TECHNOLOGY AND FICTION
Eric S. Rabkin
1 June 2005

Overview

Technologies always change the ways we imagine, produce, and use fiction. This interactive presentation offers historical context, current issues (including matters of intellectual property), and exploration not only of how technology makes possible our uses of traditional literature but also how the very concepts of literature, authorship, and readership are changing.
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Historical Context

Plato (against writing)
Gutenberg (flattening hierarchy)
The Spectator (class consciousness; cultural appropriation ["The Vision of Mirza"])
Dickens (serial production and consumption)
Pulp fiction (cultural commodification)
Sherlock Holmes (devaluing plot at the Reichenbach Falls)
Comic books (multi-media entertainments)
Graphic novels (visual language matures)
Pulp culture (Steven Johnson on video games v books)
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Current Issues

Adaptation (Is the medium the message?)
Translation (The Mimesis Project)
Authority (Jacopo di Poggibonsi)
Copyright (Fencing off fictional real estate)
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Changing Concepts

The Permanence of Literature
      J. K. Rowling (deleted scenes)
      Jasper Fforde ("upgrades"?)
The Act of Authorship
      Homer (Odysseus' "rosy-fingered Dawn") v Lord
      Grimm v Propp (structures)
      Tutuola &/v dilemma tales
      Interactive fiction
      Hyperfiction (another Joyce)
      Collaborative fiction (something wiki this way comes)
The Nature of Readership
      Wordless books
      Madlibs
      Choose your own adventure
      Morphiction
      Myst
      Dilemma tales
      The Sims
      Half-Life (single player +)
      Doom 3 (multi-player)
      Reader as critic - reviewer (Amazon.com)
      Reader as critic - teacher (book clubs)
      Reader as critic - scholar (Genre Evolution Project )
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