Book Review -- March 23, 1999

Landow, George P. Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1997.

by Jeff Pietruszynski

I. Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Hypertext: An Introduction

Hyper textual Derrida, Poststructuralist Nelson? / The Definition of Hypertext And Its History as a Concept / Vannevar Bush and the Memex / Forms of Linking, Their Uses and Limitations / Virtual Texts, Virtual Authors, and Literary Computing / Books are Technology Too / Analogues to the  Gutenberg Revolution

Chapter 2: Hypertext and Critical Theory

Textual Openness / Hypertext and Intertextuality / Hypertext and Multivoicality / Hypertext and Decentering / Hypertext as Rhizome / The Nonlinear Model of   the Network in Current Critical Theory / Cause or Convergence, Influence or Confluence?

Chapter 3: Reconfiguring the Text

From Text to Hypertext / The "In Memoriam" Web / Problems with Terminology: What Is the Object We Read, and What Is a Text in Hypertext / Visual Elements in Print Text / The Fragmented Text / The Dispersed Text / A Third Convergence: Hypertext and Theories of Scholarly Editing / Hypertext, Scholarly Annotation, and the Electronic Scholarly Edition / Hypertext and the Problem of Text Structure / The Living, Transient, Time-Bound Text – William J. Mitchell’s City of Bits Project / Argumentation, Organization, and Rhetoric / Beginnings and Endings in the Borderless Text / Boundaries of the Borderless Text / The Status of in the Text / Hypertext and Decenterality: The Philosophical Grounding

Chapter 4: Reconfiguring the Author

Erosion of the Self / How I am Writing This Book / Virtual Presence / Collaborative Writing, Collaborative Authorship

Chapter 5: Reconfiguring Writing

The Problematic Concept of Disorientation / The Rhetoric and Stylistics of Writing for E-Space; or, How Should We Write Hypertext? / Hypertext as Collage

Chapter 6: Reconfiguring Narrative

Approaches to Hypertext Fiction: Some Opening Remarks / Hypertext and theAristotelian Concept of Plot / Quasi Hypertextuality in Print Text / AnsweringAristotle: Hypertext and Nonlinear Plot / Print Anticipations of Multilinear Narratives in E-Space / Narrative Beginnings and Endings / Narrative endings and Hypertext / Michael Joyce’s Afternoon: The Reader’s Experience as Author / Stitching together Narrative, Sexuality, and Self: Shelly Jackson’s Patchwork Girl / Quibbling, a Feminist Rhizome Narrative / Storyworlds and Other Forms of Hypertext Narratives / From Narration to Poetry?

Chapter 7: Reconfiguring Literary Education

Threats and Promises / Reconfiguring the Instructor / Reconfiguring theStudent / Learning the Culture of Discipline / Nontraditional Students: Distant Learners and Readers outside Educational Institutions / The Effects of Hypermedia in Teaching / Reconfiguring Assignments and Methods of Evaluation / Examples of Collaborative Learning / Reconceiving Cannon and Curriculum / Inventing the New Writing / After Intermedia / What Chance Has Hypertext in Education?

Chapter 8: The Politics of Hypertext

Answered Prayers; or, The Politics of Resistance / Marginalization of Technology and the Mystification of Literature / The Politics of Particular Technologies / The Political Vision of Hypertext; or, The Message in the Medium / The Politics of Access: Who Can Make Links, Who Decides What Is Linked? / Ms. Austen’s Submission / Pornography, Gambling, and the LawOn the Internet: Vulnerability and Invulnerability in E-Space / Access to the text And the Author’s Right (Copyright)

An Open-Ended Conclusion; or, The Dispatch comes to an end

II. Summary and Comments 

As we move further into the electronic age, everything else moves with us. This movement is clear through television, movies, and the Internet. Hypertext 2.0, by George Landow, suggests that it is only a matter of time until books and all printed media follows this course. In his book, Landow attempts to set our minds at ease and make this transition easier. He begins by attempting to bring together the old definition of Hypertext:

a form of electronic text, a radically new information technology, and a mode of publication (3)

with a modern definition:

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 (3)

in order to create a more workable idea for the modern writer. After coining his definition, Landow attempts to show how much easier it is to read a work in hypertext. Next, Landow offers suggestions and examples for the creation of hypertext texts. He goes further in these suggestions, offering ideas on the future educational process of writers. Finally, the author tackles "real life" issues by showing some problems in Internet Law, and how they can, and will, effect Hypertext texts. In Hypertext 2.0 Landow not only advocates a movement to electronic media, but by offering suggestions to its conception, cannot wait for the revolution to take place.

Evaluation:

Looking at this book in the context of English 5011, Practicing Theory, the work creates even more questions with no answer. Landow challenges our current academic vocabulary (are we really "writing" if we are actually using a word processor), as well as the way we compose our works. Many of the same questions concerning audience and presence are not only raised, but also multiplied in Hypertext 2.0. While suggesting the "reconfiguring" of the author, writer, and narrative, Landow creates even more problems for authors to deal with. It would seem that using hypertext creates more problems for students, writers and instructors then it solves. These problems are addressed in Chapter 7,"Reconfiguring Literary Education," however, I do not agree with Landow’s theory that the instructor must "step back" from the education of the students. He suggests that they become coaches, not professors. He believes that the new media of Hypertext allows for literary students to teach themselves. Although the ability to "link" between footnotes, reference texts, and other similar works while reading a primary work seems intriguing, professors will always be needed to explain them to the reader. When dealing with the writing of hypertext, we must again call question to Landow’s conclusions. If the educational system has not mastered the current mode of teaching writing, how can he expect instructors to teach a more complicated structure. These new form demands knowledge of where what and how the writer creates the hypertext "links," without disorienting the reader. I feel that Landow offers an interesting idea of what the future of English education may be. Unfortunately, I do not foresee a classroom, filled with computer screens, on which each student works in their own agenda on the same work, while the instructor simply offers suggestions. Besides, reading from the formatted text of a computer screen will never take the place of curling up on the couch with a good book.

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