Digest urth.v028.n109

Ron H-E wrote: I still want answers in the FAQ. I fail to see how an InvisiClues/UHS, rot13, or HTML approach, as discussed here earlier, would not preserve the puzzles for those who don't want to see the posited answers, thereby satisfying both parties. In fact, if you are choosing to don the fuligin mantle of "official" Urth FAQ keeper, Alice, and the other Urthers agrees that you should, then I will publish an "unofficial" FAQ with answers to the same questions. (Call me Vodalus.)

But I would far rather we have one FAQ, with the suggested answers (multiple suggested answers, if there be disagreement) concealed by some fiendish technological ruse such as rot13 or UHS. Technology such as UHS or "layered" HTML pages also makes possible the progressive unveiling of more and more explicit hints, which can't but be an advantage. Ron -- Ron Hale-Evans: rwhe at apocalypse.org ...

Center for Ludic Synergy: <http://www.ludism.org/> Kennexions GBG artgame: <http://kennexions.ludism.org/> Hexagram-8 I Ching Mailing List:

Positive Revolution FAQ: <http://www.ludism.org/posrev/> --------------- MESSAGE urth.v028.n109.5 --------------- From: "Jeremy W. Crampton" <jcrampto at gmu.edu> Subject: Readerly and writerly texts Date: Thu, 09 Dec 1999 16:29:28 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In-Reply-To: <199911301310.FAA11355 at lists1.best.com> Hi, I've had some disturbing thoughts lately... A distinction sometimes made in poststructuralist lit-crit is between the readerly and writerly text. I wonder how/if this could apply to Wolfe's work. Writerly text: is ourselves writing (eg., surfing the Web, the narrative that is created). Self-consciously aware of its own artifice and its (failed) attempts at realism. Readerly text: meaning is stable, transmitted to the reader, dominating For you lit-crit types, you know that these terms come to us from Barthes: http://web.uvic.ca/~ckeep/hfl0250.html If we approach a text as a writerly text it is not possible or desirable to start identifying fixed meanings or metanarratives ("Wolfe just does track the gospels"). In a writerly text, the reader is in control. --Is it possible to achieve the writerly text or is it dependent on the prevailing social relations? Barthes is supposed to have identified the readerly text as the dominant mode under capital. --Is this list itself a writerly text? According to Foucault ("The death of the author," 1969): ..implies that the notion of the author is a historical construct (prior, we looked at heroes, presumably actors in Greek myth and tragedy) ..efforts to contain a text are problematic..what is a work? is a work that authored? and when is an author accepted as such? a text is not unitary but can escape into notes, appendices, and commentaries (cf Sev. explaining this, or even our disagreement over Vol 5 as being part of BoTNS or not). ..historically, authors emerged as a category when they became subject to punishment for their work. Texts were owned (this varied over time and between different fields, eg between literary and scientific works. at first, sci works had to have a marker to be accepted as true, even if that marker was an ancient authority). then in17th/18th C. sci works began to be received for themselves not by reference to their author, and it was literary works that now needed an author. ..relevant to today's efforts at erasing the author (double blind peer review) which is actually just an acknowledgement of the power of the author (and the author always sneaks back in anyway). For Foucault, neither texts (discourses) nor authors are "unitary"--neither the subject nor discourse is stable. Does any of this apply to Wolfe/us? -- Jeremy W. Crampton http://geog.gmu.edu Geography and Earth Science [MS1E2] George Mason University Fairfax Va. 22030-4444 (703) 993-1210 --------------- END urth.v028.n109 ---------------