There seems to be a reoccurring pattern, for me, at the beginning, middle and the end of most of the readings that are assigned for English 201. Most of the time I have no idea what is going on or what points are trying to be made. I leave the reading feeling more confused than before I read it. So once again I have a lot of questions that maybe some of my classmates will be able to help me with.
For this Tuesday, we were assigned to read a couple of chapters of Writing Machines by N. Katherine Hayles. I had a very hard time trying to decipher what she was trying to say. Maybe it is because I am not familiar with most of the technology terminology that she uses throughout the reading. I think that she tries to explain what some of the terms are but I get even more confused after reading the definitions.
There are three main terms that I couldn’t figure out what they mean and maybe some of you who read this will be able to help me out. On page 75, of the course packet, she makes use of the phrase inscription technology. On page 77, CP, she says media-specific analysis or MSA. And throughout the readings that were assigned she uses cell.f or cell….f. If anybody knows what any of these terms mean, I would greatly appreciate a response back.
One thing that caught my attention was on Page 75, CP, when she says, “the physical form of the literary artifact always affects what the words (and other semiotic components) mean.” This sentence brought me back to last week when we were reading The Medium is the Message and Media Hot and Cold by Marshal McLuhan.
She also talked about HTML throughout these readings and let me just say that I am glad that we don’t have to use it. I am also glad that someone, who is a lot more techno-savvy than me, came up with programs to allow those less fortunate people enjoy the luxuries that techno-savvy people have. It allows many more people to use blogs or create websites.
One of the last things that we had this week was look through the website Lexia to Perplexia. I don’t know if we are going to go over it in class but I had absolutely no idea what was going on or even the subject matter the website was about. I honestly think that if it was in a foreign language I would have understood it better. Maybe it was supposed to be like that or maybe if I knew what was going on I would have been able to enjoy it better.
Well I guess that is all for now. Maybe if we talk about it in class tomorrow some of my questions will be answered and I will be able to write back on what I have learned.
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Great post, and very useful questions. You might check out the link to WM online (on the course calendar). There's a glossery of sorts there.
To gloss here, however, an inscription technolgy is really anything that's used to assist acts of writing. So: pencils, pens, printing press, computer, etc. The key thing to remember here is that ITs are material and produce material effects. Even though inscription softwares such as MS Word seem utterly virtual, they are actually comprised of chips, moving parts, and code that both enable and constrain what we can do with that software. With this in mind, Hayles calls for literary theorists to engage in media specific analysis, which would lead them to specifically address these inscription technologies and their materiality. In other words, it would lead us to examine literature's materiality (e.g. physical book, fonts, computer code and software) as much as what it represents (e.g. this poem means X).
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