Rendering an Account: An Open-State Archive in Postgraduate Supervision

The paper begins with a brief account of the transformation of research degree studies under the pressures of global capitalism and neo-liberal governmentality. A parallel transformation is occurring in the conduct of research through the use of information and communication technologies. Yet the potential of ICTs to shape practices of surveillance or to produce new student-supervisor relations and enhance the processes of developing the dissertation has received almost no critical attention. As doctoral supervisor and student, we then describe the features and uses of a web-based open state archive of the student's work-in-progress, developed by the student and accessible to his supervisor. Our intention was to encourage more open conversations between data and theorising, student and supervisor, and ultimately between the student and professional community. However, we recognise that relations of accountability, as these have developed within a contemporary "audit revolution" (Power, 1994, 1997) in universities, create particular "lines of visibility" (Munro, 1996). Thus while the open-state archive may help to redefine in less managerial terms notions of quality, transparency, flexibility and accountability, it might also make possible greater supervisory surveillance. How should we think about the panoptical potential of this archive? We argue that the diverse kinds of interactional patterns and pedagogical intervention it encourages help to create shifting subjectivities. Moreover, the archive itself is multiple, in bringing together an array of diverse materials that can be read in various ways, by following multiple paths. It therefore constitutes a collage, which we identify as a mode of cognition and of accounting distinct from but related to argument and narrative. As a more "open" text (Iser, 1978) it has an indeterminacy which may render it less open to abuse for the technologies of managerial accountability

Fandom and Coercive Empowerment: The commissioned production of Chinese online literature

This article examines how the relationship between consumers and producers of cultural products is shaped by the proprietary nature of digital platforms. Drawing on 4 years of online observation and analysis, we examine the relationship between the producers of online Chinese fiction, amateur writers, and their consumers, that is, the fan communities of readers who respond to their work. Enabled by Chinese literary websites, readers act like sponsors who provide emotional and financial incentives for writers to produce online fictions by commenting, voting, and sending money. Readers become actively involved not just because of the content of the stories but because they form strong commitments to stories and their writers, and gain reciprocity and a sense of self-determination during the interactional process. We argue that although writers are freer from state control online, they are still beholden to the whims of their fans because of what we call the commissioned production of fictions. We contribute to fan community studies by analyzing how commercialized website settings structure the strategies available to participants, how these settings affect the content of the cultural products, and how the Chinese historical and cultural contexts impact the dynamics of the online community.postprin

The Victorian Newsletter (Spring 1979)

The Victorian Newsletter is sponsored for the Victorian Group of the Modern Language Association by the University of Florida and is published twice annually.Déjà vu Inverted: the Imminent Future in Walter Pater's Marius the Epicurean / William E. Buckler -- Rights, Reason, and Redemption: Charlotte Brontë's Neo-Platonism / Sara Moore Putzell -- Tractarian Aesthetics: Analogy and Reserve in Keble and Newman / G. B. Tennyson -- Bruising the Serpent's Head: Typological Symbol in Victorian Poetry / George P. Landow -- High Tea and Matzo Balls: Religion in the Victorian Jewish Novel / Linda Gertner Zatlin -- Hardy, Barnes, and the Provincial / Donald Wesling -- Father and Mother in Father and Son / E. Pearlman -- Time in Nicholas Nickelby / Patricia Marks -- In Which a Poet is Frightened by a Lion: The Philosophical Context of Mill's Poetic Theory / Jonathan Loesburg -- Books Received -- Victorian Group New

Denotative and Connotative Semantics in Hypermedia: Proposal for a Semiotic-Aware Architecture

In this article we claim that the linguistic-centered view within hypermedia systems needs refinement through a semiotic-based approach before real interoperation between media can be achieved. We discuss the problems of visual signification for images and video in dynamic systems, in which users can access visual material in a non-linear fashion. We describe how semiotics can help overcome such problems, by allowing descriptions of the material on both denotative and connotative levels. Finally we propose an architecture for a dynamic semiotic-aware hypermedia system

Conversation in the museum: experiments in dynamic hypermedia with the intelligent labelling explorer

We outline experience with the Intelligent Labelling Explorer, a dynamic hypertext system developed at the University of Edinburgh, in collaboration with the National Museums of Scotland. First, we indicate a number of ways in which labels on museum objects ought to be tuned to take into account types of visit, the interests of visitors, and their evolving knowledge during a visit. Secondly, we sketch the general architecture of our system, and then focus on the conversational effects which the system can create. We then briefly indicate future directions of research, before critically discussing the applicability (or otherwise) of the spatial metaphor to flexible hypertexts. Keywords: adaptive museum hypermedia, natural language techniques for dynamic hypertext generation, content adaptation in hypertext and hypermedia, web-based museum hypermedia, navigation design 1. Introduction We take dynamic hypertext to be that variety of flexible hypertext which relies upon techniques from th..

‘Writing Now’

This chapter considers the themes and forms that characterise women’s writing in the new millennium. Post-9/11, self-representation has become a particularly urgent task for Muslim writers such as Monica Ali and Leila Aboulela. A concern with refugees, asylum seekers, and modern forms of slavery becomes increasingly prominent, not only in fiction – for example, Fadia Faqir’s My Name is Salma (2007) and Monica Ali’s In the Kitchen (2009) – but also in the theatre: Kay Adshead’s The Bogus Woman (2000), Sonja Linden’s Crocodile Seeking Refuge (2005), Christine Bacon’s Rendition Monologues (2008), Rukhsana Ahmad and Oladipo Agboluaje’s Footprints in the Sand (2008), Natasha Walter's Motherland (2008), and Gbemisola Ikumelo’s Next Door (2010). The impact of global capitalism, consumerism, and branding are explored in novels such as Scarlett Thomas’ Popco (2004), Ali Smith’s Girl Meets Boy (2007), and Winterson’s The Stone Gods (2007). Ageing is another major theme. Long a pre-occupation of Doris Lessing, it features also in Liz Jensen’s War Crimes for the Home (2002) and Alison Fell’s Tricks of the Light (2003). Anxieties about climate change and environmental apocalypse are addressed through dystopia in Maggie Gee’s The Ice People (1998) and The Flood (2004), Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods (2007), Sarah Hall’s The Carhullen Army (2007), and Liz Jensen’s The Rapture (2009). Following Suniti Namjoshi’s pioneeringly collaborative Building Babel (1996), the use of multimedia in Maya Chowdhry’s digital poetry, Kate Pullinger’s ‘networked’ wikinovel Flight Paths (2005-), and the ‘visual novel’ (an interactive fiction game), gives literature an entirely new shape