J.R.Carpenter

I had never heard of, much less read any of J.R. Carpenter’s work. That being said, I have to say, I was very much challenged by it, in a profound way. When I first clicked on the link, it was an interesting interaction between image, text, and technology. In my first read through, it was not incredibly impressive to me, but I kept having this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I was missing something. I could not shake the feeling, until I went back through each piece a few more times.

I began to feel more than a little unsure of what was going on as pieces I had read moved around the screen, almost as if they had a mind of their own, or possibly alive in the same way other mechanical things are alive. This moving feeling never subsided, in fact as I kept leaving and coming back to the texts, I found myself faced with different experiences each time. I made five separate attempts and had five different experiences. These experiences left me thinking about the writing process, storytelling, and the acquisition of knowledge.

The knowledge we have gained as individuals comes in many forms and from multiple sources, many times from more than one source at a given moment. How do we as educated individuals deal with this? This is a question I struggle with on a semi regular basis, as like all of us, I interact with people in many different situations. I struggle with shaping the message for a particular audience, while allowing enough space for people to feel comfortable entering a situation at any given moment. This is I how felt in my numerous attempts. In my first attempt, I felt very comfortable reading each text.  However, as I went from one text to the next, my feelings of control went away.

Chris Mott

Chris Mott makes many compelling arguments for  the teaching and usefulness of electronic literature. For someone like myself, this is a huge compliment. I agree completely with with him when he mentions the practicality of it in the current moment. “The first reason to teach electronic literature is practical: digital media are the most rapidly growing forms of communication, and they will only grow in their influence and pervasiveness”.  I understand that this is indeed the reality of what we as future college professors are up against. It makes a lot of logical sense that we need to become more and more familiar with this new form of communication.”Further, many teachers find themselves attempting to improve their students’ understanding of academic discourse by bridging the gap between the academic world and the world of popular culture”. This idea of bridging the gap between worlds, is the main reason I become a writer and than decided to continue on and pursue a doctoral degree and help people in two ways. The first, as a poet/ performer I attempt to tell my stories in away that allows a kind of freedom for myself and the audience to feel each word and inspire them to tell their own stories and help others in their own way. Lastly, the study of critical theory, the hardest part of the process of showing value in the study of literature. “Surely, we in the humanities who have taught critical literacy all along are the best equipped to shoulder the responsibility of helping our students not only to understand and use, but to evaluate and create in and through electronic media”.  All of these things are valuable to us and if we do our future jobs, can become a valuable and a life line for our students.