Category: Uncategorized

After reading through all of the blog posts that I submitted throughout the semester, I looked at a few trends in my focus. The first thing that stood out to me across a few blog entries was the attention I paid to boundaries. Sometimes I spoke of those between genres, themes, topics, and even authors. It was interesting to uncover, by looking at all of the posts at once, the probing into established criteria that I included. I focused on how a lot of seemingly-distinct lines are blurred often, and that works that blurred those lines effectively were the most meaningful and enjoyable.

Additionally, the way people tell stories was a source of inspiration for my posts. All the different works we looked at were bound together by their storytelling nature. Starting with the Choose Your Own Adventure books going all the way to Pry, we examined the how of storytelling, and that flowed in and out of my blog posts. When reflecting on general ideas for the semester, I think it’s also important to consider the various ideals for which different authors and creators strove. Of course such aspirations are subjective and unique to each creator, yet there’s more overlap that one might expect. I think that’s a big part of my development through these blog posts; recognizing that the categories that I came into this class with aren’t nearly as rigid as I had perceived. That continues in the fascinating comparison between print and electronic works. What’s gained and lost in each medium, and what continues throughout both. 

The main thing that I recognized when going back through all my posts is how much of an outside understanding I had for the entire realm of electronic literature. My first post definitely reveals this— there were a lot of basic observations as I basically just took note of what was happening. As the semester progressed, my appreciation and understanding of the techniques enlisted certainly developed and I was able to better articulate and analyze the works we discussed!

What has become most apparent in reflecting back on my posts is my propensity to focus on reader response in reference to digital literature. I think this is interesting specifically because in my normal analysis of literature, I usually stray away from reader-response theory as a methodology. 

I was particularly interested in this first in “My Body” by Shelley Jackson (which, in retrospect I thought was American novelist SHIRLEY Jackson). The idea of tactility through the digital interface, specifically in rendering disembodiment, I felt exemplified Jackson’s larger critique of the “digital body”. There is a kind of prosthetic alignment between the body and technology that my posts explored, and ultimately, so too did my tracery project. 

I disliked games like “Dakota” and “Queers in Love at the End of The World” because they lacked the kind of interactivity that I felt was enjoyable. I also notably disliked games that were anti-user (i.e games that made analysis difficult due to their game mechanics). In this vein, I was concerned with the material surroundings of the reader’s interaction with these works. My blog post regarding Her Story reflected this interest in empathy building through interactive games and I particularly was impressed by the work’s ability to engage the reader’s humane instincts and perceptive abilities  in its storytelling. 

My posts therefore, and with much consistency, analyzed the nature of readership in electronic literature. I think part of the reason why I zoned in on empathy and reader-response was because initially I had a hard time paying attention to the works on my computer. I found I clicked through some of them without really looking for their subtleties. I’m pretty anti-ebook for reasons of distraction and I think some of those prejudices flooded by engagement with digital works. I feel like this changed as I grew more invested in the works, particularly the ones like “Her Story” that placed more importance on the reader’s analytical faculties.

Bury Me, My Love throws the user into a dialogue that is foreign to the user, but familiar to the character whose story the user assumes. The format of the game does a remarkable job of stimulating an authentic conversation that could be happening on your own phone— except for the fact that I am not in Syria, nor was I during the civil war, and the only dependents for whom I am partially responsible are my dogs. I have very much enjoyed navigating the game because the war in Syria is often a hot debate topic for Americans, many of whom know next to nothing about any real person on the ground. Nour and Majd humanize a well-known conflict, one that my normal method of intel is at least three degrees removed from the matters at hand. To use something as simple as a text notification engages the user and places him on the same level from which he would communicate with his mother, his significant other, or even the dog walker. Something about visualizing the dots as the other user is typing and hitting send as the user sends “his own” messages connects the user to the game in a way that other forms of electronic literature, tethered to a desktop, fail to do. 

Bury Me, My Love begs the question— how do modern e-lit authors best reach their audience? Is the smartphone the most efficient? If that’s the case, then creators lend themselves to all sorts of additional trials and tribulations that a familiar computer set-up lacks. Does the advantage of the emotional intimacy that this game allows outweigh the production labors; and if so, is it sustainable?

https://ajar-warlock-0bwfwtcum.glitch.me/

Amidst the growing skepticism of our leaders and our fellow man, Americans have found a cruel pleasure in viewing the destruction of certain established norms. One such norm is that superheroes save the day. “Everybody’s a hero in their own way” pushes that boundary between hopeful good and familiar evil. Once fofced to face the reality that heroes are as flawed as the rest of us, the program’s users can only operate within the provided scenarios and their various combinations.