the lens of literature

links for you

2008-03-15T22:43:18Z

Wow, it's been over two months since my last entry! I was recently admitted to the UW honors program in psychology, so I've been working frantically on my junior thesis. I'm blogging my thesis research at decisionpsychology.com, if you're interested.

So, a few links that I've had bookmarked for a while:

"Wait, Is Kindle Still Destroying Publishing?" [gawker]
"What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You, Wannabe?" [gawker]
"Book lovers have an emotional bond with paper" [ars technica]
"Community Pricing for Books" [o'reilly radar]
"Publishing as a Social Medium" [o'reilly radar]

ars technica on the kindle

2008-01-11T18:48:40Z

"A novelist turns to Amazon's Kindle e-book reader to "beta test" his new novel. Is this the future of fiction?" Full article here. This is actually pretty cool!

the internet is the new library

2008-01-03T06:21:58Z

"The Internet is the first place most people go when faced with finding information on a variety of problems. Few go to a library first, according to a new Pew Internet and American Life Project study, but those who do aren't the ones you might expect." More on Ars Technica.

the kindle

2008-01-01T04:09:23Z

My dear readers! It has been far too long. Let's say I've been...lacking in inspiration, and also consumed with an English class.

Someone recently asked me what I think about the Kindle, if I think it's really going to change literature or whatever. No, quite frankly, I don't. I don't think it will change a damn thing. You know why? Because there is not really anything new about the Kindle. And really, other than PR hoopla I don't think it really intends to be anything more--it sets out to be an "electronic book," and that's exactly what it is. It's a book that happens to be electronic.

It's the same thing that is the downfall of traditional newspapers going online. They're still newspapers, they just happen to be electronic now. There's no change in the underlying technology. Because a book, that's a technology itself. A newspaper, that's technology too. Old technology, but technology nonetheless.

Think of it this way: if you slap an e- on the front of something, you're still in the old box. An e-book cannot be revolutionary because it's still defining itself in the terms of the old guard. Look! It's right there, hiding behind the hyphen!

This is not to say that the Kindle isn't cool, or that it might not encourage some people to read more. Those things are great. But does it represent a fundamental shift in literature? No. It's just old technology in new technology clothing. There's nothing truly original there except the books you read on it (maybe).

modern technology + traditional communication

2007-12-06T01:36:19Z

"In the collective patter of profile-surfing, messaging and 'friending,'" writes the New York Times today, "academic researchers see the resurgence of older patterns of oral communication." Full article here.

robots and literature?

2007-11-30T00:45:49Z

BoingBoing today shared a link to the Roboexotica talks. I found particular interest in a talk given by Jens Ohlig, arguing that all literature should be produced by robots. Talk about technology as literature! Click here for the MP3, and click on the BoingBoing link for an amusing slide snapshot.

literary amusement

2007-11-22T05:40:50Z

Happy Thanksgiving! To accompany your turkey here is a bit of literature humor from The Onion:

Third-Person Limited Omniscient Narrator Blown Away by Surprise Ending

PROVIDENCE, RI--The third-person limited omniscient voice, a narrative mode used to convey a story through the thoughts and senses of a literary character, was reportedly "caught totally off guard" after the main character was unexpectedly killed in the last chapter of the new novel Bertram's Way.

"Holy shit, I did not see that coming. Did you see that coming?" the disembodied literary device said on page 367 following the last paragraph of the novel. "Man, right in the head!"
The popular narrative method said it would try to pay closer attention when utilized in the book's planned sequel, Bertram's Revenge.

the ketchup dilemma

2007-11-14T13:47:24Z

I have a dilemma, and that dilemma involves ketchup. Yes, red, sticky, delicious ketchup. I am a Midwestern girl, after all, and I have no problem admitting that I love ketchup. No, I'm not one of those ketchup-on-everything people, but bring out a bag of Alexia oven fries* and a bottle of ketchup disappears pretty quickly.

So I find myself with a conundrum. Heinz makes organic ketchup, but it is only available in tiny bottles. Non-organic ketchup, on the other hand, is available in bulk sizes. Is it better to buy a big bottle of ketchup, thus saving plastic**, or buy lots of tiny bottles of organic ketchup? (Assuming you recycle of course, which I do.)

Buying organic is important for a lot of reasons, but I find the most compelling and relevant here is economic storytelling. Economic storytelling is another pet project of mine, being a bit of a market geek (confession: I read the business section first), so let me explain. Advertising, as I've discussed before, is about telling stories. Sometimes these are traditional stories, such as the story of the farmer discussed in "stories as motivation," but sometimes they are subtle. But they all end up telling you: see yourself in this story, with this product, and see your life being better off.

But there is another side to economic storytelling. Consumers also tell their own economic stories. I first started thinking about this when Artur asked me why I bought a Prius. I rambled a bit about wanting one for a while, thinking they're cute, whatever, and he responds, "There is only one reason to buy a Prius, and that reason is to tell car manufacturers that you value the environment most when buying a car." And it is true, buying a Prius says that even though you need a car, you're at least buying one that is environmentally friendlier, and you are prioritizing the environmental impact over price, power, and size. This flies in the face of the American trend of buying bigger and bigger SUVs, and it creates a new consumer storyline. This storyline says the environment is important to me, even if I have to pay more for it.

And buying organic continues that storyline. There are lots of health and environmental reasons for buying organic, but most of all you are reinforcing this environmental-consumer storyline. When you buy organic, you tell producers that you are using your purchasing power to speak out against the use of pesticides, the use of hormones, the destruction of biodiversity, the advent of corporate farming. You are telling a story and corporate food is the audience. (And it's a storytelling that's working--look at the vast increase in the availability of organic foods even in mainstream grocery stores.)

So there's a tremendous economic advantage to buying organic. But there is also a tremendous environmental disadvantage to using plastic. Wesa recently spent a month without buying plastic, and her blog, Life without Plastic, has a ton of great information. Waste Online also has a great information sheet about recycling plastic that summarizes the environmental impact of plastic:

56% of all plastic waste is from packaging
Only 7% of plastic waste is currently recycled
"Plastics production requires significant quantities of resources, primarily fossil fuels, both as a raw material and to deliver energy for the manufacturing process. It is estimated that 4% of the world's annual oil production is used as a feedstock for plastics production and an additional 3-4% during manufacture"
"In addition, plastics manufacture requires other resources such as land and water and produces waste and emissions"
"Plastics production also involves the use of potentially harmful chemicals, which are added as stabilisers or colorants."
"Because most plastics are non-degradable, they take a long time to break down, possibly up to hundreds of years - although no-one knows for certain as plastics haven't existed for long enough - when they are landfilled. With more and more plastics products, particularly plastics packaging, being disposed of soon after their purchase, the landfill space required by plastics waste is a growing concern."

So unrecycled plastic is nasty stuff. So which matters more? Reducing use of plastic, or supporting organic food? Like I said, I have a conundrum.

* Speaking of eating natural/organic, anything Alexia is highly recommended. Oh my goodness. They could just back a truck up to my house, seriously.
** Is this even true? I've always been taught that buying in bulk saves packaging, but don't two 8oz bottles and one 16oz bottle use the same amount of plastic? I guess you have the issue of the lid which is less widely recyclable, but still. I'm not sure on this.

what does technology mean for literature?

2007-11-10T05:14:19Z

Looking over my last four posts, I wonder, what does this all mean for literature?

While talking to a friend about this series of posts he laughed and said, "so, you are saying our literature is OMG !!!11!! ?" In a way, yes. There's no avoiding that abbreviation-filled MySpace posts do in fact represent a large chunk of the American population. Before the internet, this chunk wasn't represented in national literature because, well, no one was jumping to publish the angsty ramblings of teenagers. Or at least not of actual teenagers.

And this brings up the problem of national literature as a whole. National literature, up until now, has been unable to represent the voices of the population as a whole. Only the voices of the published are heard, and those voices are generally not of children, teenagers, the poor, the disadvantaged, the people who are focused on surviving or growing up instead of sitting around writing about it. The idea is that true national literature reflects the consciousness of the population as a whole. But does it really? Can we really claim to understand a nation without listening to all its voices?

This is not a new issue in literature. But I think that the democratization/decentralization of literature/publishing will force the issue among scholars. Was national literature ever really that national to begin with?

The decentralization of publishing allows us the opportunity to hear more and more voices for different segments of the population. Sure, not everyone is still represented and not every segment will necessarily choose to represent themselves, but universal representation is far closer than it has ever been before. But is that really good for literature? Is that really a truer national literature? Is it better to recognize the talented few who can crystallize the heart of a nation in the stroke of a pen, or is it better to recognize as many colors in the rainbow as possible?

This in particular is not a new debate--think for a second about the debate over affirmative action and I think you will see the parallels. Think about the debate over multicultural education.

There are no quick or easy answers, and I suspect the debate will fuel upheaval over the next generations within literature departments across the world. Because if we're really seeking out the texts that define culture and if we're really seeking out culture through texts, we have to go where the texts are. Comparative literature values what a text says about culture above the subjective aesthetic value of the text, so why not OMG !!!11!! ? I don't have answers here, but I do believe that dealing with technology and incorporating it into literary study is really just a matter of honesty.

technology: the new printing press

2007-11-08T19:48:51Z

In my last post, "technology: the old printing press," I discussed the impact of the printing press on culture as well as its limitations. So now I'd like to turn to a new revolution in printing technology.

With the Internet, there's no publisher needed. Originally all you needed was some knowledge of HTML and somewhere to host your content. Now all you need is a LiveJournal account, or a Facebook account, or...and the ability to click a few buttons. And type. That's it. Your writing is out there for all to see, and you didn't even need to write a proposal.

Now, I'm not claiming this is new thinking. The internet as a printing press revolution surely is an idea nearly as hoary as the original printing presses themselves. But I'd like to take it a step further and say: what are we producing with this technology? Isn't it literature too? And in fact, isn't it the heart of literature today?

With the advent of the internet, publishing has become decentralized. Instead of publication being squeezed through the narrow system of publishing houses, publication flourishes freely wherever there's a keyboard and an Internet connection. Publication is no longer just the printing press, it's a laptop, a desktop, a cell phone. It's no longer sequestered in giant printing facilities, it's in a dorm room, a library, a coffee shop.

And so I would like to argue that literature too is decentralized. Let's return to our original definition of national literature: "the collection of texts which make it a whole nation." Once upon a time, a handful of the texts coming out of publishing houses did comprise the texts that make a nation, representative of the national consciousness, perhaps because those were the only texts we really had. But now with so much writing out for the world to see but outside the framework of publishing houses, can we really limit ourselves? Why discount all that just because it's not what literature used to be?

We shouldn't. The literature produced by technology is literature too, and that's why I'm here.

technology: the old printing press

2007-11-07T19:17:33Z

In my last post, "technology: the literature of a nation?," I argued that writing on the internet now makes up the bulk of national literature in internet-savvy nations. How did this happen?

I am sitting here on my sofa in San Francisco, typing in a little box on the screen of my laptop about national literature and technology. This is something that I think we take for granted, or at least you probably do if you're reading or writing a blog like this one. But if you think about it, this is actually quite a remarkable change, even a revolution.

As we all know from high school history class, the printing press revolutionized culture because it allowed texts to be widely disseminated in original form with authorship. Before the printing press, I had to tell people about my ideas and just hope that word of mouth would carry it across Europe. With the printing press, I could write up my ideas and have printed copies (bearing my name, even) distributed throughout the continent.

But there is a problem with the printing press. Printing is expensive. Have you ever taken something to Kinko's to get a really big number of copies made? Once I needed 11 color copies of a 700-page grant application, and Kinko's quoted me a number with four digits. I nearly died of shock, and then celebrated when I found a place that would do it for only $900. It's hard to get very far publishing your own material because printing is expensive. Printing is not democratic.

So printing became centralized in publishing houses. And these publishing houses, they'll print your book without you paying anything. If it's good enough. If an editor happens to be interested in what you're writing about. If that editor happens upon your proposal or manuscript. If... There's a whole lot of ifs here, and at the end of the day you're going to have a hard time getting your book published. If you want your ideas on the other side of Europe, you better start talking or find a lot of money, fast.

But technology has brought us a new way of doing things. And with that new way comes a new revolution, and a new literature.

technology: the literature of a nation?

2007-11-07T01:23:56Z

Given the discussion of national literature in the last entry, let's focus on American literature for a moment. (Note, however, that this can apply to any nation where the majority of the population is online.) In the past, the national literature was comprised of the published texts that defined the American consciousness of the time. Why do I say published texts? Because there really weren't any other widely disseminated texts at the time. In order for a text to be read from coast to coast, it pretty much needed to be published in a book or a magazine.

This assertion raises a question: is national literature necessarily popular literature? In part, yes. Ideally literature that reflects a nation's consciousness will become popular for that very reason. People like reading about themselves, after all. And indeed, many of the authors considered today to be part of the American canon were once bestsellers and published in popular magazines. But in part, no, because a work of literature can become part of national literature even if it is not widely known at the time of publication. For example, the diaries of American settlers are now considered to be part of early American literature, even though they were not disseminated at the time. But other than personal diaries (which are surely a special case), I would think that a precondition of becoming national literature is at least availability throughout the nation. Whether the nation chooses to take advantage of that availability is a whole other issue.

So what is the national literature of today? I would like to argue that with the advent of dissemination without publication through the internet, the bulk of national literature can be found online. Today millions of writers have coast-to-coast dissemination through the internet, so why disqualify them? In fact, it is not hard to imagine that one can find the consciousness of the nation in blog posts, websites, and wikis rather than in the highly limited world of book publishing. Indeed, perhaps the bigger question is what did we lose by having such a limit on our national literature before this point?

what is national literature?

2007-11-05T22:26:47Z

So I'd like to do a series of posts on what the literature of technology is. Specifically I am interested in how technology relates to literature and what that means to literary studies. This is a bit of personal definition as well, because what exactly makes me a literature student despite looking at texts not traditionally considered "literature"? How does my research fit into comparative literature's pursuit of culture through national literatures?

As you might imagine, the posts in this series are the nascent tendrils of an honors thesis. Hopefully this kind of thinking will form the roots of a future dissertation, for that matter. But things are not exactly as well-formed as they would be in a thesis, so cut me some slack as I do some developing. After all, it is a start.

And so I'd like to start with bit of definition. What is national literature?

As a comparative literature student (as opposed to, say, American literature) I'm highly invested in the idea of national literatures. Hopefully someday I will be a Ph.D. student in comparative literature, and there I will be trained in both comparative literature and a national literature so that I have twice the slim chances of actually getting a job.

National literature can be a lot of things. Here are some initial thoughts:

Literature produced by a particular nation
Literature typical of a particular nation
Literature that reveals the national consciousness of a time period
Literature that tells us about a nation's culture
Literature that is useful in analyzing a nation's culture

Another take comes from Wikipedia:

Nations can have literatures, as can corporations, philosophical schools or historical periods. Popular belief commonly holds that the literature of a nation, for example, comprises the collection of texts which make it a whole nation.

I like this definition, that national literature is made up of the stuff that a nation couldn't survive without. Without American literature, America would be less American. This is a pretty cool statement to make about any form of art, and one that I happen to believe is true.

So how does technology fit into this concept of literature? Well, tune in next time on the Lens of Literature...

popular tags on del.icio.us: "design"

2007-11-04T21:50:17Z

Okay, so how about talking about something besides my own bookmarks? Today I'd like to start looking at the most popular tags on del.icio.us, starting with the most popular: "design."

Let's look at the most popular bookmarks tagged with design. There are basically three types of bookmarks: tools, concepts, and inspiration.

Tools are perhaps the most obvious bookmarks, I think. Basically these are sites that help people design: 60 Advanced Photoshop Tutorials, Vector Logo Database, more Photoshop Tutorials, 100 (Legal) Free Sources for Stock Images.

Concepts are all those things about design. For example, Elements of Great Web Design: The Polish, My Top 5 Biggest Freelancing Mistakes, The Best Designs, Architecture from Another Planet. There are far fewer of these on the top bookmarks list, perhaps reflecting that people prioritize things that helps them get things done. Not surprising.

The last category, inspiration, took me a while to figure out. I would often tag things such as shopping sites, blogs, web tools, whatever, and find design listed as a popular tag. What does this have to do with design, I thought? Finally I figured it out: people were tagging these sites as examples of good design, or inspiration for their own designs. The only unmistakable example of this on the top bookmarks list is the Dynamic Periodic Table, which is admittedly pretty nifty.

But as I said, at least anecdotally I find that this way of tagging is used pretty often. So what does that say? First, it says that there is little general consensus on what is inspiring. Second, it says that people find so many different things inspiring that it is difficult to generate a critical mass of popularity. These two items are similar, but the flavor is slightly different I think. Do you see what I mean?

what motivates wikipedians?

2007-11-04T16:18:51Z

A fun survey on motivation and the Web: "What Motivates Wikipedians?"