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Feminist Perspectives on Web Fiction :: 2004

Feminist Perspectives on Web Fiction :: 2004

Tutor: Dr Ann Kaloski-Naylor
Centre for Women's Studies, 3rd Floor, Grimston House
x3674(direct); x3671(messages); eakn1

Description

Contests for the meanings of writing are a major form of contemporary political struggle. . . . Cyborg writing is about the power to survive, not on the basis of original innocence, but on the basis of seizing the tools to mark the world that marked them as other. Donna Haraway, 1985

Over the past decade the web and the rest of the internet have become well-used sites for information gathering and for communication. This literary and cultural studies module examines a third aspect of web-use, that of creativity, focussing particularly on writing on and about the web.

Women have been at the forefront of 'seizing the tools' of the web in order to expand radical definitions of subjectivity, imagination, power and narrative. We will look at both paper and web-native online texts in order to:

  • investigate the relationship between 'new' media technologies, writing, reading and theory
  • assess changing definitions of literature and of fiction
  • develop transferable web literacy skills
  • generate a variety of salient feminist understandings of electronic fiction
  • have fun experimenting with digital writing

Our critical tools will be varied, drawing on existing feminist ideas within cultural and literary theory and on media-specific analysis of web writing as well as, of necessity, developing our own, perhaps tentative, perspectives.

A willingness to take risks and a desire to engage with web technologies is more important than any prior knowledge, although existing literary, cultural or technical expertise is very welcome. This is, after all, new media and I am happy to work with a variety of starting skills, a range that will, undoubtedly, enhance the learning process for the entire group. Alongside reading texts we will also write texts, perhaps via the production of simple web pages or through collaborative, simultaneous online writing.

While this module expects much of its students, full support will be given to help you develop the apposite skills. Within the remit of the course there is scope for students to develop particular trains of thought, and you will have some choice over the material we look at. A mutually supportive environment will be fostered via seminar participation and through the online class discussion list. You are encouraged to devise your own assignment in consultation with me, and this can be presented in traditional form or, if more appropriate, as a digital essay.

I realize that taking this course will be entering new territory for many, if not all, students. If you would like additional information to help you decide whether this course is for you, it may be a good idea to browse through last year's version of the option, available here. I can also put you in touch with students who took the module in 2003, or answer any queries myself (email contact button at the top of the page, or send a note to Ann Kaloski at the Centre for Women's Studies).

Further details of the module will be available online in autumn 2003.

Learning Outcomes
After successfully completing this course students should:

  • be familiar with a variety of fiction native to the web
  • have access to a range of feminist methodologies and theoretical models (both canonical and emergent) suitable for investigating digital media
  • be critically aware of the historical and cultural specificities of web use
  • be comfortable enough with the genre to develop personal likes and dislikes and (hopefully!) continue to read digital work for pleasure
  • be reasonably proficient in simple web writing, which might include a basic knowledge of HTML, using BLOGs or interacting on MOOS
  • have developed skills in seminar participation and in online discussion

Teaching Programme
One two-hour seminar a week, usually focussing on a key text and issue. The following is a draft programme:

  1. Technology and Subjectivity: extract from Writing Machines by N Katherine Hayles
  2. Identity online: The Powerbook (Jeanette Winterson) and MOOs
  3. A Feminist Story 1: Zeros and Ones by Sadie Plant
  4. Web writing workshop
  5. Imagining the Web: He, She and It by Marge Piercy and 'A Cyborg Manifesto' by Donna Haraway
  6. A Feminist Story 2: The Roots of Nonlinearity: Toward a Theory of Web-Specific Art-Writing by Christy Sheffield Sanford
  7. Student-directed session
  8. Student-directed session
  9. Assignment workshop and moving on.

Preliminary Reading

Round table discussion with N Katherine Hayles, Marjorie Perloff, Dianne Greco, Linda Carroli and Shelley Jackson, hosted by Jennifer Ley Women and Technology, Beyond the Binary
Intelligent and assessible introduction to feminism and digital fiction from some of the leading artists and critics in the field. Highly recommended.
David Bell and Barbara Kennedy, eds. The Cybercultures Reader (Routledge, 2000)
Especially sections on Cyberfeminisms, Cyberbodies, and Post-(cyber)bodies.
Rosi Braidotti 'Cyberfeminism with a difference'
Early theoretical analysis of women's creative engagement with web media.
Carolyn Guertin and Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink, eds. 'The Progressive Dinner Party' Riding the Meridian 1:2; follow 'diner' link.
A feast of web-specific work by women; browse and enjoy!
Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein, eds. Cyberfeminism: Connectivity, Creativity and Critique (Spinifex Press, 2000)
A diverse volume of essays offering sociological, cultural and poetic analysis.
Donna Haraway, A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century
Ironically foundational text for contemporary feminist cultural theory
N Katherine Hayles Writing Machines (MIT Press, 2002)
An introductory and informative 'zine for adults' by a leading theorist of digital literature and culture.
Janet H Murray Hamlet on the Holodeck: The future of narrative in cyberspace (MIT Press, 1998)
Popular (with students) and accessible introduction to new media literary criticism.

Language No language other than English is required.