:// Reading Matters: Linking Literature to a Hypertextual World

Joel Blair
Dr. David Jolliffe
Seminar in Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy
17 February 2009

:// Reading Matters: Linking Literature
to a Hypertextual World

:// Reading Matters is a journal dedicated to exploring language through emerging opportunities in technology. From its inception, RM has been dedicated to the aesthetic possibilities available through the combination of literature and technology. This journal seeks to create and illuminate little-known opportunities that have come about in the past fifteen years. The magazine attempts to adhere to new rules and old rules alike. These rules often seem contradictory or muddled, but the goal of RM is to clearly define the connection between the two in today’s world.
://Reading Matters is a product of George Mason University’s New Media Group in English. Each issue handles a certain theme, ranging from poetry on the Internet, to the influence visual stimuli has on culture. Ten issues of the journal are currently available for free at http://englishmatters.gmu.edu/. It appears the journal was discontinued sometime in 2004, soon after the publication of the tenth issue. However, this journal still offers a unique look at scholarship’s potential through technology, while providing answers to many questions about the future of scholarship.
EM creates a common ground for authors, students, scholars, artists, and teachers. Many of the articles are from faculty and students at George Mason. The articles appeal to scholars with some technological experience, while at the same time providing a place where anyone can learn about new opportunities emerging on the Internet.
Because each issue focuses on a different theme of scholarship and technology, the subjects of the articles are extremely varied. In issue 1, a great deal of time is spent exploring the power the Internet has in providing poetry to the world. This ability to self-publish one’s work then leads to ideas about introducing visual media, hypertext, or even sounds to the traditional format of literature. The editors assume that these avenues of possibility will eventually lend themselves to creating a new form of literature based on the open-endedness of hypertextuality.
These kinds of connections, between traditional forms of paper based scholarship and new areas of digital creations, are the very thing that EM seeks to explain. It is evident they have received a good deal of backlash from traditionalists seeking to discredit their work before it has evolved to a state of complete clarification. A great deal of time in each issue is spent comparing old forms to new in an attempt to show the reader the very real possibilities of the future.
Each issue is uniquely separated into appropriate sections depending on the subject matter. The most common form they follow is an exhibit section showcasing the work of a scholar or artist that pertains to the current theme. Next, they will have an essay section in which they discuss the connections or consequences this theme will have upon the digital world. Often, an interview with a person that does work relating to the theme ends the issue. In this way, they are able to approach a theme from the perspective of an artist, a scholar, and an influential person in the field.
Each issue also has a “Related Issue” section. This section provides links to other websites or works pertaining to the theme, modules that help teachers creates lessons based on the ideas found in the magazine, media files of artists’ works, a calendar displaying opportunities for people to experience these subjects in a different environment, and a list of contributors for each issue. The modules are a very useful resource for teachers that are unsure about ways to approach new media in a classroom setting. The media files are far more interesting. These are audio or video files of artists or lecturers that relate directly to the theme.
One of the most interesting things on the entire website is in the Module section. It is called Plum Flowers. It is a computer program based on Todd Pitt’s paratactic poem about the Nanking Massacre, Plum Flowers-I. This “Pseudorandom Poem Generator” rearranges lines from the original poem to “create” a poem at the will of the viewer. There are fifty combinations overall and even though it might seem to be a cheap trick, it is actually an interesting exercise in the interchangeability of language.
:// English Matters is an interesting and insightful journal full of practical theories relating the world of reading and writing in the future. Even though it is not as polished as Kairos, it is a very good attempt at understanding the connections between scholarship and technology. The combination of traditional essays with new media in each issue creates a common ground that would be wrong to ignore. It is unfortunate that the journal seems to have been abandoned, but the issues that are available convey a well thought out academic approach to the emerging cyber culture.