Apr

03

bound vs. unbound: a preface, afterwards

writing

This is an experiment.

It is a thesis, a research project, a survey of Digital Humanities.

Also: a blog, a digital archive of thoughts.

It will be a printed PDF, and a bound book.

What happens when you take something meant to be traditional, something that fits neatly inside of the Academic Box, and execute it on a different platform? What happens when you smash together old-school and new media? Where do you end up when you play with the limitations and possibilities of bound forms of scholarship and unbound mediums of production?

Because I am writing on a field that is intersectional – digital + humanities – it seemed only fitting to work the digital into my humanities project. Working within a medium that we are studying allows us to understand it better, to get a deeper feel for how things play out in practical application. Blogging is only one small aspect of the digital world, but it can shed insight into what differences exist between writing a conventional essay versus writing piecemeal for the public eye.

For ENGL328 last year, where the seeds of this project were born, we read Anne Frances Wysocki’s awaywithwords: On the possibilities in unavailable designs (2005)*. She starts her essay by asking: “Under what conditions would you accept a [graduate research] paper handwritten in crayon on colored construction paper?” (I rendered a part of the subsequent assignment for that class in crayon, of course.) Wysocki ends, in part, with the following:

As we analyze and produce communications, we need to be asking not only what is expected by a particular audience in a particular context but also what they might not expect, what they might not be prepared to see. It is in the apparently unavailable designs … that we can see what beliefs and constraints are held within readily available, conventional design. (59)

Blogging, of course, has constraints – every method of authorship does. But these constraints are different from a traditional essay. The reading experience, too, is different when we choose alternate platforms. Different is something I’ve sought to highlight throughout the project. Our expectations of a word like “thesis” come apart when we choose these unavailable designs, when we try something new. It is with these ideas in mind that I have presented my thesis on my blog, in hopes that doing something different may lead us to question what we’ve been doing all along.

Enjoy.

*Wysocki’s lack of spacing in her title is intentional and meant to get her reader to question the constraint of word spacing and what effect it has on our reading experience. When I typed this out the first time, I accidentally put the spaces in – apparently my reading of it is “away with words.”

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Mar

30

potential academia

writing

What is this, anyway?

Is this thesis of mine an essay? Is it a blog? What genre does it fall under? What happens when, in a couple of weeks, I use Blurb to turn it into a book? Can it be categorized at all?

One thing that this project has accomplished is the muddling of publishing models, of what we think of when we think “academic research paper.” This was intentional from the beginning, but the process has made clearer the difficulty in moving from something traditional to something digital. Or, rather, in defining that something. There are clear differences in how I write here, in this online space, than how I have written research papers in the past.

I wouldn’t, for instance, say “y’all” in a paper, but I say it here all the time.

I probably wouldn’t cite Google results or Urban Dictionary, but I’ve done that here, too.

There are no chapter headings, necessarily, and it can be read in any order.

Some parts of this project could be skipped entirely, if you were so inclined.

In the coming paragraphs I will cite two books, and in both cases I will link to their respective Google Book entries, instead of giving you a citation in MLA format.

When we move between genres of writing, our writing styles change. Our intentions in writing in different spaces lead to different outcomes, to different types of work. When I write a paper for class, I am writing in a very clear voice for a very specific purpose. When I write something on Twitter, my voice changes, because the point of that platform is not the same. Through his Exercises in Style, Raymond Queneau demonstrates just how changeable voice really is – how you can say the same thing over and over again and sound entirely different. I could have written my thesis in the form of a hard-copy, start-at-the-beginning, 12-point-font, 5-paragraph format essay. The same information that I’ve included in my blog posts over the last few months would have become a very different creature had they been presented in a traditional genre. Then, too, I probably wouldn’t be writing this paragraph at all, as research papers don’t generally lend themselves to reflective entries.

In his essay Brief History of the Oulipo, Jean Lescure writes: “What the Oulipo intended to demonstrate was that these constraints [of literary form] are felicitous, generous, and are in fact literature itself. What it proposed was to discover new ones, under the name of structures” (173). They explored the possibilities of literature through new forms and new genres.

The Oulipo wrote “potential literature,” literature whose form existed only in the imagination.

To borrow from their ideas, I suggest this project as potential academia.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not the first person to write academically in an online space, nor am I the first person to present an academic project in digital form. However, as a part of a traditional English program, what I’m doing exists outside of the norm. When we open academia up to its own potentiality, new things happen. Here, in my blog/thesis/experiment, something new happened. An exercise in style, of sorts, a blending of mediums that has resulted in something of which the academic value remains to be seen, since I haven’t actually turned it in yet (ah yes, value. “value.” more on this next time.). Value aside, however, the point is that classification doesn’t always work the way we think it should. Our preconceived notions of form are bendable, and it is, quite frankly, exciting to bend them.

Heretofore, a thing that was published was a very specific thing. Our day and age, and the potential for different publishing models that come with it, has created a new set of possibilities that weren’t previously available to us. Again, as I’ve said before, when we let ourselves try new things, new things happen. When we drop our ideas of what something like a thesis should be, we discover what something can be. “Should,” ladies and gentleman, is an ugly word. It is a word that I think the Oulipo probably disapproved of, a word that holds us to defined expectations and a narrow belief system.

The world can be our shellfish, y’all, if we let it.

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Oct

11

captain obvious would like a word with you, toaster.

writing

A few weeks ago, our forty-year old toaster died.

No no, you didn’t read that wrong – our toaster really was forty years old. Possibly older, no one really knows for sure. Jake and I inherited it when we moved in together, and realized that neither of us owned one. His parents were kind enough to save us a few bucks by donating their old basement-dwelling, avocado-colored, 4-slice beast of a toast-making machine.

And for the last couple of years, it’s worked just fine. For an appliance born long before me, it’s worked amazingly, really. There were those times it burned whatever we happened to be toasting, and those times it produced impressive amounts of black smoke which lead to my going partially deaf due to our blaring smoke alarm – but what’s a little inconvenience between friends?  It was just the price to pay for using such a seasoned appliance.

Sadly, though, the day had to come. I was toasting an English muffin, and when I unplugged the machine, the cord was warm. Not just a little warm, either. It was, to my mind, spontaneous-combustion-burn-the-whole-building-down-in-a-fiery-display-of-electrical-splendor warm. And although I could deal with the insides of the toaster threatening my safety, this just seemed excessive. Billows of black smoke? Psshhya, no big. But a warm cord! That’s the part that attaches to the wall! It actually touches the interior structure of my home! It’s unsafe! I could die at any moment!

The logic may be flawed, but you get the idea.

So, Avocado Deathtrap was officially retired (R.I.P.), and we headed to Target to replace it with a new model. It wasn’t hard to pick one, as I tend to be drawn towards brightly colored shiny things. We settled on a little red number, and it’s been producing great toast ever since.

The only problem is, it mocks our intelligence every time we use it.

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Jun

08

outside the box: because not everything fits

writing

When I was little, I got a lot of ear infections.

Unfortunately, this problem didn’t stay in my childhood, and I’ve been dealing with chronic ear infections for the last seven years.

It goes like this: I get a bad cold. It’s moves around my head and chest for a while. It clears up. Bam! Ear infection. I am lucky in that ear infections do not usually cause me a lot of pain. I am unlucky in that instead of pain, I lose significant hearing, usually in both ears.

It is a total pain in the butt.

About six weeks ago, this cycle started once again, and about four weeks ago, I started on antibiotics. The first round didn’t work and I had to switch to a stronger medication. I thought (hoped!) that the second round had fixed everything, but no such luck. Today I woke up with a good deal of pain in my right ear – a sure sign that this infection is still kicking around inside of my ear space.

So, Antibiotics Round #3 and an appointment scheduled with an ENT.

Since I am not used to having pain associated with my ear infections, I am a total wimp when I do. There is nothing worse than ear pain, except maybe tooth pain, and my ear pain just happens to be radiating down into my teeth, too.

Blah blah blah, poor me.

My plan for this blog post was not about my middle ear drama. It was about my totally kick-ass time at the Ann Arbor Mini Maker Faire this past Saturday. But as life often goes, plans change, and I am decidedly distracted by the annoyance of this ongoing infection.

As I mentioned in my last post, my main goal here is to focus on writing and technology. But, I also mentioned that I’m a lot of things. Today, The Thing That I Am is slightly-cranky-and-ear-infected-yet-dedicated-to-writing-every-Tuesday. Focus is good. But too much focus means Erin Cranky Pants might not write when she’s sick. So, compromise.

I consider this blog to be somewhat “Under Construction”. I’m working it out as I go, y’all. It’s an experiment of sorts, by which I mean I simply don’t have it figured all out yet. I like it that way, because it gives me a chance to grow and change and shift and move. But, I’m also a sucker for consistency and structure. I get a real sense of relief when I have a plan in mind and a way to achieve it.

From these dueling values, “Outside The Box” is born.

Outside The Box is my new tag for things that don’t fit under the writing and technology umbrella that I have perched under. It’s my place for all of those other Things That I Am that take up brain space and demand to be written. It gives me a chance to write about whatever the heck I need to write about that particular day, and it gives you a chance to know when you may be embarking upon an ear infection or – gasp! – cat post. I’m hopeful that this will mean writing more often, which is definitely exciting for me, and hopefully for you, too. Only time will tell how it may move and shift and change and grow.

And in the meantime, I’m going to go wimp out on the couch with my cats and wait for these antibiotics to kick in.

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