So, I just presented in my first webinar. I have to admit, I was a little hesitant to begin with. I didn't know how many people would actually show up, but it turned out a lot better than I thought! We had around fifty people join in at a time. It was really cool to see where everyone was from: people from Boston, North Carolina, Kentucky, even Middle Earth. The internet certainly has made the world a very small place.
I loved reading through the chat stream and commenting on questions people would pose. It was gratifying to get thanks from people as I posted links and comments. The idea of having my face on so many people's screens when I presented was a little terrifying, but once we got rolling, it was actually a lot of fun. I even voluntarily went back and spoke again on my ideas of social proof.
It is amazing to be able to see that around the world people are interested in the same things that I am, that they take interest in the work that I do. It was especially cool to be able to have Jeff Swift chime in and have him as a part of our presentation although he was in North Carolina. He had some really great questions and insights and took a real interest in what we were doing. I was glad to see so many people taking our work and ideas seriously as I read through the chat stream.
A webinar was definitely better than a multiple choice test or an essay for our final exam. This was a way to really be able to apply what we have been learning, and make our work important to more than just ourselves. This way we were able to give life to our work in a way that just posting our papers would never have done. This way we know that our ideas reached a much broader audience, and they are now free to look up those ideas in which they took especial interest. That was the whole point of this class, to make our work pertinent and important to people other than just our professor, and I think we did a good job.
Is There a Felicity in the World Superior to This?
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
Learning Outcomes
Regrouping With Learning Outcomes
1. Learn and Follow BYU-I Learning Model: This included prepare, teach one another, and ponder and prove and self-directed Learning
Looking back, I am amazed how the seemingly little things we did everyday to prepare for class (blog writing), commenting on one another's blogs and applying comments to our own blogging really helped us fulfill these outcomes. I helped find sites and blogs for people in class, commented on their writing process, blogged about things they helped me find... The collaborative way in which we worked in this class really helped us all to fulfill this outcome by working together.
2. Write Substantially and Publicly about Literature
I don't think it can really be disputed that we did this. I personally learned how to write about literature online through blogging, getting involved on Goodreads, and doing research about how literature was being portrayed in the media. Everything I wrote was made public through my blog and Google+. It was really fun when I got comments from others on what I was writing about. I think the research paper and the blog posts that helped build to that final paper really helped bring substance to our discussion about literature online.
3. Develop Research Skills
Before this class, I hadn't even heard of ProjectMuse or JSTOR or Google Scholar or LION..., and I had felt like I had a grasp on how to do research online! I also used the library guide to find books to help with my paper. The day we spent in the library working with these databases and the library's subject guides, etc. were really helpful in gaining these research skills. It was helpful to learn how to narrow down my topic using these tools. I used the skills I learned through this class to do my research for a project in another class. It was great!
4. Perfect Ideas Socially
I definitely would not have been able to write my paper the way I did without the help of my cohort, my professor, and the help I got from people I met online. I had never written a paper like this before collaboratively. It was definitely a new and interesting experience that from the very beginning, others were helping to build what I was going to rite about. It was so useful to use others comments from what I wrote and ideas in forming my topic, building my points, coming up with the direction I wanted to take, etc. Everything about my paper was influenced by other people, and I think it turned out clearer, more substantial, and more interesting to read.
5. Gain Digital Literacy
It was only in this class that I learned how digitally literate I was. I had never heard of Google+; I didn't have a Twitter account; I had never blogged; I hadn't used Diigo or Slideshare or looked up conferences or thought to use YouTube for research purposes or any number of other digital media sites that turned out to be so useful to me in the development of my paper. All that can really be said of me in regards to digital literacy were that I had a Facebook, cell phone, and Kindle. Other than that, I was pretty much in the dark. Diigo became my best friend. I gained social proof through Google+. I did research on Google Scholar. I blogged almost every day. I created a Twitter account, used TeacherTube, Slideshare, Goodreads, went on LinkedIn, attended a webinar, joined Google Hangouts, the list goes on. I definitely feel much more confident in the realms of the digital world and feel like I could navigate my way through if I needed to do more research, or just for the fun of it.
6. Address Changes in Literary Study
This was the core of my paper. I looked extensively into how literature was being portrayed through digital and other media. It is definitely not just about the book anymore. You can't read in isolation (how many times have I said and seen that?) Literature has entered a social network that links all the various derivatives of a literary work. We have seen the emergence or eBooks, audiobooks, YouTube montages, reviews through social media sites, Amazon recommendations, etc. The list goes on and on. Literature is definitely in a different position than it ever has been in before. I had been so blind to these changes in literature, but now they are so prevalent that I see them everywhere.
1. Learn and Follow BYU-I Learning Model: This included prepare, teach one another, and ponder and prove and self-directed Learning
Looking back, I am amazed how the seemingly little things we did everyday to prepare for class (blog writing), commenting on one another's blogs and applying comments to our own blogging really helped us fulfill these outcomes. I helped find sites and blogs for people in class, commented on their writing process, blogged about things they helped me find... The collaborative way in which we worked in this class really helped us all to fulfill this outcome by working together.
2. Write Substantially and Publicly about Literature
I don't think it can really be disputed that we did this. I personally learned how to write about literature online through blogging, getting involved on Goodreads, and doing research about how literature was being portrayed in the media. Everything I wrote was made public through my blog and Google+. It was really fun when I got comments from others on what I was writing about. I think the research paper and the blog posts that helped build to that final paper really helped bring substance to our discussion about literature online.
3. Develop Research Skills
Before this class, I hadn't even heard of ProjectMuse or JSTOR or Google Scholar or LION..., and I had felt like I had a grasp on how to do research online! I also used the library guide to find books to help with my paper. The day we spent in the library working with these databases and the library's subject guides, etc. were really helpful in gaining these research skills. It was helpful to learn how to narrow down my topic using these tools. I used the skills I learned through this class to do my research for a project in another class. It was great!
4. Perfect Ideas Socially
I definitely would not have been able to write my paper the way I did without the help of my cohort, my professor, and the help I got from people I met online. I had never written a paper like this before collaboratively. It was definitely a new and interesting experience that from the very beginning, others were helping to build what I was going to rite about. It was so useful to use others comments from what I wrote and ideas in forming my topic, building my points, coming up with the direction I wanted to take, etc. Everything about my paper was influenced by other people, and I think it turned out clearer, more substantial, and more interesting to read.
5. Gain Digital Literacy
It was only in this class that I learned how digitally literate I was. I had never heard of Google+; I didn't have a Twitter account; I had never blogged; I hadn't used Diigo or Slideshare or looked up conferences or thought to use YouTube for research purposes or any number of other digital media sites that turned out to be so useful to me in the development of my paper. All that can really be said of me in regards to digital literacy were that I had a Facebook, cell phone, and Kindle. Other than that, I was pretty much in the dark. Diigo became my best friend. I gained social proof through Google+. I did research on Google Scholar. I blogged almost every day. I created a Twitter account, used TeacherTube, Slideshare, Goodreads, went on LinkedIn, attended a webinar, joined Google Hangouts, the list goes on. I definitely feel much more confident in the realms of the digital world and feel like I could navigate my way through if I needed to do more research, or just for the fun of it.
6. Address Changes in Literary Study
This was the core of my paper. I looked extensively into how literature was being portrayed through digital and other media. It is definitely not just about the book anymore. You can't read in isolation (how many times have I said and seen that?) Literature has entered a social network that links all the various derivatives of a literary work. We have seen the emergence or eBooks, audiobooks, YouTube montages, reviews through social media sites, Amazon recommendations, etc. The list goes on and on. Literature is definitely in a different position than it ever has been in before. I had been so blind to these changes in literature, but now they are so prevalent that I see them everywhere.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Reminisces on Digital Culture
It was really great to be able to meet with my professor and Anna and Alan yesterday and go over our papers right then and there. It was helpful to get feedback from three different sources on my paper, its strengths and weaknesses. I never thought that publicizing my writing process and allowing others to influence how I write and what I write about could be so helpful. Their insights brought a whole new dimension to my writing and I honestly think it turned out for the better.
Writing a traditional research paper really makes you dig into your research and find a solid thesis. You have to work to bring all your ideas together coherently and write in a way that makes you sound intelligent, insightful, and entertaining. It is hard, however, to do these things, to make a large block of text worth reading, and to try to have a solid thesis that connects the entire paper. And I won't even mention the frustration of writer's block. It is also intimidating, you know, the idea of a "8-10 page research paper." Writing blogs, on the other hand, is really nice because you can just get your ideas out there in a much less formal style. You don't necessarily have to make all your ideas flow together. It's also really helpful to get other's feedback from the very beginning as you post your thought process in short snippets that people can easily read and comment.
I think both styles of writing definitely have their place, and it has been an adventure combining both processes into something concrete and cohesive. Blogging made me think of so many more ideas and in such different ways that totally changed my method of writing formally. I honestly believe the informal process immensely benefits the formal process of writing, especially when it comes to social proof. The idea of researching in this way via digital media was very overwhelming at first, but as I got used to it, and got a handle on what I was supposed to be doing and looking for, things rolled a lot smoother and proved to be productive to my writing. Overall, it was a really great process to integrate social and digital media into my formal process of writing. Try it out, see how it works for you!
Writing a traditional research paper really makes you dig into your research and find a solid thesis. You have to work to bring all your ideas together coherently and write in a way that makes you sound intelligent, insightful, and entertaining. It is hard, however, to do these things, to make a large block of text worth reading, and to try to have a solid thesis that connects the entire paper. And I won't even mention the frustration of writer's block. It is also intimidating, you know, the idea of a "8-10 page research paper." Writing blogs, on the other hand, is really nice because you can just get your ideas out there in a much less formal style. You don't necessarily have to make all your ideas flow together. It's also really helpful to get other's feedback from the very beginning as you post your thought process in short snippets that people can easily read and comment.
I think both styles of writing definitely have their place, and it has been an adventure combining both processes into something concrete and cohesive. Blogging made me think of so many more ideas and in such different ways that totally changed my method of writing formally. I honestly believe the informal process immensely benefits the formal process of writing, especially when it comes to social proof. The idea of researching in this way via digital media was very overwhelming at first, but as I got used to it, and got a handle on what I was supposed to be doing and looking for, things rolled a lot smoother and proved to be productive to my writing. Overall, it was a really great process to integrate social and digital media into my formal process of writing. Try it out, see how it works for you!
Friday, June 8, 2012
Look Up
Dr. Spencer, if you are reading this, you are in the wrong spot. Unless you would like to read my research paper for my English 295 class (which is pretty magnificent, but that is beside the point), I would kindly refer you to the tabs above as they will direct you to the various components of my project. Thank you!!
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Drum Roll Please... Presenting the Social Text
Holly Boud
Professor Gideon Burton
English 295
7 June 2012
The Social Text
“The
one will kill the other…. It was the presentiment that human thought, in
changing its form, would also change its mode of expression; that the leading
idea of each generation would no longer be written with the same material in
the same fashion” (Hugo 169-170).
One of my first
experiences with literature and digital media came when I listened to Moby Dick by Herman Melville on
audiobook. Parts where I felt like my
eyes would have glanced over, instead, I could hear and connect it with other
parts of the book. The narrator’s voice
was engaging and helped bring the story to life in a way that reading the book
would not have done. I felt like I had a
valid experience with Moby Dick even
though I experienced it in a nontraditional format. In an English class I took, my professor was
looking for someone who had read Moby
Dick. I was the only one to say anything. My
professor scoffed at me saying that listening to it “did not count”. Now, it is an indisputable fact that reading
the actual, textual volume of Moby Dick
is not the primary medium in which most people experience that work of
literature; my professor had not even read or listened to Moby Dick. That aside, however,
my professor had a point. There are
things the reader gets from a textual edition of a work that does not come from
the audio; however, just as this is true, the inverse is also true.
My experience with
Moby Dick was an authentic experience
of the text even though it was not in the traditional fashion. The world is increasingly experiencing
literature through multimedia, and that is not a bad thing. The world of the traditional primary text is
being replaced via digital media by what I will call a “social text”.
What I mean by a social text is two fold: one, it is social because a work of
literature cannot be read isolated from other people (posting on Goodreads,
Facebook, Twitter, texting about a work, etc.), and two, a text is social in that
it cannot be isolated from other mediums (films, plays, translations,
audiobooks, etc.). A medium is defined
in its simplest terms as “that which remediates,” or in more detail “that which
appropriates the techniques, forms, and social significance of other media and
attempts to rival or refashion them in the name of the real” (Bolter 65). Multimedia of literature is the social
application of the traditional primary text. Without the social proof we even doubt the
completion of the experience. This trend
has extended into the literary canon as it is closely linked now to a medium
canon, creating a new conglomeration of a socialized canon. Furthermore, being exposed to a work of
literature within the framework of a social text provides validity and authenticity
to our experience.
It is common now
for people to have read a work of literature in eBook format downloaded onto
their Kindle or Nook, or to have listened to the audiobook version from
Librivox. Many people’s first experience
with a work of literature came first from reading a summary on an online
resource like Sparknotes, seeing the play or movie adaptation, or perhaps
reading a graphic novel or children’s book adaptation. Some people are first exposed to an
adaptation of these kinds through social media sites like YouTube. Each of digital media derivatives provides
layers that make up the social text, and it is affecting the way people
experience literature in new and unique ways.
The digital age
has revolutionized the way that people interact with literature by widening its
sphere of influence through various avatars to the point that one cannot read a
work of literature separate from its social text. Furthermore, one medium within the social
text of a work can become so naturalized that it is seen as the primary
medium. There is no way to read any work
of literature in isolation anymore. The
various mediums act as vehicles to spread the textual work abroad to larger and
larger audiences. These factors have
created an appendage to the literary canon, a format canon that has started to
gain a hierarchy in itself by ranking the various mediums within the social
text. The necessity to incorporate the
various digital media resources in the study of literature is becoming more and
more apparent. Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame gives excellent
insights into how this revolution of mediums has happened before and how to
visualize the changes occurring to the study of literature due to the digital
age.
Victor Hugo
describes in detail the cathedral of Notre Dame, which is the focus of the
novel. He describes the archdeacon’s
anxiety that “the one will kill the other” meaning that the printing press will
kill architecture. Hugo describes this
transformation when he says “that the book of stone, so solid and so enduring,
must make way for the book of papers still more solid and enduring” (Hugo 170). The
Hunchback of Notre Dame is set in 1482, at the heart of the transition
between the middle ages and the Renaissance.
The Gutenberg printing press has emerged and is gaining power that
competes with the power of the church:
Human thought
discovered a means of perpetuation, not only more durable and more resisting
than architecture, but also simpler and easier.
Architecture was dethroned…. The invention of printing was the greatest
event in history…. It was the renewed and renovated form of expression of
humanity; it is human thought laying off one form and assuming another. (Hugo 176)
At the heart of all this revolution
and recreation is the transformation of mediums into a tightly knit social text
that has replaced the traditional view of the primary text.
Most people would
consider the physical book of The
Hunchback of Notre Dame to be the primary text. There is a discrepancy with this assumption,
however, because the book actually started as Notre Dame de Paris, in French.
The English translation, The
Hunchback of Notre Dame is actually a secondary text to that one. There are discrepancies between the French
text and the English translation that illustrate this point because all the
cultural nuances can never be translated fully across languages. This is made apparent by the discrepancies
among the various English translations.
For example, the second chapter of the fifth book in Notre Dame de Paris is entitled “Ceci
Tuera Cela.” In the audiobook English
translation read by Mark Nelson, translates this chapter to be “This Will Kill
That”; however, in the textual, Barnes and Noble edition, “Ceci Tuera Cela” translates
as “The One Will Kill the Other.” Now,
arguably, these two translations vary little in meaning, but the fact still
stands that the translations obviously vary depending on the translator.
My experience
reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame
brought me to this conclusion. I had not
realized that when I prided myself in loving what I considered the original,
primary text, that it was in fact not the primary text at all.
If we take this
reasoning, of varying primary texts, out a little farther, the book itself is a
textual adaptation of the actual cathedral in Paris. This illustrates Hugo’s point that literature
killed architecture. By the time one
reads the English translation, what would generally be known as a primary text,
he or she has been exposed to at least three different mediums of the same
subject. It goes to show in the case of
the English translation, that a secondary, or even tertiary, medium can become
so naturalized that it is accepted as a primary text.
To bring this point a little
close to home, take as another example, the American antebellum novel Gone With the Wind by Margaret
Mitchell. When
most people think of Gone With
the Wind, they do not think of the original text; they immediately envision
the iconic embrace between Rhett and Scarlett of the 1939 movie with the
charismatic Clark Gable and captivating Vivien Leigh. In fact, there are people having critical discussions
about Gone With the Wind,
but not in reference to the book,
in reference to the movie.
The movie is their first,
and most likely only, impression of
the story of Gone With the Wind, and
it colors their perception of the book when and if they actually read it. Even those who did read the novel to begin
with can hardly expect to talk about it with any number of people without
referencing the movie. In a sense, it
has become the primary text as it holds a forefront position within the social
text. Few people read the book and
watch the movie in that order. It is the movie that persuades people to
tackle the massive textual edition. This
demonstrates a very important digital principle: no one can read in isolation. Reading is no longer “a lonely activity” (Bloom 226). It is not just about the book anymore. In order to have a full experience with a
work of literature, one has to have experienced or at least been exposed to it
through several derivatives within the social text. It is the social text that opens the doors
for more people to be exposed to the work.
There are several
parallels that can be drawn from the detailed image Hugo presents of the Notre
Dame cathedral in comparison with the social text of the digital age. Take the cathedral to represent the physical,
textual book. As the single, primary
medium, one would have to go to the city of Paris in order to experience it. By limiting oneself to one medium, it is like
being limited to Paris when in actuality, it is possible to experience the
piece of literature in the comfort of one’s own home, or anywhere else in the
world for that matter. They are these
other mediums, this social text, that open the literary work to the rest of the
world. That is the beauty of the digital
world. It makes interests, such as literature,
accessible to people all over the world.
Not only through, for example a movie, can the world of literature be
brought to a larger audiences of the same cultural sphere, but also those
movies can be translated into other languages, or even take on certain
attributes of distant cultures that make the story pertinent to audiences
outside a particular cultural sphere. Language,
cultural, geographic, and special interest barriers disappear when it comes to
digital media.
For example, take
one of the most beloved and widely acclaimed Western pieces of literature, Jane
Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. This story has been translated into a number
of languages, and has had been the framework for more than one movie
adaptation. In 2004, Pride and Prejudice was taken by
Bollywood and made into the Indian musical movie version, Bride and Prejudice. Now, of
course the accuracy of the movie to the story is another topic entirely, but
what stands is that now the story of Pride
and Prejudice has been taken to a very wide audience who love Indian dance,
music, and drama. These people may never
have been interested in reading the English textual edition of a nineteenth
century British romantic novel, but now they can get the same story but in a
way that sparks their own interests.
Perhaps then, having been exposed to the story in that way, one of these
Bollywood aficionados would be interested in reading Pride and Prejudice. See how
that works? By adapting the original
novel into another medium, or in other words, by adding another layer to the
social text, the same story gets circulated to a much larger group of
people.
In my own
experience, it has often been other mediums of the social text that brought me
to the textual work in the first place, or that took me back to the text had I
already read it. For example, I read The Hunchback of Notre Dame in ninth
grade and have always remembered loving the story, but I never felt inclined to
pick it up again until just recently. I
found the musical adaptation of Notre
Dame de Paris, and I fell in love with it.
Watching clips of it on YouTube, hearing the music and seeing the story
unfold visually in that way brought me back to the work, and I read it again. I have contacted another who had a similar
experience. Jess Nalbandian, the founder
of the Hunchblog, came to the book because she too fell in love with the
musical. The difference in our
experience lies in the fact that she had not originally read the book. It was the musical that sparked her interest
and persuaded her to read the book in order to compare the two (personal
communication). All these layers within
the social text play different roles and color the way we experience the story
as a whole.
These layers can
be applied to a new aspect of the literary canon. A medium canon has arisen closely linked and
intertwined with the literary canon. Together, they have created a social canon. Though a social canon made up of all these
media brought together through the digital world would be considered by most
literary scholastics to be subservient to the traditional literary canon that
does not undermine its authenticity because the traditional canonized works are
just as much a part of the social canon as any other medium.
If we now move
into the dynamics of this canon, we see a hierarchy not only of the adaptations
from literature to a digital medium, but among the digital mediums
themselves. Let us revert back to our Pride and Prejudice example. Many people think of Pride and Prejudice not in direct reference to the book, but in
reference to the five hour-long A&E movie adaptation. In discussion, many Pride and Prejudice fans would swear by this movie version. No other movie adaptation is valid. The A&E movie with Colin Firth and
Jennifer Ehle IS Pride and Prejudice. The Keira Knightly version, the Pink Bible
version, and Bride and Prejudice are
all disregarded. Many people get very
passionate in their defense of that A&E version, but hold on a minute. Is not even the A&E version secondary to
the actual novel? Critical discussion
surrounds that movie as they compare medium to medium without reference to the
novel whatsoever. Does this alone not
signify the validity of digital mediums as primary texts within this larger
framework of the social text?
Digital media has
changed the way we approach, experience, and study literature. We have entered an age of the social text,
where one medium is not and cannot be the dominant medium of experiencing a
literary work. All the mediums work
together in layers that create the whole experience. We cannot read in isolation; we cannot look
at just one layer and attempt to see the whole picture. It is therefore essential to bring digital
media into the classroom. Incorporating
digital media into the English classroom will help us study literature more
effectively. It is true, there is
something lost if the text is cut out, but that is why it is so important to
study the social text, with the literary work at the core that links this
closely knit conglomeration of mediums. The
other mediums bring many additional levels of information, expression, and emotion
that add to the literary work. By
teaching the social text by incorporating digital mediums into the classroom
that the students experience despite any classroom discussion would put those
other mediums into the proper light as they relate to the book and to each
other. Just as the cathedral was a
communal gathering place and was constructed of various mediums (stain glass
windows, gargoyles, engravings, etc.), the digital world, as Dr. Kathryn M.
Grossman says, “links texts and contexts” (483) providing a social link that
connects all these different digital mediums into a social text. Not only does studying the various mediums
bring more into the discussion of the textual work, but doing so addresses the
condition of the digital age where there is no dominant medium. Exposing oneself
to all the different mediums makes the literary work more than just a book; it
becomes an entire experience to be seen and felt, layer-by-layer. It does not do in this digital age to limit
oneself to the confines of Paris when one can experience the entire world.
Thank you to Dr.
Gideon Burton, and my cohort: Emily
Coleman, and Whitney Simons for their general contribution to the cohesion and
comprehension of this paper.
Works Cited
Bolter, Jay David, and
Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1999. Print.
Bloom, Harold. "Elegiac
Conclusion." Falling Into Theory. By David H. Richter. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. 254-233. Print.
Burton, Gideon. Personal Interview. 23 May 2012.
Coleman, Emily and Whitney Simons. Personal Interview. 22 May 2012.
Grossman, Kathryn M. "From Classic to Pop
Icon: Popularizing Hugo." JSTOR. American Association of
Teachers of French, Feb. 2001. Web. 19 May 2012. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/399430>.
Hugo, Victor, and Isabel Roche. The
Hunchback of Notre Dame. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004.
Print.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Another Rough Draft
The Social Text
“The
one will kill the other…. It was the presentiment that human thought, in
changing its form, would also change its mode of expression; that the leading
idea of each generation would no longer be written with the same material in
the same fashion” (Hugo 169-170).
One of my first
experiences with literature and digital media came when I listened to Moby Dick by Herman Melville on
audiobook. I had never read the book
before, and admittedly, some points hard to get through, but I enjoyed
listening to it nonetheless. Parts where
I felt like I would have glanced over with my eyes, I could hear and connect it
with other parts of the book. The
narrator’s voice was engaging and helped bring the story to life in a way that
reading the book would not have done. I
felt like I had a valid experience with Moby
Dick even though I experienced it in a nontraditional format.
In an English
class I took, my professor was looking for someone who had read Moby Dick. No one said anything except myself saying I
had listened to the audiobook. My
professor scoffed at me saying that “did not count”. Now, it is an indisputable fact that reading
the actual, textual volume of Moby Dick
is not the primary medium in which most people experience that work of
literature; my professor had not even read or listened to Moby Dick. Yet, the fact
that I had listened to the book instead was viewed as subservient to reading
it. The truth is, my professor had a point. There are things the reader gets from a
textual edition of a work that does not come from the audio; however, just as
this is true, the inverse is also true.
My experience with
Moby Dick was an authentic experience
of the text even though it was not in the traditional fashion. The world is increasingly experiencing
literature through multimedia, and that is not a bad thing. The world of the traditional primary text is
being replaced via digital media by what I will call a “social text”.
What I mean by a social text is two fold: one, it is social because a work of
literature cannot be read isolated from other people (posting on Goodreads,
Facebook, Twitter, texting about a work, etc.), and two, a text is social in
that it cannot be isolated from other mediums (films, plays, translations,
audiobooks, etc.). A medium is defined
in its simplest terms as “that which remediates,” or in more detail “that which
appropriates the techniques, forms, and social significance of other media and
attempts to rival or refashion them in the name of the real” (Bolter 65). Multimedia is the social application of the
traditional primary text, and it is this age that we have entered. Without the social proof, such as posting
pictures on Facebook, we even doubt the completion of the experience. This trend has extended into the literary
canon as it is closely linked now to a medium canon, creating a new
conglomeration of a socialized canon. Furthermore,
it is the social text that provides validity and authenticity to our
experiences within and without a literary work.
My
paper began as a critique of the different mediums through which The Hunchback of Notre Dame is portrayed
and how that enhanced one’s experience when he or she read the story, but as I
did my research, and delved more and more into the intricacies of the uses of
these different mediums and how they interacted with one another, I noticed
some much more interesting trends.
While
it may have been most common for people to experience a book, then want to see
the movie, or more recently, to see the movie then read the book, in most
recent cases, it is increasingly the case that we experience many different
media in our exploration of a piece of literature.
It is common now
for people to have read a work of literature in eBook format downloaded onto
their Kindle or Nook, or to have listened to the audiobook version from
Librivox. Many people’s first experience
with a work of literature came first from reading a summary on an online
resource like Sparknotes, seeing the play or movie adaptation, or perhaps
reading a graphic novel or children’s book adaptation. Some people are first exposed to an
adaptation of these kinds through social media sites like YouTube. The way that people experience literature in
today’s world is very much affected by digital media versions of a particular
work.
The digital age
has revolutionized the way that people interact with literature by widening its
sphere of influence through various mediums.
The presence of digital media has created an age dominated by a social
text. A separate medium can become so
naturalized that it is seen as the primary medium. There is no way to read any work of
literature in isolation anymore. The
various mediums act as modems to spread the textual work abroad to larger and
larger audiences. These factors have
created an appendage to the literary canon, a format canon that has started to
gain a hierarchy in itself by ranking the various mediums. The necessity to incorporate the various digital
media resources in the study of literature is becoming more and more
apparent. Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame gives
examples of how this revolution of mediums has happened before and how to
visualize the changes occurring to the study of literature due to the digital
age.
Victor Hugo
describes in detail the cathedral of Notre Dame, which is the focus of the
novel. He describes the archdeacon’s
anxiety that “the one will kill the other” meaning that the printing press will
kill architecture. Hugo describes this
transformation when he says “that the book of stone, so solid and so enduring,
must make way for the book of papers still more solid and enduring” (170). The
Hunchback of Notre Dame is set in 1482, at the heart of the transition between
the middle ages and the Renaissance. The
Gutenberg printing press has emerged and is gaining power that competes with
the power of the church:
“Human thought
discovered a means of perpetuation, not only more durable and more resisting
than architecture, but also simpler and easier.
Architecture was dethroned…. The invention of printing was the greatest
event in history…. It was the renewed and renovated form of expression of
humanity; it is human thought laying off one form and assuming another” (176).
At the heart of all this revolution
and recreation is the transformation of mediums.
Most people would
consider the physical book of The
Hunchback of Notre Dame to be the primary text. There is a discrepancy with this assumption,
however, because the book actually started as Notre Dame de Paris, in French.
The English translation, The
Hunchback of Notre Dame is actually a secondary text to that one. There are discrepancies between the French
text and the English translation because all the cultural nuances can never be
translated fully across language. This
is made apparent by the discrepancies among the various English
translations. For example, the second
chapter of the fifth book in Notre Dame
de Paris is entitled “Ceci Tuera Cela.”
In the audiobook English translation read by Mark Nelson, translates
this chapter to be “This Will Kill That”; however, in the textual, Barnes and
Noble edition, “Ceci Tuera Cela” translates as “The One Will Kill the
Other.” Now, arguably, these two
translations vary little in meaning, but the fact still stands that the
translations obviously vary depending on the translator.
My experience
reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame
brought me to this conclusion. I had not
realized that when I prided myself in loving what I considered the original,
primary text, that it was in fact not the primary text at all.
If we take this
reasoning, of varying primary texts, out a little farther, the book itself is a
textual medium to the actual cathedral in Paris. So really, by the time one reads the English
translation, what would generally be known as a primary text, he or she has
been exposed to at least three different mediums of the same subject. It goes to show in the case of the English
translation, that a secondary, or even tertiary, medium can become so
naturalized that it is accepted as a primary text.
To bring this point a little
close to home, take as another example, the American antebellum novel Gone With the Wind by Margaret
Mitchell. When
most people think of Gone With
the Wind, they do not think of the original text. They immediately
envision the iconic embrace between Rhett and Scarlett of the 1939 movie with
the charismatic Clark Gable and captivating Vivien Leigh. In fact, there are people having critical discussions
about Gone With the Wind,
but not in reference to the book,
in reference to the movie.
The movie is their first,
and most likely only, impression of
the story of Gone With the Wind, and
it colors their perception of the book when and if they actually read it. Even those who did read the novel to begin
with can hardly expect to talk about it with any number of people without
referencing the movie. In this case, the movie has dominated the text.
In a sense, it has become the primary text. Few people read the
book and watch the movie in that order. It is the movie that persuades
people to tackle the massive textual edition.
This demonstrates a very important digital principle: no one can read in isolation. Reading is no longer, as Harold Bloom
puts it, “a lonely activity” (226). It is not just about the book anymore. In order to have a discussion, thoroughly or
otherwise, of a piece of literature with any number of people, one has to have
experienced or at least been exposed to it through these several different
mediums.
There are several
parallels that can be drawn from the detailed image Hugo presents of the Notre
Dame cathedral in comparison with the world of digital media today. Take the cathedral to represent the actual,
physical textual work. As the single,
primary medium, one would have to go to Paris in order to experience it. By limiting oneself to one medium, it is like
being limited to Paris when in actuality, it is possible to experience the
piece of literature in the comfort of one’s own home, or anywhere else in the
world for that matter. They are these
other mediums that open the literary work to the rest of the world. That is the beauty of the digital world. It makes interests, such as literature,
accessible to people all over the world.
Not only through, for example a movie, can the world of literature be
brought to more and more audiences of the same cultural sphere, but also those
movies can be translated into other languages, or even take on certain
attributes of distant cultures that make the story pertinent to those
audiences. Language, cultural,
geographic, and special interest barriers disappear when it comes to digital
media.
For example, take
one of the most beloved and widely acclaimed Western pieces of literature, Jane
Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. This story has been translated into a number
of languages, and has had been the framework for more than one movie
adaptation. In 2004, Pride and Prejudice was taken by
Bollywood and made into the Indian musical movie version, Bride and Prejudice. Now, of
course the accuracy of the movie to the story is another topic entirely, but
what stands is that now the story of Pride
and Prejudice has been taken to a very wide audience who love Indian dance,
music, and drama. These people may never
have been interested in reading the English textual edition of a nineteenth
century British romantic novel, but now they can get the same story but in a
way that sparks their own interests.
Perhaps then, having been exposed to the story in that way, one of these
Bollywood aficionados would be interested in reading Pride and Prejudice. See how
that works? By adapting the original
novel into another medium, the same story gets circulated in many different ways
to a much larger group of people.
In my own
experience, it has often been other mediums of a text that brought me to the
text in the first place, or back to the text had I already read it. For example, I read The Hunchback of Notre Dame in ninth grade and have always
remembered loving the story, mostly because I would get into critical
discussions about it with people who had not enjoyed the book as I did. Just recently, years later, I found the
musical adaptation of Notre Dame de Paris. I fell in love with it. Watching clips of it on YouTube, hearing the
music and seeing the story unfold visually in that way brought me back to the
work, and I read it again if only to compare it with the musical. I have contacted another who had a similar
experience. Jess Nalbandian, the founder
of the Hunchblog, came to the book because she too fell in love with the
musical. The difference in our
experience lies in the fact that she had not originally read the book. It was the musical that sparked her interest
and persuaded her to read the book in order to compare the two. Arguably, her primary text is first the
musical because that is to what she based her interest and in what light she
read the book (personal communication).
All these mediums play different roles and color the way we experience
the story as a whole. Each of them
serving in their own way as a primary text, depending in which light they are
placed and to what purpose they are trying to serve.
This brings us
into the canon. A medium canon has
arisen closely linked and intertwined with the literary canon. Together, they have created a social textual
canon, a combined primary medium. Though
a medium canon would be considered by most literary scholastics to be
subservient to the literary canon, it still exists and it is the topic of many
critical discussions.
If we now move
into the dynamics of that canon, we see a hierarchy not only of literature to
digital medium, but among the digital mediums themselves. Let us revert back to our Pride and Prejudice example. When most people think of Pride and Prejudice not in direct
reference to the book, they think of the five hour-long A&E movie
adaptation, which is spoken about in and of the fact that it is so long. In discussion, many Pride and Prejudice fans would swear by the A&E movie
version. No other movie adaptation is a
valid depiction of the story. The
A&E movie with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle is Pride and Prejudice. The Keira Knightly version, the Pink Bible
version, and Bride and Prejudice are
all disregarded. Many people get very
passionate in their defense of that A&E version, but hold on a minute. Is not even the A&E version secondary to
the actual novel? Critical discussion
surrounds that movie as they compare medium to medium without reference to the
novel whatsoever. Does this alone not
signify the validity of digital mediums as primary texts?
Digital media has
changed the way we approach, experience, and study literature. We have entered an age of the social text,
where one is not and cannot be the dominant medium of experiencing a literary
work. We cannot read in isolation. It is therefore essential to bring digital
media into the classroom. Incorporating
digital media into the English classroom will help us study literature more
effectively. It is true, there is
something lost if the text is cut out, but that is why it is so important to
study the social text, with the literary work at the core that links this
closely knit conglomeration of mediums. The
other mediums bring many additional levels of information, expression, and
emotion that add to the literary work. By
bringing the other mediums into the classroom such as Sparknotes, movie
adaptations, audiobooks, etc. (mediums the students experience despite any
classroom discussion) and incorporating them into the critical discussion
around the novel itself would put those other mediums into the proper light as
they relate to the book and to each other.
These are the primary mediums through which students will experience
literature, and so together, they could all be studied as the primary texts in
the social text. Just as the cathedral
was a communal gathering place and was constructed of various mediums (stain
glass windows, gargoyles, engravings, etc.), the digital world, as Dr. Kathryn
M. Grossman says, “links texts and contexts” (483) providing a social outlet
that connects all these different digital mediums. Not only does studying the various mediums
bring more into the discussion of the textual work, but it addresses the
condition of the digital age where there is no dominant medium. It is necessary to study the social text in
order to study literature in the role it plays.
Exposing oneself to all the different mediums makes the literary work
more than just a book; it becomes an entire experience to be seen and
felt. It does not do in this digital age
to limit oneself to the confines of Paris when one can experience the entire
world.
Thank you to Dr.
Gideon Burton, and my cohort: Emily
Coleman, and Whitney Simons for their general contribution to the cohesion and
comprehension of this paper.
Works Cited
Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin. Remediation:
Understanding New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999. Print.
Bloom, Harold. "Elegiac Conclusion." Falling Into
Theory. By David H. Richter. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. 254-233.
Print.
Burton,
Gideon. Personal Interview. 23 May 2012.
Coleman,
Emily and Whitney Simons. Personal
Interview. 22 May 2012.
Grossman,
Kathryn M. "From Classic to Pop Icon: Popularizing Hugo." JSTOR.
American Association of Teachers of French, Feb. 2001. Web. 19 May 2012.
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/399430>.
Hugo, Victor, and Isabel Roche. The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004. Print.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Brief Ideas Behind a Social Text
Ok, new terminology coming your way. To anyone following my research process, I have used the terms "multiple primary texts" and "you can't read in isolation" several times. I realize there is some ambiguity to this. I will combine the two ideas now with a new term: "social text."
What is a social text?
A text social and can't be isolated in two ways: because you read in correlation with other people (i.e. posting on Goodreads, talking about the book with friends, texting, posting on Facebook/Twitter, etc.)
The second way a text is social is that it operates within a system of several modems. A text does not operate as only a textual book: there are a score of different ways through art, film, music, drama, etc. that a textual book operates.
It is this combination of elements, this social text, that should be studied into the classroom.
The idea of an isolated reader is gone, both in reference to the reader himself and the text. Neither can exist in isolation.
I will elaborate more on these points in my paper, which I now need to start working on. I just thought I'd throw some of these ideas out there as a preface to some newly constructed ideas in my work.
What is a social text?
A text social and can't be isolated in two ways: because you read in correlation with other people (i.e. posting on Goodreads, talking about the book with friends, texting, posting on Facebook/Twitter, etc.)
The second way a text is social is that it operates within a system of several modems. A text does not operate as only a textual book: there are a score of different ways through art, film, music, drama, etc. that a textual book operates.
It is this combination of elements, this social text, that should be studied into the classroom.
The idea of an isolated reader is gone, both in reference to the reader himself and the text. Neither can exist in isolation.
I will elaborate more on these points in my paper, which I now need to start working on. I just thought I'd throw some of these ideas out there as a preface to some newly constructed ideas in my work.
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