My next annotation is Scott Rettberg’s . Dr. Rettberg begins by briefly discussing various theoretical social systems. He notes Heidegger, who distinguishes between Da-sein (being in the world) and Mitda-sein (being together in the world). Habermas writes of “linguistically generated subjectivity” to use language to create a subject that is not the self, but subjectively shared with others. Luhmann argues people are not society, but parts of society’s environment (1).
Rettberg’s paper is yet another to reinforce the idea that authorial collaboration is not a new concept. He approaches this from the practical side: Printed books are always collaborations: Not only when authors collaborate but in the sense of multiple people working together to edit, design, bind, print, and distribute. These contributions are less visible: ask someone who their favorite typesetter or editor is and “you’re likely to draw a blank stare.” (1) While recent centuries have been caught in the grasp of the cult of authorship, collectively written works are not new. Examples include the Bible and Homer’s epics. As far as I myself see it, the Bible is an old school wiki that was collaboratively written by 40+ people.
The rise of what Rettberg refers to as the “cult of authorship” has become the center of the culture surrounding literature for the past few centuries (1). The singular author working alone, in isolation from others, on the great works of the Literary Canon is a convenient capitalistic myth to create a marketable brand out of authors and to combat piracy.
In electronic literature, however, Rettberg argues, the collaborative effort is more evident in creation, publication, and distribution due to the lack of a proper electronic literature publishing industry. The role of contributors is much more clearly acknowledged because without them the author has to do it all themselves!
Ted Nelson original conceptualization of hypertext involved a “system of interconnected writing persistent but open to constant expansion.” (2) Nelson’s system was limited due to the centralized nature of the technology he imagined.Hypertext and the World Wide Web are more successful because of its ability to constantly evolve and adapt. Hypertext, specifically electronic literature, is constantly morphing and growing as technology changes alongside of it.
This is true now more than ever. Rettberg cites hypertext author and theorist Michael Joyce’s concept of “exploratory” and “constructive” hypertexts. Joyce explains them as:
Scriptors use constructive hypertexts to develop a body of information which they map according to their needs, their interests, and the transformations they discover as they invent, gather, and act upon that information. Moreso than with exploratory hypertexts, constructive hypertexts require a capability to act: to create, to change, and to recover particular encounters within the developing body of knowledge. (qtd in 2)
Exploratory hypertext, like Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl and Joyce’s Afternoon, is more in line with the “output” we are so used to from contemporary book culture.
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