Encyclopaedia and Hypertext

Expected results

A first and in a way preliminary task will be to critically examine examples of so-called "ergodic" or "cyber-" literature, in order to evaluate the claims made for such hypertexts as extensions of codex literature, and particularly the pertinence of the concept of "narrativity". 

In a second moment the culture of hypertext and web-navigation will be put in parallel with traditional codex strategies

Task description

"Hypertext" serves today as a powerful metaphor for diverse procedures and strategies of (codex) reading; but it is obviously a definite object with logical and technological constraints of its own. 

A criticism of the adequacy of the metaphor seems in order, opening up an inquiry into the specific rhetoric of hypertext as against codex rhetoric and traditional reading procedures (quotation, allusion, paraphrase, gloss, commentary). This is intended not just as a formal study of figures, tropes, and modes of discourse (such as narrative) but also as an analysis of the construction of subject-positions in the architecture, distribution and use of knowledge and information, i.e. ultimately of the political uses and implications of codex and hypertext strategies. 

Instead of confronting head-on the problems of so-called "tele-democracy", the proposed approach will put in the forefront the effects of the new technologies on the political identities of its users.