.net/rain/ We are reading this work as an example of hypertext - and to think about some of the issues of networked fiction (see Larson's discussion with "unsolved mysteries" about linking their site to her story ).
2. Please familiarize yourself with how to use Google Drive and Google Docs - here is a free online tutorial that takes you through the basics: http://www.gcflearnfree.org/googledriveanddocs . In addition, we will start to explore "Google Sites" in anticipation of the hypertext assignment. Here is a comprehensive guide to Google Sites including video tutorials, and here is another link to different Google Sites Tutorial. You are encouraged to experiment with Google Sites- i.e. create your own "demo" site and play around with the possible infrastructure/links- use links to some of your Google Docs (which should be located on your own Google Drive). For further directions for Google Sites, you can click the help button, or check out http://www.steegle.com/Home. The "How to" and "FAQ" links may be useful. In many ways using software is like reading electronic literature - you just have to spend some time with it. I realize this is the first foray into using tools to create text. Have fun, spend some time exploring, and we will follow up with all of this next class.
3. Blog: A) Post your early ideas for the Hypertext Assignment (Project 1). B) Post your experiences with your demo google.site thus far - try to identify what kind of help you are going to need. C) Also, start to collect images you might want to incorporate into Project 1. Think of this week as the "image blog" -start collecting images on your Google Drive.
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