Mcgann 1996 Radiant Textuality b

8/17/2019 Mcgann 1996 Radiant Textuality b

1/13

Radiant TextualityAuthor(s): Jerome McGannReviewed work(s):Source: Victorian Studies, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Spring, 1996), pp. 379-390Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3829451 .

Accessed: 15/09/2012 09:15

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Indiana University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Victorian

Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=iupresshttp://www.jstor.org/stable/3829451?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/3829451?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=iupress


2/13

REVIEW ESSAY

RADIANT TEXTUALITY

JEROME

MCGANN

A recent

iterary ewsgroup

n

the nternet

osed

the

following

question:

Has

any

of

you

written esearch

n

hypertext

ormat?

Would

you

accept

a

dissertation

written

n

hypertext?

hese

questions

reflect n

anxiety

hat s common

today

because

of

the star-

tling

mpact

of

technological

hange

on

humanities

nd

literarytudy.

The

anxiety rows

rom ertain

unhelpful

nd

erroneous

ssumptions

about the nature

of

these

technologies,

n one

hand,

and

the

tradi-

tionalwork

f

critical esearch nd

study

n the

other.

Furthermore,

he venue

bearing

the

questions

told its own

story:

hat hese

assumptions perate rrespective

f

one's enthusiasm

or one's

skepticism

bout these

mportant

ultural

hanges.

Newsgroup -mail s a hotmedium; tsolicits uick responses.

So

with

he electronic

haracters f the

questions

till

radiating

n

my

eyes,

shot

off

he

following

esponse.

There's a

good

deal

of

research

n

hypertext

ormat

lready

out

there,

ome of

it n

paper.

1.

ANY

scholarly-critical

dition s research

n

hypertext

or-

mat.

And

here one wants

o

remind

veryone

hat research

tc.,

nd

litcrit,shardly onfined othesetpiece ssay-indeed, that orm sone

of

the most

constricting

nd restrictive e

have evolved. ..

2.

Look at the back issues

of

Postmodern

ulture,

specially

he

last

couple

(HTTP://JEFFERSON.VILLAGE.VIRGINIA.EDU/PMC/CON-

TENTS.ALL.HTML).

3. Look at

the

general publications

f UVA's Institute

or

Advanced

Technology

in the Humanities

(HTTP://JEFFERSON.VIL-

LAGE.VIRGINIA.EDU/GENERALPUBS.HTML).

4.

Finally,

ook at various nline

homepages

for ourses.Aren't

courses

research

rojects

in

my xperience,

ourses re sceneswhere

SPRING

1996


3/13

JEROME

MCGANN

everyone

earns;

teaching

s a

topdown

model of

learning

've never

been able

to find

very

ttractive. r much

help.

As

with

virtually

a

trembling

ord

here)

all

newsgroup

om-

munication,

his

one

comes

in

a

kind of informal horthand.

et

me

expand

what was

trying

o

say.

The Return

of

the

Library

To

date,

computerization

n

humanitieshas been

mainly

o-

cated

in

work

closely

ssociated with he

library,

nd with

ibrary-ori-

ented

research

projects.

his has

happened

for

ne

simple

nd obvious

reason: materialdemands

have driven ibraries o

study

nd

exploit

computerized

tools,

which

allow

these research facilities o

gain

a

measure

of controlover the massive mountsof data

they

re called

upon tomanage.

For

humanities nd

especially

iterary

cholars,

he

library

s

the center of the

world,

the one

thing

needful.

(As

Borges

thought,

it

might

even

BE

the

world;

at

any

rate,

t is the

vehicle we ride

to

know nd

experience

the

world.)

Of

course,

sometimes

we

forget

he

importance

f

the

ibrary,

s our

twentieth-century

xperience

shows

only

too

plainly.

n the

tight

ittle sland of humanities

tudies,

the

assault

upon memory

nd historical

nowledge

nstituted

n

the 1930s

created

a

fifty-yeareriod

when

the

humanities nd

literary

tudies

tested

the

possibilities

of

abandoning

their

bibliographical

center.

Stanley

Fish's notorious

pronouncement

ca.

1975)

that he did not

need a

library

o

do what

he

does,

is

an index

of

a distinctive

and

recently

ominant)

ethos.2

The

imperatives riving

ibraries nd museums oward

reater

computerization

re

not

the same as those thathave

brought

he now

well-knownreturn o history n literarynd humanities cholarship.

Nevertheless,

convergence

f the twainhas come

about,

and now the

two movements-the

computerization

f the

archives,

nd the re-his-

toricizing

f

scholarship-are

continually

timulating

ach other oward

new

ventures.

The Mutation f

Theory

to Practise

Under

these

circumstances,

umanities cholars nd educators

have been drawn

back

toward

deep

and serious

re-engagement

ith

VICTORIAN

STUDIES

380


4/13

RADIANT TEXTUALITY

anotherfundamental

ubdiscipline

f theirwork:

extual nd editorial

theory

nd

method.

Although

theory

o

longer

defines road

ranges

of

scholarly

ctivity,

s it did in

recent

years,

t

has

preserved vigorous

life

n

textual tudies.As a

consequence,

a rather

nusual situation as

emerged

during

he

past

five

years

or so.

First,

theory

ften arries

highly

ractical

dimension. he

brilliantheoretical

ursuit

f standardizedlectronic

markup

cheme-

epitomized

n the

development

fSGML and the

ubsequent

volution f

the

TEI

guidelines

or lectronic

exts-may

be taken

s

the

epitome

of

the

kind

of theoretical

ctivity

am

talking

bout.3Here theoretical

ork

is

undertaken

nder clear

practical

orizon. ertain ools or

rganizing

and

analyzing

lectronic

extsweredesired nd

eventually

onstructed.

s

so

often

appens

n

activities

f this

kind,

he

work

tself

xposes, erhaps

even

creates,

ew

deas

and

possibilities

hatdemand

further

tudy

nd

exploration.In thiscase, the limitationsf SGML and TEI as general

approaches

have

generated mportant

evisionary

lternatives.

heMECS

system

f

markup

developed

for

the

Wittgenstein

roject

ppears

to

be

one;

another

s the

hybrid

pproach

being

ollowed

y

heRossetti

rchive

and associatedworks

ike

the

Blake and the

Emily

ickinson

rojects).4

Second,

textual nd

editorialwork re once

again

being

seen

forwhat

they

re and

have

always

een:

the

fundamental

round

for

any

kind of

historically-oriented

ntellectualwork.

This realizationhas

been

coming

about,

I

think,

xactly

because

the

archives

re

going

electronic.

That

event-the

creation

of

networked

rchives

holding

vast

bodies

of electronic

nd

digitized

materials-has been

exerting

enormous

pressure

pon

scholars o

become

intimately

nvolved

n

the

design

and

creation

f

those

archives.

Scholarship

n the

Age

of

NetworkedArchives

We stand

t the

beginning

f a

great

cholarly

evolution.

ven

now we

operate

under

the

extraordinaryromise

his

evolution

olds

out: to

integrate

he

resources

of all

libraries,

museums,

nd archives

and to

make those

resources

vailable to

all

persons

no matterwhere

they

reside

physically.

he hardware

nd software ools

that

help

to

realize

these

expectations

re under

development,

ndeed,

are well

advanced.Although hese technical evices re indispensable, cholars

like ourselveswill

exert most

influenceon

their

design by

focussing

attention

n what

we do and

have

traditionally

one,

and

(implicitly

r

SPRING 1996

381


5/13

JEROME

MCGANN

explicitly) sking

that

these

new

tools be

designed

to

help

us do

our

customary

ork

better.

In this

espect

would

emphasize

three

research reas.

Two of

these

center n

the scholar's

principal

research

tool,

the

library.

he

third

nvestigates

ew methods

f

criticismnd

interpretation.

First,

we have

to

begin

transforming

ur

existing aper-based

archives

f

material

ntousable

electronic orms

textual

s

well

s

graph-

ical). Second,we have to move our currentwork nto electronic enues

that nhance

both the

range

nd

the

effectivenessf

whatwe do.

Finally,

we

must

egin

xperimenting

ith he

ritical

pportunities

hat hese

new

media

hold out to us.

Contrary

o the

expectations

reated

by

the

explo-

sion of the

nternet,

raditionalcholars

who

navigate

hat ea of

nforma-

tion

have

yet

o find

muchto

help

them

n

their

isciplinary

ork.

ockets

of

exceptions

xist,

nd

if

you

are a

scholar f

postmodernism

he

Net s

a richode indeed.The latterxception nderscoresheproblem: heNet

has

not

yet

ccumulated

hosebodies of

content hat

we need if

we are to

do

our work.As a

Victorianist

still

have

to

go

to the

ibrary

o

seek

out

copies

of

the

nineteenth-century

ooks and

periodicals

need,

and

I

continue o

depend

upon

traditional

ibliographical

ools-books and

catalogues-to

develop

my

esearch

rojects.

The

task f

digitizing

ur

archives-notjust

he

rchival

ystems,

but

the

corpus

of

materials

housed in

our libraries

nd

museums-is

enormous.

Nonetheless,

t

is

a

job

that s

already

underway

nd

it will

continue.

A

core of

digitized

eferencematerialss

emerging

uickly

nd

the

rapid expansion

of

this ore is

taking lace every

ay.

That

process

in

its turn

xerts

steady

ressure

o

digitize

he

regular

holdings.

t

is

crucial

hat

cholars ake n

active

ole

n

shaping

hese

vents ince

they

affect he

character

f our

most

fundamental

esources.

The

example

of the

Chadwyck-Healey

English

oetry

atabase

is an eloquentone. This is ofcourse a splendidresource nmanyways,

and a

groundbreaking

ffort

o

create

large

electronic

ontent-areaf

traditional

aterials.

evertheless,

hosewho

have

used it are well

aware

of

its

imitations. am

not

speaking

here of its

cost-a

subject

hat

has

raised

many yebrows-but

f

ts

cholarly esign.

or

research

urposes

the

database

grows

ess

and less

useful

orthose

authorswho

would

be

regarded,

y

traditional

measures,

s

the more

or

the most

mportant

writers.t's

most

useful

or

o-called

minor

writers.

his

paradox

comes

about

for wo

easons.

On one

hand,

he

poetical

works f minor

riters

are

often

hard to

obtain ince

they

xist

nly

n

early

ditions,

hich re

VICTORIAN

STUDIES

382


6/13

RADIANT

TEXTUALITY

typically

are

nd

can

be

quite

expensive.

y

providing

lectronic

exts f

those

hard-to-acquire

ooks,

The

English

oetry

atabase

upplies

chol-

arswith

mportant

rimary

aterials. n the

other

hand,

he

policy

fthe

Database

is-wherever

possible-to

print

rom

ollected ditions f the

poets

if

such

editions xist.

The

better-known

he

poet,

the

more

ikely

there

willbe collected

edition(s).

Furthermore,

he

policy

s to

print

collected ditions

hat

re

out

of

copyright.

ffortsre

made

to

choose

thebest of sucheditions,fcourse, ut nmost ases theeditions ave

serious

eficiencies.

he

Database would

have

done

much

better o have

printed

irstditions

f most f ts

uthors,

r

at

any

rate o

havemade

its

determinations bout editions on

scholastic rather than

economic

grounds.

ut t

did

not

do

this.

To

cut tscosts heDatabase

made another ecision hat

proves

even more dismal so

far

s a scholar s

concerned: t removes he front

and back matter f the books in itscorpusof texts. o we lose lists f

subscribers nd

important refatory

materials

s

well as variousnotes

and

appendices.

These excisions

trip

he Database

of tsusefulness or

all kinds f the

most

basic

scholarly

ork.

peaking

or

myself,

now

use

the Database

in

only

wokinds

f

operation:

s a vast

oncordance,5

nd

as

an

initial ourcefor exts hatwe don't have

n

our

ibrary.

n the

atter

case

I

stillhave to find

proper

text f the

work

am

dealing

with.

Most textualmaterials

urrently

vailable

on

the nternet ave

similar

roblems,

o far s a scholar sconcerned.

ndeed,

mostfallwell

behind

he

tandards

et nd maintained

y

he

Chadwyck-Healeyroject.

These limitations f current nternet texts have made

me

aware of

the need for a

strong

cholarly

nfluenceon the

design

of

electronic

ditions,

n

particular

nline editions. therefore

ecided

to launch

(in

1993)

a small

project

that

I

hoped

would stimulate

scholarsto

work

ctively

t

influencing

he creation

of

good

scholarly

editions nelectronic orm.Thisproject s English oetry 780-1910:

A

Hypermedia

Archive

of

Critical Editions

HTTP://WWW.LIB.VIR-

GINIA.EDU/ETEXT/BRITPO/BRITPO.HTML).

The

project

was initiated

with wo

hypermedia

ditions hatwere built

n

graduate

courses ran

at the

University

f

Virginia.

These

were editions

of

two works

by

Richard

Polwhele,

Mary

Robinson,

and Anne Batten Cristall.

Since

then

a

number

of

other editions

have been added to thisArchive

by

scholarsfrom ther

nstitutions,

nd

further ditions re in

process

of

completion.

n

a fewmonths

my

current

raduate

class will

complete

and

put up

a

hypermedia

dition of the four

numbersof The

Germ,

SPRING

1996

383


7/13

JEROME

MCGANN

the

mportantournal

that nnounced

the

arrival nd the

program

f

the

PreRaphaelite

movement.

The

Archive emains

open

to

projects

that

nyone

wishesto

propose.)

At

the heart

of

all

this,

or

myself

t

any

rate,

s The

Rossetti

Archive

nd

its associatedmaterials:

project

to

present complete

corpus

n

hypermedia

orm f

all the visual nd textualworks f Dante

GabrielRossetti

n

digitized

acsimiles

HTTP://JEFFERSON.VILLAGE.VIR-

GINIA.EDU/ROSSETTI/ROSSETTI.HTML).

ThisArchives

being

built ot

only

to create

proper

edition f Rossetti's

orks,

omething

hathas never

been

attempted

for

obvious

easons),

but to

design

model for

mage-

based electronic

cholarly

ditions hatwould

have

wide

applicability.6

n

this

espect

he dea ofthe

Rossetti rchive tands

ehind

he

founding

f

English oetry

780-1910:A

Hypermedia

rchive

f

Critical

ditions.

This kindof

work

n the

existing

rchive f

scholarly

materials

should be accompaniedbyeffortso ncreasenetworkednd electronic

delivery

f

current

esearch nd criticism.

wo

important

moves

can

be

made and are

already

taking

place.

First,

when

scholarlyournals

publish

theirworkonline

and/or

in

electronic

orm,

hey

pen

their

materials o

integration

within

scholarly

etworkwhose

range

and

power

outstrip

urrent

paper-based publication.

Furthermore,

lec-

tronic

publishing ermits

cholars o

present

heir

work

n

far

greater

depth

and

diversity.ssays

an

present

ll their

ocumentary

vidence

as

part

of their

rgument

in

notes and

appendices,

or in

electronic

links

o the

original

ocuments).7

hey

can also

exploitfully

he use of

illustrationsnd

images,

ncluding

ideo film

lips,

s

well

s

audio

clips.

(Examples

of all

thesekinds

f

materials an be

found

n

the

electronic

journal

Postmodern

ulture,

ublished

t

University

f

Virginia.)

A

second

useful

ype

f

electronic

ublication

s

the

preprint,

which

distributes esearch

work

n

online

electronic

orms,

ncluding

perhapswork n progress.Such a distributionmechanismhas been

launched

for

philosophical

work

out

of the

University

f

Chicago),

and the

University

f

Virginia

has

ust

announced a similar

program

forresearch nd

criticismn

literature nd

cultural tudies.8 his

essay

you

are

reading

had

its

pre-print

xistence

n

a

server t the

University

of

Virginia.

Finally,nyone

who

works n

thesenew lectronic

enues

uickly

discovers heir

otential

or

nnovative

pproaches

o critical

riting

nd

interpretation.

hile we can at

this

point

only begin

to

imagine

the

possibilities,

ertain

eatures f

thisnew

kind of

textuality

re

decisive.

VICTORIAN

STUDIES

384


8/13

RADIANT TEXTUALITY

Radiant

Scholarship

nd Criticism

When

computer-literate

cholars

discuss the

critical

potential

of new

technologies, hey

egularly

hink

n

terms

of

database

search

and

analysis.

ne sees this

ery learly,

or

xample,

n

the

special

ssue

of

Computers

nd

theHumanities evoted to the

question

of A

New

Direction

or

Literary

tudies? 9While ome

of

the

essays

ake

linguis-

ticand some a

cognitive

pproach,

all focuson the

computer's

power

to

expose general patterns

within

large

database of

information.

Computers

o

facilitate hese

kindsof

investigation,

hich

re

clearly

mportant.

uch

methods,however,

annot concern themselves

with

estheticssues

ecause

they

orego ny ngagement

ith

he minute

particulars

f

specific

orks.More

crucially,

hile hese

pproaches

iew

their

materials f

study

s indeterminatend

non-transparent,

hecritical

instrumentshey eploy re not.Computersndcomputer rogramsmay

be

(and

often

re)

extremely

complex ;

onetheless,

heir

unctionality

depends

upon

their

eterminatend

self-transparent

tructures.

There

are

other

ways

o think

bout

computerization

s an

aid

to critical

ractise

nd reflection.

irst,

nlike

paper-based

orms,

lec-

tronic

texts re more volatile and

open-ended.

This means

that

the

work-in-progress

ecomes a

defining

mode

for

scholarlywriting.

f

course

scholarship

nd

criticism,

ike

art,

s a

long ourney,

but

the

hypothetical

tructure f

knowledge-knowledge

s a continual

ursuit

rather

han an achieved

condition-gets

increased

emphasis through

these

new forms f

study

nd

expression.

Second,

thecumulative ature

f critical nd

scholarly

ork an

be

preserved

nd

self-integrated

n

ways

hat

far

ranscend

he

capabili-

ties

of

paper-based

nstruments.

omputerization

ot

only vastly

n-

creases the

amount of

accessible

nformation,

t enables much

greater

flexibilityn thewaysnformationanbe shaped, caled, ndnegotiated.

This

doesn't mean that

hierarchies f

knowledge

willbe

eliminated,

s

has

been sometimes

oped

and sometimes

eared.

Rather,

t

means

that

hierarchies

an be determined nd need

notbe determinate.

nowledge

can

be

critically

rdered for

specific

nd conscious ends.

Under

such

conditions,

what s recondite

nd what s

important,

r

what s central

and

what s

peripheral,

merge

as functions

f the critical

ctivity

tself

and need not stand s givenhorizons fthought.

Such

formal

lexibility

efines

what

has been

called

the inter-

active

haracter f

knowledge ursued

n

a

networked rame f

refer-

SPRING

1996

385


9/13

JEROME

MCGANN

ence. The

environments not so

much

a

readerly

s

a

writerly

ne:

writer

ngagement

ather han

reader

response.

As

such,

t

must

lso

be

enagaged

in

far

more

self-consciously

ollaborative

ways.

The

example

of the

RossettiArchive

llustrates he

situation

very

well. don't

have

n

mind

o

much the

scale

of

the

project

n

the

traditional

ense-as

one

might peak

of the

arge

cale

of

the

Bollingen

Coleridge

edition,

r

any

other

great

cholarly

ork f

that

kind.

Such

projectshave often alledgroupsofscholars owork ogether. uttheir

work,

eing

codex-oriented,

as a

determinate

hape

and

focus.

When

the

last

volume is

completed,

he work

s finished.

t

may

have

to be

revised,

t

will

certainly

e

extended, modified,

uperceded

by

later

scholars nd

critics.

Nonetheless,

t

s

a

work

whose

coverswill

t

some

point

close

upon

themselves.

The

Rossetti

Archive,

y

contrast,

s

unfinishable.

n

this,

ts

initial hase ofconstruction,twillbe built n stages hatwillgradually

release certain

etsof textual

nd

visual

materials o

the

public

domain.

I

imagine

that n

about ten

or

twelve

ears

he

entire nitial

phase

will

be

complete.

t

will

nclude

hypermedia

nvironmentfall

authorized

manuscript

nd

print

documents

s well as all

pictorial

materials.

All

that

re

known,

hat s

to

say,

r

thathave ever been

known

f.)

Were the

Rossetti

Archive

book

project,

we

would

say

that t

had been

completed

at that

point.

But it

won't

be

complete

then,

or

indeed at

any

time,

or

two

reasons.

First,

t's

being

designed

as

some-

thing

other than a

self-integrated

et

of

materials.

t stands

open

to

integration

ithin he

argest

maginable

et of

related

nformation:

o

a

hypothetical

rchive

f Archives.

his

design

structures

built nto

the

Rossetti

Archive

t

its most

fundamental

evels.

So,

for

example,

when the

Archive

incorporates

textof

a

Rossetti

work hat

ppeared

in

a

contemporary

eriodical

ike

The

Fortnightly

eview,

he

Archive

s

organizedto access theperiodicalas a whole,and not ust one (arbi-

trarily

econstructed)

iece

of

t.

The desired

tem s

called

by

following

a

link

to its

ocation n

the

periodical.

The

completeness

f

the

Rossetti

Archive

hus

depends

upon

the

completeness

f

the

network f

nformationn

which

t

s

magined

to

exist.

ts

completion

has to

wait

upon

the

completion

f

the

Archive

of Archives.

Nevertheless,

hough

ts

practical

ompleteness

equires

the

emergence

of the

Archive

f

Archives,

t

is

alreadyconceptually

complete.)

Second,

the Rossetti

rchive

tands

pen

not

only

o the

entire

VICTORIAN

STUDIES

386


10/13

RADIANT

TEXTUALITY

inherited

epository

f

related

materials,

t

awaits he

coming

of

addi-

tional

materials hatdo not

as

yet

exist.

Those

two

general

conditions

have

always

defined

the frame-

work

n

which

cholarship

s

carried

on.

Libraries

hold and

preserve

books,

and

they

update

he

knowledge

n

their

holdings

y

ncreasing

those

holdings-by buying

nd

maintaining

ew books and

periodicals.

Beyond

the

ibrary, community

f

scholarship

nd

a

network

f

pub-

lishing

et standardsfor

egitimating

nd

disseminating

nformation.

This

arrangement

f

responsibilities

as evolved and

stabilized tself

over hundreds

of

years,

as

have

the

laws

governing

hese

complex

arrangements.

he electronic

network

f

information,

owever,

as

turned this world

upside

down. We

confront

new

sets of

technical,

material,

nd

scholarly

demands. Whose

responsibility

ill

it be to

maintain olatile

cholarly

roducts

ike the

RossettiArchive nd how

will thoseresponsibilitiese carriedout? Because theRossettiArchive

will

outlive ts

makers,

provision

has to

be made for a

continuity

f

authority

ver all

aspects

of

the Archive

nd other

works f

thatkind.

Nothing

n

the current tructure f the nstitutionsf

knowledge

makes

provision

or he

problems

aised

by

theseworks. ut

provisions

illbe

made because

they

must

be. If

history

s

prophetic,

we

shall

find that

the

arrangements

illevolveover

time,

nd that

hey

will

be

shaped by

the nitiative

f

those

who are

willing

o

boldly

enturewhere

no one

has

thought

o

go.

The

volatile haracter fthesenew

kinds f

cholarly

ditions-

so unlike

heir

more

traditional

recursors-forecasts

ramatic

hanges

in the

way

riticism nd

interpretation

ill

be carriedout. The remark-

able

spread

of

newsgroups,

ISTSERVs,

and real-time irtual iscourse

(via

MUDs

and

MOOs)

has created

a

highly

lexible nvironment or

pursuing

knowledge.

The electronic

pre-print

nitiatives

mentioned

earlierare emerging, am sure, in responseto this radiant textual

network.

he

(so

to

speak)

e-mail evel

of

electronic iscourse

s

clearly

not

an

optimal

one for

disseminating

more

complex

and

extensive

scholarly

works.

reprint

ites

not

only

hold such materials

more effi-

ciently,hey

an be used to

alterthe contact

range

for

differentritical

exchanges

to

broader or more

specialized

audiences).

Under such

conditions,

riticism

nd

interpretation

ill

nevi-

tablybreak freeof the atomicforms-themonograph nd the schol-

arly/interpretive

ssay-that

have

guided

our work or o

long.'1

Certain

recent

codex

products-works

ike The

Telephone

ook,

r

much of the

SPRING 1996

387


11/13

JEROME

MCGANN

writing

n

a

collection ike

A Poetics

f

Criticism--mark

he

mpact

that

radiant

extuality

s

having

n

conventional

ext. Even

the

most

tradi-

tional

kinds

of

critical

writing-this

ssayyou

are

reading

now-can

radically

ransform

hemselves

epending

on the medium n

which

hey

are

constructed. he

paper

form f

this

work

n

Victoriantudiess far

less

permeable

than

he electronic

reprint

orm,

t

cannot

ncorporate

anything

ike

the

same

range

or

variety

f

materials,

nd

it

does

not

interactwiththe

scholarly

ommunity

n the same

ways.

At the mo-

ment-and one should

emphasize

the

word moment -the

printed

text f

this

ssay

has

certain

dvantages

ver

the

electronic

ext.

But

the

advantages

eflect

temporary

onditionthat s

disappearing

apidly.

Victorian

tudies,

venture o

say

it

s

not much of a

prophecy),

will

not

exist s a

printed

enue for

very ong.

Pedagogy nd theScene of

Learning

Finally,

ne

should

mention at

least

briefly

he

educational

possibilities-some

re

current

ealities-for lass

and

course

work hat

seeksto

exploit

both

wide and

local

area

networking

acilities. ere

the

fundamental ool is

e-mail,

which s

being

modified

nd

adapted

into

a

variety

f

virtual

imensions hat re

useful

or

nstructional

urposes.

Let mementionustoneproject ere-Greg Ulmer's Collective

Page,

which

he

is

building

s

a courseto

be

offeredn

thefall f

1995 at

the

University

f

Florida.'2

Novel and

interesting

s

the

project

s,

one

recognizes

he

species:

the

notorious

N.S.OMNIA

(Invisible

eattle's

Omnia),

which

volved

hrough

he

1980s,

s

a clear

ancestor,

nd

David

Blair's

WAXWEB

n

equally

lear

current

nalogue.'3

o

Ulmer's

project

is

an

index

of

what s

happening

ven

now,

nd of

the

kinds f

possibility

that

re

in

store or

net-based

ducational

cene.

Ulmer's dea for this ourseevolvedfromhiswork n

compo-

sition

nd media

courseshe

teaches t

Florida.This

experience

ed him

to

the

following

dea:

we are

looking

for

collective

hetoric

o

guide

the

writing

f a

group

page

that

we

compose by

each

adding

his/her

part

to

the

whole

without

nderstanding

he

effect

n

advance,

but

we

receive

the effect

fterwards

y

reading

the

collective

page.

Ulmer

goes

on

to add

that

the

collective

age

will

be

a

representation

f

Americannational

dentityomposed

as

a discourse

network f

dentity ositions,

howing

he

full

mport

f

the

problem-

VICTORIAN

STUDIES

388


12/13

RADIANT EXTUALITY

atic

ncluding

he

atent nd

historically

uried

as well

as the manifest nd

specific;

and the

negotiated

nd

oppositional

lternativess well as

the

preferred

utcomes

(not

to mention bsurd nd

impossible

ositions

s

well-site

of

possible

freedom?)

The ultimate

urpose

of

the

networks to

show

ts

users/builders

the

full

network

n

which

they

re

imbedded

as

well

as their wn nvolve-

ment n that

network,

nd the

constraints

t

mposes

on all within t.

Much

could be said about

this

edagogicaladventure-indeed,

the announcement f the

project

sparked

an

interestingxchange

on

the Net. That

dialogue-both

its

site and

its

character-illustrates he

changes

that

re

in

store

forall of

us. Ulmer's course

will

be

given

at

the

University

f

Florida

but

ts

time-space

will

be,

already

s,

far

more

broadly-based

nd

interactively-imagined.

he course

not

only

olicits

the

network

t

wants o

study

nd

test,

t

ncorporates

tself

nto

that

network;

nd it

establishes

tself

within he scalar

forms-broadly,

ocal

area andwide-area orms-within hichnetworkednvironmentsxist.

In

terms f Victorian

tudies,

Ulmer's

projectmight

well

pur

us to move

beyond

our loose and

gossipy

networked xistence.The

VICTORIA listserve s all

very

well and

good,

but its

unsubscriptions

are

eloquent.

I

am

myself egularly

n the

verge

of

cancelling

out,

though

o date

I

simply

wear

down the Delete

option.

It

is timeto

give

erious,

ollective

hought

o

how

we shall ive

and moveand have our beingwithin henetworks fknowledge hat

are

radiating

round

and

through

s

all.

NOTES

'The

ellipsis riginally

ead: not o make advertisementsor

myself,

would still

suggest

hat

the

mplicit

nd often

xplicit ubject

of both

The Textual ondition

1991)

and BlackRiders:

he

Visible

anguage f

Modernism

1993)

is

'hypertext'see

in

the atter

the

Dialogue

on

Dialogue'

in

particular).

2To the extent hat his

thos

energizes

he

ndividual

tudent,

t has a

salutary

effect;

ut

ts

egacy

urns

aleful

when t diminishes

ur

awareness

f

(1)

the

historical

constructedness f all consciousness

not

least of all

thatform f

consciousnesswe call

reading ),

nd

(2)

the

ibrary's

bility

o

expose

the

vast

historical etworks

y

whichwe

are transacted.

3See

C. M.

Sperberg-McQueen

nd Lou

Bernard,

ds.,

Guidelines.

n

electronic

copy

of the

guidelines

can be obtained via email

at

[email protected].

See also C. M.

Sperberg-McQueen, Text n the ElectronicAge.

4See

Jerome

McGann,

The

Rossetti

Archive and

Image-Based

Electronic

Editing, preprint

ersion

vailable t

HTTP://JEFFERSON.VILLAGE.VIRGINIA.EDU/PUB-

SPRING 1996

389


13/13

JEROME

MCGANN

LIC/JJM2F/IMAGEBASE.HTML.

See

also Claus

Huitfeldt;

woother tudies

by

Huitfeldt re

forthcoming:

MECS-A

Multi-Element ode

System

nd MECS-WIT-A

Registration

Standardfor

the

Wittgenstein

rchives t the

University

f

Bergen.

50f course

the

concordance

is farfrom

omplete,

o far s

EnglishPoetry

s

concerned-even

English

Poetry

n

book

form. This is

because

the database is

a

far-from-completeorpus

of

English

Poetry.

6TheRossetti rchive

s

n fact till

nder

construction;

n initial et

of

tsmaterials

is

scheduledfor

publication

n

two

years

y

the

University

f

Michigan

ress.The

product

linked o thepresent ssay s an experimentalmodel built n 1994 to test ut certain f ts

structural

remises.

Two related

projects

have been initiated nder the

auspices

of

the

University

f

Virginia's

nstitute or Advanced

Technology

n

the Humanities

IATH),

which

was

the

original

ponsor

f the

Rossetti

rchive. hese

are

editing

rojects

or

he

work

f

William

Blake

and

Emily

ickinson. oth

projects

re connected

o

ATH

through

associate

fellowships,

nd the Blake

projectbegan

in

earnest

n

the

fall of

1995

at

IATH

through grant

rom he

Getty

oundation.

7The

online

preprint

ersion

f

this

ssay

llustrates hat mean. See also the

essay

mentioned

n

note

4.

8The nternational

hilosophical reprint xchange

IPPE)

can be accessed on

World-WideWeb

(HTTP://PHIL-PREPRINTS.L.CHIBA-U.AC.JP/IPPE@HTML).

The

University

of

Virginia's

reprint

ervice ddress s

HTTP://ETEXT.LIB.VIRGINIA.EDU/OSI/OSI.HTML.

9Computers

nd

the

Humanities

7:5-6

(1993-94).

1?I

borrow he

metaphor

f

atomic

forms

rom

Negroponte.

See

Avital

Ronell;

Juliana

Spahr

et al.

12Ulmer

nnounced the

project

on the

INVENT-L

istserve,

hich distributes

from

the

Florida Media

Arts

Center.The announcement hen

sparked

an

interesting

exchange.

13For

a

lively

narrative

f the

IN.S.OMNIA

project

see

Wittig.

he WAXWEB

World-WideWeb address

is

HTTP://BUG.VILLAGE.VIRGINIA.EDU;

the VRML browser

s

HTTP://BUG.VILLAGE.VIRGINIA.EDU/VRML.

WORKS CITED

Huitfeldt,

laus.

Multidimensional

exts n a

One-DimensionalMedium.

Wittgenstein

and ContemporaryheoriesfLanguage. d. Paul Henryand ArildUtaker.Bergen:

Working apers

from

he

Wittgenstein

rchives

t

the

University

f

Bergen

5,

1992.

Negroponte,

Nicholas.

Being igital

New

York:AlfredA.

Knopf,

995.

Ronell,

Avital.The

Telephone

ook.

Technology,kizophrenia,

lectric

peech.

incoln:

University

of

Nebraska

ress,

989.

Spahr,

Juliana,

t

al.,

eds.

A

Poetics

f

Criticism.

uffalo:

eave

Books,

1994.

Sperberg-McQueen,

.

M.

Text n the

Electronic

Age:

Textual

tudy

nd Text

Encoding,

with

Examples

from

Medieval Texts.

Literary

nd

Linguistic

omputing

(1991):

34-36.

,and

Lou

Bernard,

ds.

Guidelines

or

lectronic

ge ncoding

nd

nterchange.hicago

and Oxford: EI P3

(Text

Encoding

nitiative),

994.

Wittig,

ob. Invisible

endezvous. anover

and London:

Wesleyan

University

ress,

1994.

VICTORIAN

STUDIES

390

Documents

Mcgann 1996 Radiant Textuality b