Web of Mind

2008-04-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

2/22/08
So far, the Digital Humanities Project is going fairly well. I am working with Julianna doing the poems “A Night Scene” by Mary Shelley and also “The Death Song” by Lititia Elizabeth Landon. We struggled at first with just trying to work the Wiki and make everything appear as we would like. We have the poems posted, as well as the images and a link to their bibliographies on Wikipedia. We are still lacking the themes, introductions, and about the authors.

3/19/08
Our DHP is almost complete. We are only lacking the theme and introduction for the Mary Shelley poem. We also need to do a little more research outside of Wikipedia for information about the authors and their lives. Other than that, we are almost finished with our DHP. I have learned quite a lot from the making of the webpage, as far as the codes and things, but also more about how to analyze pieces of literature. I think that the Web of Mind is a very interesting site and a good site for learning more about different works.

4/24/08
Our DHP is finally finished! I think that this is a really great assignment because you learn so much about technology and also the topic/author that you are researching. The stories in the Keepsake are things that you wouldn't normally get a chance to read unless they were online like this, so I think that it is a great idea and way to preserve these stories by posting them on the wiki. While I struggled in the beginning as far as figuring out the technology portion of this assignment, I came out with a greater knowledge and understanding not only of the wiki, but of my literature as well.

2008-04-24T05:14:00.001-07:00

The road was long and difficult but thankfully it has come to an end. Despite how insane this project made me at times, it was a really fun and innovative way to do research. I think it would be fun to explore this type of research in other classes. It is beneficial to know how to work with that sort of technology. It was a great challenge, I have become quite adept at writing research papers, and this threw me for a loop. It was more engaging then a typical reasearch project and really gave me a sense of accomplishment in the end. It is something that I can take friends, parents, etc. to actually see. The idea of being a published on the web is quite exciting. I would really like to continue researching and updating my project. It is nice to have the option to go back and add to it. Once you turn in a term paper, it is over, this leaves the door open for you. I wish that I had not waited so long to get into it, because once I did I really enjoyed the process. I alowed the two things that really impeded my progress to weigh me down and influence the way I handled the project, mainly avoiding it. The only tedious aspects of the project for me were as follows: A) I had such a hard time with the scans, in fact I am still not sure where they are or how to get them to be where I want them to be & B) My author was really obscure and painfully hard to research. I am so impressed with other student's projects, everyone seems to have done a really great job and put a lot of time and energy into it. I'm very proud to have been part of the Web of Mind. However, for now, I'm excited to be finished! Happy Graduation to all you seniors!

2008-04-24T04:54:00.001-07:00

The overall project was a success I thought. It was very frustrating at times but turned out to be very nice. I could have used a whole other class on web design to be able and figure everything out. All in all the amount of information that was posted about each story for everyone's project was really awesome considering the amount of information given by the keepsake book. Being that there was no authors for most of the stories turned out to make for a difficult research project but it was doable. It was a pretty cool project.

2008-04-23T22:30:00.000-07:00

Whoa...this whole code thing has really gotten me frustrated. It's taken me a while to get the hang of what I need to do to make something bold or indented or whatever. I was more happy with editing stuff than I was trying to put it in the project. The first time I tried to type up the text from the book it came out a mile long which was not cool at all. It's a good thing I have a level headed partner who understands this stuff a lot better than I do. Overall, the whole thing has turned out really nice. I think it's cool to see what everyone else has done along the way. I've learned alot about research and editing a web page through this DHP project. -Brett-

2008-04-23T20:28:00.001-07:00

I am finally done with my project!

Honestly the entire process was interesting as well as helpful. I’ve always liked messing around with html and codes, I mean who doesn’t? We live in the age of MySpace and Facebook. Not to say that this process will help me improve my MySpace, but it has definitely helped me improve my understanding of html. It has also helped with understanding how Wikipedia works. I think prior to this project I thought there was some head honcho who made sure everything was legitimate. Now I kind of see that it’s not exactly the number one source for information because anyone can post on it, even me. Especially since I now understand how to do it!

I am especially excited about sharing my work tomorrow. Well only really the biography portion in relation to her story. I think it’s pretty neat that even in a three page story I could trace the characters in it back to her life. That’s my favorite part of literature. I like to piece together the lives of the author into their stories. Every one of their stories, short or small I believe is a piece of their life, a piece of a greater understand of something that they wanted to pass on. Maybe they don’t scream it to you but the under lying messages are always there. Even with a less well known author like mine I was still able to find similarities.

It’s so interesting to know that we are making history, documenting the authors of the past. I think at first going into the project I thought it was going to be a huge work load but the fact that we had to keep updating on where we were kept me going strong, and with great rewards.

I know I am posting late, but honestly I was having the hardest time figuring out what my blogger info was. My apologies.

- Anastazia

2008-04-23T06:37:00.000-07:00

Wow! This was a huge undertaking. It is the last week of class and I'm still not finished. I think my partner and I will be proud when it's done, but it just seems like a lot of work. I like the concept and I'm glad that I was forced to do this, just maybe not during the one semester of my student career that I'm carrying 18 credits. Bad timing? Maybe?

As far as the process, I guess it is a good process. I like that I had the entire semester to work on this. Deadlines for this are kind of unrealistic, so it's good that I had four months to work in little chunks.

The finishing touches are coming along. I hope it turns out well. There was so much work going into this that I hope I can be proud of this. It'll be over in a few hours.

2008-04-22T10:01:00.000-07:00

'Ello Web of Mind readers. Professional blogger Karen here. Yesh all I ever seem to do these days is blog, though blogger is not my drug of choice. Sorry!

It appears I have finished with my DHP, which is both a relief and a little disappointing. It was a fanastically fun job, and I really think all English scholars should be required to do something like this at some point. I worked solo, but I think it could be a great teambuilding exercise, The project also gives students experience working with HTML, which is a tricky medium indeed. And the opportunity to work with such an old book was a real finger-tingler too. (I just made that up but I'm rather fond of that phrase. I think I will use that when I refer to good books or exciting moments. Finger-tinglers.)

But more importantly, this is what English is all about, isn't it? Research, documentation, writing, and showing off your work. It is so awesome to think we've contributed to this big archival project that could really take off. I wish I had done more of this in my years here at RU (as short as they were) or that I had an opportunity to do this in the future. Just think! Maybe students will be using WoM for their own research and giving us credit! Very nifty indeed. I don't know about you guys, but my goal in life is always to have my work widely read, even if it's academic work. It's so cool to imagine people going over something you worked hard on and using it simply because it is, well, useful!

Getting used to the HTML and forcing Wiki to do as I command was frustrating and took a lot of time; I'm glad I did the bulk of it in the beginning of the semester when I wasn't as busy and had time to learn by trail and error. Maybe in the future we could have a class day or two working collectively on the project and asking questions and benefiting from what others had done before us. I think we did do that once, way back in the semester, but I think it would have been more useful if we did it when the project was first introduced.

One thing in particular you asked us to reflect on was the question, "Is anything lost--or gained--by putting books into a digital media?" This is something I've considered long and hard. Frankly, I love books. I love the way they look. I love the weight in my hands. I love curling up in bed with one, or sitting in a tree, or lounging on the dock, or smuggling one under the table during a particularly heinous family dinner. I love the way the paper feels, and the gloss of the cover, and hell, the smell, yes they smell and they smell wonderful, like story and dust and memory, and those are all good things.

As a student, though, I like electronic media, mainly because I can use the search function to find words, phrases, or chapters easily. (I confess, my electronic copy of "Heart of Darkness" was quite useful for this, as I could find all mentions of voice and language at the touch of a few buttons, instead of flipping pages.) I can also access the texts from any computer lab, usually for free (I confess, there are often books I don't want to spend money on in college, particularly large anthologies, so e-texts are friends for the penny-pincher). But I don't think electronic books should ever replace tangible books. Libraries are too beautiful. I want a book, dammit, a real book to cradle and dog ear and set on my desk. I want to watch the pages yellow and curl, and I want to reread old favorites and laugh until tears roll down my face. I don't want an electronic book. I just want a book.

So that's my take on that, because I do feel rather passionately on it, and a few pretty sentences came out of the whole mess. I feel quixotic today, as you may be able to tell. Overall, it was a cool project, and I'm glad I got the opportunity. I really hope you use this for other classes, or that other teachers use it as well, because this is really an important part of being an English student.

Good luck to everyone for their end of the year projects, and hurrah for those of us finally graduating!

2008-04-17T09:57:00.000-07:00

So Jena and I finally finished our project! What a relief! Though some of the technical aspects of it were tricky for me along the way, I had Jena to help me figure things out and was able to work through any major issues I had. The tale we've chosen is pretty neat, not to mention easy to work with. It's kind of inspiring to know that people will use our project for projects or study of their own at some point. I feel as if we've helped to preserve something that could otherwise have been lost. As our author was anonymous preserving his/her tale Two Brothers, A Tale seems a tribute to a man or woman who left behind no other legacy, not even a name. In today's technological world I suppose preserving old literary works within various databases is necessary but I would be lying if I said I didnt feel as though something gets lost in the moving of the text. Holding such an old book helps the reader to adapt to the time period of the tale. It seems to increase the connection one has with the characters. Though I'm happy works will live on through technology, perhaps vastly elongating their life-span, it saddens me that books cannot be as indestructible. There is something so satisfying about holding an old book. Its like holding a piece of history. I really like the way Jena and I presented our tale. It think we did a good job at helping the reader connect with and understand the plot as well as the characters. It was frustrating, tedious and time consuming but at the conclusion of it all I'll have to admit I feel accomplished and am proud of the work we've done.

2008-04-07T05:59:00.001-07:00

Yay! I think I'm about done. I have like one more thing to add to our page. Starting out this entire project was so difficult. Being a technologically challenged person I found it very difficult but thanks to the advise of my peers and by looking to their pages as guidance it actually came together pretty well. This page is something I think my partner and I can be very proud of. By working together and with our classmates we were able to make a page of scholarly information for the anyone with Internet access to view. How cool is that. As much as I dreaded this throughout the semester it really just took some diving in, exploring, and trying different things to get done. I think it looks really good too, very official. It was neat also to see what others did and just to be able to see the contents of Keepsakes. Such an old piece of literature, I think it is important to restore and publicize it in any way possible considering it is such a quiet piece of literary history. I have enjoyed this project, now that I actually know how to use the program and it is almost completely done. I look forward to showing it off to the class and others.

2008-03-20T11:57:00.000-07:00

This is my second blog for the Web of Mind project. I started working on this project again and came into a few concerns. I am not sure with the five links we are suppose to have, how I should incorporate outside sources into it. I feel that there is nothing in particular within the text, except for characters and where the story takes place, is relevant in anyway. This is a huge problem that I am facing. I was thinking about doing a link on love, but how do I incorporate an outside source? This project has just gone way past easy into confusing.

If someone just so happens to read this blog and decides to check out "The Two Brothers" site, PLEASE let me know if you see something in the text that I could use as a link. This is the last part of this project that Kira and I have left to do and we only have two sources. I will be so happy when this project is done for good and I am sitting in Jamaica with a drink in my hand....lol

2008-03-11T19:40:00.000-07:00

The Web of Mind project started out to be very confusing because I wasn't sure how to do all of the codes. I had to look at other peoples projects and go into their edit page and figure out how to do everything. I am pretty confident in my technological skills because I figured out how to do everything after playing around with it for a few hours. It took some practice and some mistakes in order to form the page according to our guidelines.

My partner for this project is Kira and we have been working really well together. She and I have put a lot of time into this project. We choose the story out of The Keepsake called "The Two Brothers." It is a great story that is full of family drama and has a lot of foreshadowing. One problem with the story we choose is that the author is unknown. This causes a problem because we can't provide any information on the author. There is no way that we can connect anything from the author's life to the stories overall meaning.

We started out are web page by scanning all of the pages. This was a pain in the neck for us because the reference guy at the library told us to convert it to a pdf file because it would take up less space, well unfortunately, he had no idea what are project was. Kira and I ended up scanning the pages 3-4 times. It took forever and we didn't get much accomplished. This left us with the feeling that this was going to be a lot of work then we orignally thought.

However after getting all of the pages scanned and learning how to do all the codes, it was a smooth process from their on out. We are almost done with our project, except for a few links, introduction information, and the bibliography. We are over half way done and are going to hopefull have it done soon.

This project is useful because it brings together both literature and technology. The technology has helped incorportate several different elements into our project. Overall, working with Kira has made this project a lot more fun then it would have. We have worked really well together and created something that will be of use to anyone reading from The Keepsake.

2008-03-03T19:43:00.000-08:00

The technical part of this project has been pretty easy thus far. I haven’t had much trouble with putting my research up on the internet, especially with some of the models students have already made.

The only issue I am having thus far with the project is finding information on the author. I became intrigued with doing this after reading some biographical background on Lady Blessington on Wikipedia. I tried to match up all Wikipedia’s sources so that I could use direct sources when relaying information to the Wiki. The problem was a lot of it seems to be hidden in Project Gutenburg.

I found a lot of similarities within her life with the story “Remorse” that I want to cross check and make sure they are true. One in particular that I found interesting was that she married Charles John Gardiner, 1st Earl of Blessington, a man whose wife had left him with four children. This directly parallels her story of the woman who returns to see her life ten years later and the children have a new mother, being Lady Blessington.

The problem is although she was the editor of The Keepsake for numerous years there is not all that much information on her. I recommend to everyone in class to at least look at Project Gutenburg, it helped me find a lot of information on an author I thought was going to be hopeless.

2008-03-03T18:33:00.000-08:00

After taking a break from the project for a while, I have now returned and successfully completed the transcription process. I was surprised, it didn't take me as long as I thought it would. Much to my disappointment, I think that the easy part is now behind me. I have a feeling it is going to get more complicated from here on out. I am now starting to research. I have found C19 very helpful. There is a ton of info on there about my author which is lucky for me. Now I just have to wade through it. I was waiting to start uploading information on the Web of Mind until I had thoroughly researched and knew what I was going to link. I am hoping to get a lot of work done over break and really get a handle on this project and others. Happy Break everyone!

2008-03-02T16:34:00.000-08:00

So far this project has been tricky for me to figure out. The actual research behind it is interesting and the tale my partner and I chose (The Two Brothers, a Tale) was a fun and easy read but I am not strong as far as my technical skills go and trying to figure out, use and understand the website has been tricky! Simply figuring out how to post this blog was confusing. I'm not a computer savvy girl. I like the idea behind it all, researching texts that may otherwise have been discarded and forgotten is a valuable thing. No literary work, from any era should be lost over time. I feel modern day writers grow off of works previously published. However, the project itself would be miserable for me did I not have a partner more apt at computer programs than I. I feel like I have to ask for her help every step of the way and although I'm finding the facts and putting in a significant amount of work I feel left out of the creative element of it by not being able to play with the website more. I feel more class time spent on it would be valuable. It would give me a chance to ask the professor any questions I had and to be able to work the website with her around should any technical problems arise. The project is neat but incredibly frustrating.

2008-02-26T14:30:00.000-08:00

I agree with others that this project has me sweating. It is extremely frustrating for me as well. I am not technologically advanced and I find this entire project difficult due to the fact that it is all technology! I do however really like the story we chose and am grateful we were able to use the Keepsakes, I would much rather be doing this project on something I have more choice in than the Perkin Warbeck. Although as I have seen with others we are as well having a difficult time finding any research on our author or historical information on our story. We have scanned in our images and they are now on page. Our page is basically set up and as we add more analysis or more information we just edit a spot for that information. As for translating the scanned images we have been able to transcribe the story in word but we are not yet able to figure out to put it on the site without it looking funny. So that is still a struggle. I have to say looking at others pages give me ideas on what we should do with our page as I hope people think the same. Hopefully everything will end up alright and I'll be more equipped to handle this type of project once complete, I just hope we can get through this one first and do a good job with it.

2008-02-22T12:25:00.000-08:00

This whole web-of-mind thing has me sweating!! I can't find anything I want to talk about to fill the spaces in my page. I know how to talk about poetry, I just don't know what to say about my poems. I hope I can find something, and perhaps my partner will help. We'll see how it goes.

2008-02-15T06:11:00.001-08:00

I just re-read over one of my poems after having done research on the author. The poem is "The Death Song" by L.E. Landon. The poem is about a young woman who's sister has just died and she is describing what her sister said on her death-bed. The creepy thing is that not long after writing this poem the author died from an accidental overdoes of some kind of poison while in a troubled and abusive marriage. Creepy! I am enjoying this project a lot more than I thought I would. I had some extra time to myself this morning and what did I do? I sat down at a computer to edit my wikipage. Does that make me nerdy? I hope so.

2008-02-14T05:35:00.000-08:00

I have completed the first step of the digital humanities project. I have successfully scanned my story, "A Story of Modern Honour" with the help of a very nice woman at the library. It wasn't as difficult as I had anticipated it to be. However, I am having a hard time getting my story from my H-drive to my computer. I can open it anywhere on campus, but have no idea how to get it on my personal computer. Due to this, I have been spending much of my time in the library starting to transcribe it into a word document; a very tedious project. So that is I have accomplished for now. I am anxious about beginning to use the wiki, it will be a first for me, as will actually constructing anything on the web. I am a bit of a lud, so it could be a bumpy road ahead. However, I look forward to the challenge! Good luck everyone!

2008-02-13T07:37:00.000-08:00

Well, I think I finally got this thing figured out, so let's see if this posts successfully.

Looks like I am the first of this semester's crop, which is fine. I'm such a trailblazer. Actually I'm just swamped with work this semester, as it's my final one and I have a number of projects going on, so I just want to get a jumpstart on everything I can before things pile up on me. I always manage to get a lot more done when I'm swamped with work, but it takes a toll on me mentally and emotionally, and I'd like to stave that off as long as possible. It's hard to believe we've already had nearly five weeks of class, and I wonder, what have I accomplished? At least this Web of Mind work is fairly tangible, and that's reassuring.

Well, um, to try to stay on topic, here is what I have done as of today:

Scanned all pages and plates of Shelley's "Transformation"
Transcribed all pages into a word document (took about five hours, scattered over two days)
Set up my page on the Web Of Mind with a brief introduction, plot summary, character list, and links to scans.
Adjusted all sizes of said scans so they fit on the Web of Mind (thank you, Photoshop), and uploaded a few of them as thumbnails

I'm still playing with the formatting of Web of Mind, which I'm basically doing in a trial and error sort of fashion. Make a change, check the page to see what happened, go back in and either redo the change or make more of them. The page is not done and things keep getting changed whenever I get a moment to play with the look and feel of the page.

Basically, I just need to start doing research, making my edits, and creating a bibliography. I have lots of edits in mind, many more than five, but how many I actually do will just depend on what kind of time I have to devote to it. To me, that's kind of the hard stuff--what I've done so far has been time consuming but required little thought, for the most part (is that a horrible thing to say? But it's true; mindless transcribing is kind of nice for the head, if not for the wrist. Owies). Now the hard stuff begins with the research on Shelley, the genre, and so forth. But I'm feeling pretty good about where I am in the project.

This weekend I aim to do the response log (on "Transformation") and finish uploading all the thumbnails (among other non-Victorian lit things, particularly for my Conrad independent study). Also sometime this week, probably Thursday, if I feel better from this dreadful head cold, I am going to spend some time in the library researching both this and my presentation, wherein I am studying penny dreadfuls. Because they have a cool name. Seriously. And Neil Gaiman likes them.

And now to do my Kipling reading and log.

2006-05-02T15:55:00.000-07:00

It appears that I am last, though I hope, not least. I found that I enjoyed the research part of this project best. I think I've mentioned before how much I despise technically editing and as a result my grammar and punctuation usage is atrocious. Finding out which characters were real historical figures, where Shelley took her quotes from, and seeing the influence of Shakespeare in some of her phrases was a much more rewarding experience for me. Because this was an online project, I solely mined the Internet for my sources, though, I think in the future a combination of the online text and an actual physical text might be more helpful or at the very least, less painful. I like the idea of online texts, but not as a replacement for physical texts. A fusion of both or a best of both worlds would be an interesting collaboration. Overall, my experience with Perkin Warbeck has been eye-opening and informative. It is a disorienting, yet interesting, experience to be a part of something that is so much larger than the contribution you've put in (though that contribution is significant) and something that will continue on, long after you've left it. It is really the essence of good literature, something that carries on and on and on, even after it has been edited and read and re-read, it has its own life.

2006-04-29T07:52:00.000-07:00

Intro to Chapter II: The Conference

My experience with Wikki has been fun and interesting. At first, it was a little over whelming, but once you get the hang of it, it isn’t so bad. The thing you need to remember is: Take your time! Break it up into small sections so that you are not staring at a computer for hours. This can become very discouraging and it makes the experience less gratifying. You also need to do your homework on your chapter. This can be helpful in understanding your chapter but it can also be helpful in explaining it. My chapter was full of historical background which made it difficult for many to read. I tried to make it easier by adding links to each name so that when you read it, you can just click the link and can get the background information on each character.

My chapter is the second chapter and several new characters are introduced. I tried to make it easier for others by adding the links to each character. I also added definitions to certain words that either I didn’t know the meaning of or that I thought others might not know. I provided background information on certain characters that had already been talked about but not fully explained.

When editing this novel, I found it hard to catch certain errors. Some were easily identifiable and others you had to re-read over and over again to catch it. My advice to others who will be working on this project: read your chapter every few days to catch her errors. I am sure there are still some that have been missed, but every time I read my chapter I find a new one.
This project was a good experience for me and I had fun doing it. Once I figured out how to work with the chapter, it became a game to me. I wanted to play with and fix everything. The hyperlinks made explaining and learning my chapter fun. I hope the next person to read my chapter has an easier time understanding it now that I have added my touch.

Good luck to you all and have fun with this text!
Thanks, Apryl

2006-04-20T11:18:00.000-07:00

Mary Shelley has her ups and downs in her writing. Sometimes it has more imagery, other spots feel like a dragged on lecture you don't want to sit through. I found myself copy-editing the chapter instead of writing comments about it. If I could've done that instead I would be golden! I wouldn't mind using it as a tool to practice copy-editing, rather than reading off the internet and citing comments. But, for a project, it did seem like a bigger deal, which it is, it did seem like it took over the second half of the semester, along with the other books we had to read. It sat in the back of the head forever, so it will feel very good once its over with. It did keep us on our toes and try something new, which, isn't that what college is all about??

2006-04-20T11:14:00.000-07:00

So close, yet so far! It does seem pretty simple, but it took me almost all night to really get a grasp of what IS going on in my chapter! It is getting easier, and I am finishing it slowly but surely!! The whole book is just a difficult read, but knowing they are real characters and she does make sure we know about each of their pasts it is entertaining. I also found that some of the other chapters were easier and more interesting than mine...oh well, that grass does always seem greener on the other side, right? I'm going to hop to on the introduction and get it out of my life.

2006-04-16T19:52:00.000-07:00

I'm done, I'm done, I'm done!

Overall, this is experience has been both difficult and enlightening. I still adhere to my feeling that having a print version of the novel would be beneficial. I believe my eyes are irreparable after staring at the computer screen for countless hours. I did, however, like the project overall. To know that this extremely important work will finally be made available to the masses is awesome. And the fact that my work will be available with it is even more awesome.

The importance of such an undertaking is immense. Since Mary Shelley really has only become much more respected in the past few decades, it is imperative that Perkin Warbeck be available to her fans. It is an excellent example of a historical text with pure imagination. The twisted and round-about plotline is unlike anything I've ever seen.

The editing of the chapters is completely necessary. If I were to read this text without any help from Dr. Webster-Garrett and any notes from my fellow classmates, I would have been lost beyond repair. Because Shelley alludes to so many different people, places, and events, the necessity of the notes becomes apparent.

I honestly can't wait to see this thing go "live" in a few years. It's something that I can look back upon and say, "Hey...I helped do that."

2006-04-15T14:25:00.000-07:00

After completing the novel, I realized that I would have enjoyed it even more if I had it in a hard copy, but all in all it was very good. I found that the web project wasn't very hard, it was deciding what you wanted to write that I found difficult. I think that the web project is a good idea, but I think it would have been easier to have read a hard copy of it, mark it up and then go online and make notes about it. Now that I have finished it doesn't seem like it was that hard.

2006-04-06T17:18:00.000-07:00

Hello Guys,

I haven't been using this blog site, I have been using my original one that is linked to this page. I have finished my web of mind project and would really appreciate some feedback. I hope your projects are going well.

Thanks

Sarah Bostock

2006-03-28T17:40:00.000-08:00

The technical editing is, for the most part, complete on my chapter from Perkin Warbeck. Though I did not really use the comment feature while reading the text, I've found that editing a whole chapter has engrossed me almost as much as the reading did. I would still like very much to change the font and font size on the page but have not been able to so far. I'm not sure if this is because I really cannot change the font and font size (I can format it in any other way, color, bold, etc. but not SIZE) or that I am doing something incorrectly. The readability of the text on the screen was my first and foremost concern. I do believe the current font in Lucida Console, size 10. I think Times New Roman or Georgia (the font I'm using now) in a size 12 would be easier on the eyes. My second concern was grammar and misspelled words. Really I was more concerned with the latter. My grammar is atrocious and I probably "corrected" sentences that were already correct and missed some other glaring error. I sincerely hope not but that is the joy and/or curse of both writing and editing. The job is never done and I am reminded of the remark that a work of art (be it literature or otherwise), because it can never complete, has to be abandoned. When someone writes a poem or paints a portrait this is the feeling they get. I have found that even though I did not write The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, that even though I am just editing it, I am getting the same feeling I experience when I create, that I should go back and change one more thing, or maybe this paragraph should be indented here or maybe the title would look better in bold, ad infinitum. I have changed the chapter headings a dozen times at least (I most certainly wanted Roman numerals-they look more dignified). The realization I have come too in this, really the first leg of editing, is that editing is so close to the actual writing process that it holds very nearly the same frustrations and the same joys. I feel in a small (very small because I don't own her genius) way that I am picking up where Mary Shelley left off.

2006-03-21T21:00:00.000-08:00

As my part in The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck draws to a close, I realize two things: I have learned a great deal through the process, and the project probably won’t really come to an end. As I have wrestled with the online text, the editing and annotating, the research, I have gained new skills and knowledge—knowledge of the electronic textual format and of the lives of Mary Shelley and the 15th century British royals. As for my part in the project being complete, I’m not sure when that will occur.

For my research, I did refer to several books and periodicals, but most of my information came from websites and online articles. That seems appropriate for the nature of this project. As I did my research, I bookmarked a number of sites. Then as I was annotating my chapter, I had those references right at my fingertips. Just a click and I was reading about Richard III. Another click and I was back to Chapter One of Perkin Warbeck, ready to make a comment. The speed and availability of information made this assignment interesting while at the same time, sometimes overwhelming.

I found myself developing a relationship to my chapter in the text. The more I learned about British history, the Wars of the Roses, the Plantagenet and Tudor kings, the closer I felt to the words on the screen. I began to feel like those pages were mine. I felt a sense of accomplishment when I scrolled down and saw the blue words that indicated my contributions. The blue words also helped me find my way on the pages, a problem I had earlier with the text. I relished moving screen by screen and clicking on the highlighted words, reading the additions I had made, amazed at the wealth of information I had garnered over the course of my research.

Then I would click on a blue word that I hadn’t highlighted, and I would be reminded that this chapter was not solely mine. Others had gone before me, editing the chapter and making their comments. Others would certainly come after me, doing more research and making more annotations. I found this a bit disconcerting. When I turn in a paper to a professor, it belongs to me. The quotes and some ideas may have come from other sources, but the synthesis is mine, and I take full credit for the work. I can’t claim the same for this project, which indicates that this type of work ushers in a fresh paradigm. The success of this project requires collaboration; its achievement depends on one person’s work building on that of another’s. My supplements to the chapter are just one phase of an on-going process, and I will have to share the final result, if there ever is one, with many others.

There are still a few aspects of the annotations that challenge me. For example, a word or name highlighted in the text can only have one annotation. I had wanted to make two different entries about the same person. When I highlighted the name the second time, I was shown to my earlier annotation. I had to insert some fresh words in order to be able to write a new annotation. I’m wondering if this is true from chapter to chapter, since an earlier link entered on my page takes me to a character in a later chapter. Perhaps this is a characteristic of the wiki text that can be modified.

Having spent a great deal of time soaking in the history of the 15th century Brits, I have a much deeper understanding of what was going on in the novel. I want to sit down and read it again, realizing that I will grasp so much more the second time around. In a few more semesters, as this project continues to develop and more information is included in the supplements, the reading of the story will gain breadth and depth. I look forward to returning to the text again in the future after others have placed their fingerprints on it.

2006-03-21T09:14:00.000-08:00

During the process of editing my chapter, I found it hard to tamper with Shelley's work. It helped me understand the reading better since I had to look some things up and get more involved with it. It was fun to be able to add comments but I still would rather be reading a hard copy of the book. It was really hard to keep up with the text in an on line form. I still don't think I fully understood what I read. It was just too much to look at a computer screen for that long of a text. It wouldn't have been so bad if it was a smaller text, but this was just too long for my eyes. I feel that I was not able to completely read what I need to. It makes things much more diffficult and I really hope it is something I never have to do again. I like having a hard copy of something so I can curl up on the couch and read. It was uncomfortable to sit infront of a computer and read that whole text. I found much harder to follow due to the text being on-line. I think I would have a better understanding of it had I been able to read a hard copy. I have never used cyber text before but it needs some work. It should have the option to print out the full text, and not chapter by chapter. It needs to have a full printable copy for those who want to print it out, and not deal with the cyber text. I didn't like having to this rtext on-line, but atleast I have had the experience and can help make it easier for others.

2006-03-20T23:02:00.000-08:00

I agree with Caroline's idea about reading the novel without clicking back to the list of the chapters. It would be more convenient and efficient to read the novel without stopping. :-)

2006-03-19T18:39:00.000-08:00

Although I do like having a tangible text, I don't mind reading online as much as I thought I would. I've gotten used to reading on a computer screen. However, I think the story would flow better if you can click to the next chapter with out having to click back to the home page.
Now that I'm more familiar with Shelley's style, at least in Perkin Warbeck, I can follow the characters and stick with her intricate plot. She does have a tendency to engage her characters in many things at once.
While editing my chapter (I'm not done with my chapter yet), I've researched historical background on characters, places, and dates. I've enjoyed the process thus far because I'm fascinated with English history and I've only added to my knowledge. For a brief period I am an amateur or quasi historian. The process brings me closer to what Shelley might have experienced in her quest for historical documents and her reliance on others for information. Indeed, I rely quite a bit on the computer for information, atleast in this project. Perhaps, we can relate to Shelley in her process to create a new approach to history and historical texts. That is, we are engaging in a process that is new to us and it is certainly a new approach to reading and editing.
Online blogs and new mediums like hypertexts can be a place for political subversion and emergent ideas. Editing my chapter and participating in the project has added to my understanding of the texts displacment of criticism on political and social conditions of contemporary time. That is, like Shelley's historical novel, the hyper text provides a place for one to participate in criticism under the radar.

2006-03-16T15:57:00.000-08:00

Mary Shelley describes Richard (Perkin Warbeck) and Henry VII with contrasted characteristics. Richard is always described as a pure noble man while HenryVII is an evil character.

2006-03-15T22:46:00.000-08:00

I like to reading your responses to the novel! It actually helps me to go back to the chapters and realize things that I didn't even think about! Thanks! ;-) There are a lot of characters and I became busy to figure out who is who. :-p I think it's better to read this novel without taking too long break...otherwise you will be lost..haha.. I found my self enjoying reading this novel, as long as you remember what happens each chapter... and those names...!! lol ( I always have trouble with names...) The story itself is very fast, moving, vivid, and very very detailed. And, oh, I became really really comfortable reading online! I found myself reading 7 chapters in a row without taking break! amazing! cuz I usually become impatient and quit for a while and come back again and try to read. So I guess I am getting used to this! :-) Yes, I am trying to catch up with those chapters during spring break. Hopefully I can finish the novel during my lovely spring break.. and I am still going to post more as I read next chapters.Good luck~!

2006-03-09T15:21:00.000-08:00

So, I've been in this novel for almost a month now and am still finding it hard to read online. Unequivocally, I have decided there needs to be a way to download a print version of this. With the many allusions, identity changes, and characters, it is almost essential that I have a pen in hand when reading this novel.

I don't want you to think I don't enjoy the novel, as I think that it is just as good as Frankenstein and Lodore, if not better. But the fact that I feel as if I'm going to go blind as a result of reading a full-length novel online is something that I'm not quite comfortable with.

By no means am I dismissing the idea of keeping this novel online. I thoroughly enjoy the premise behind this project. A printed version of this book could just be an easy companion. That way we can make comments/annotations as we go along online while reading the book in print.

The fact that everyone can put their own personal touch on the text is amazing. It's been beneficial to see what everyone else has to say. I'm actually excited to see everyone's final addition to their assigned chapters. I think, after all the different criticism, we can help future readers understand this sometimes extremely complicated text.

I'm still working on finishing the book, as it is a task that has taken quite a bit of my time. But I see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it couldn't be brighter.

Until next time,

Aaron

2006-03-09T11:16:00.000-08:00

I find that I have a love-hate relationship with this Wiki-text assignment. On the one hand, I like the idea of being involved in something new, something that is progressive and innovative. I like having the opportunity to experiment a bit, to be able to have input that could prove useful to other students. At the same time, I have experienced anxiety and frustration over the unique format of the project. My anxiety comes from making my comments public. Usually, only the professor or a peer reviewer sees what I write. In this arena, my comments are part of the academic community, out there for everyone to see. If I make a misstep, I can’t hide it. It is in the public record. My frustration comes in part from the technical difficulties I have had—not being able to edit my chapter and having my comments on the text show up as someone else (oddly enough, they showed up as the imposter, Perkin Warbeck). Frustration also comes from the difference in the text itself because I find myself getting lost in the screens, whereas I can tab, highlight, or remember a location on a page when I am reading a book that I can hold in my hands.

I think the public aspect of the book and the comments/annotations is uniquely suited to a text from the Victorian era. Women were looked at as one of two major types: the private person who stayed at home, kept herself pure and unspotted from the world and the public woman who allowed herself to be dirtied or corrupted by outside society. This latter type could be someone in the visible arena such as a writer; someone working in a lowly factory job; or someone in a less than “honorable” employment like prostitution. If the public is the less desirable choice, then it seems we are stepping out of favor with the Victorians (at least the females are). And yet, we see Shelley creating women who are “public” figures because of the nature of their birth and calling. So in that regard, I think Mary Shelley would approve of the task we are undertaking.

In the same vein, the innovative nature of the project is in keeping with Victorian times. They experienced anxiety over the changes they saw around them and worked at coming to terms with them. If they could do that, then I think I must attempt to emulate them.

2006-03-06T18:55:00.000-08:00

I think Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck by Mary Shelley is a good novel. I didn't think I would like it at first, but after I got used to who the people were and the names got straightened out in my head, I found it much more enjoyable. I still find it hard to read and think it would be easier if there was a hard copy to hold onto, so you don't have to stare at the computer screen all the time, but other than that, once I got involved in the story, I wanted to "turn the page" to find out the next even that was going to take place. I find it very interesting that so many people were convinced that Perkin Warbeck was the real heir to the thrown and that Margaret of Burgundy accepted him as such even though i'm not sure she really thought he was the real thing or a fraud. I thought it was sad that he lost both fights against England and that he had to leave Ireland but I do finally now understand to some degree why the novel was called Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, not that it was hard to determine, but I found references in the book that made it clearer. I am excited about starting the editing of my chapter, I hadn't started yet because I wanted to read more before I started making notes and such, but I hope to learn things that will clarify my questions about the chapter that I was assigned as well as questions others had about it as well.

2006-03-06T15:44:00.000-08:00

I agree with Ashley, Love the book, hate the online reading. It is better written than Frankenstein and at the same time is just as good, if not better. At times it is much harder to get through than I would like but it is worth it. I like having my own chapter to play with. That helps me to better understand what I am reading. My chapter is full of history and events that I had to continuously look up back ground information about, but it helped me better understand what I was reading. I noticed other people had trouble getting through my chapter which is "The Confrence". Hopefully, I can get some good footnotes in there to help everyone else out. They definately need to put this in some type of downloadable and printable form because at this point, I never want to look at a computer screen a gain.

2006-03-06T09:36:00.000-08:00

Well, it took long enough but I've finally finished this book. I must agree with Dr. W-G, I didn't think Frankenstein was very well written but this book definitely is. Shelley has created a story that just pulls you in. While it can get confusing with all of the names and everything, getting passed that is well worth it. I'm going to again complain about reading online. I've done it repeatedly in class but now I have one more reason. I was sick all last week and over the weekend and couldn't get out of bed. So reading online was a bit difficult since I don't have a laptop. I would much rather enjoy this book in a concrete form so that I could have something constructive to do while I'm sick!

2006-03-05T10:22:00.000-08:00

Ok so this reading online is really hurting my eyes. No matter how many times I mess with the zoom I can never find the right size or view that is fitting for my eyes. I like the book but hate this online reading. I need a pen to write all over the book. I am tempted to take a marker and write on the screen so that way I could pretend like I had the book in front of me. Another problem I have is the changing of titles. Why can it not be that one person has the same name throughout. Reading online is a challenge enough but when you have that extra element of surprise with the constant name changing it tends to make things a little more difficult. Hopefully, during spring break boredom of sitting at home for a week will drive me to print the entire book so I can write all over it. I guess I will also have to invest in a magnifying glass because I cannot get the font bigger when I print it. Well I am going to get back to my reading now, good luck to the rest of you.

2006-03-04T10:13:00.000-08:00

Some observations
I am becoming more acclimated to reading the text on-line, but I'm still striving to make all the connections. That may not be so much a feature of the wiki text as it is the length and breadth of the novel.It seems that Richard/Warbeck is often detached about the events that happen in the novel. Is that just the way of Mary Shelley? Is she more stoic as she writes her characters' events?

It seems that passing the young Richard off as Perkin Warbeck is very easily accomplished and with little thought for the future. There does seem to be some emotion attached: "Lovel was profuse of thanks : so suddenly and so easily to be relieved from his worst fears, appeared like the special interposition of some guardian saint. His heart overflowed with gratitude ; and his glistening eyes gave token of greater thanks than even his emphatic words." And yet, it almost seems like he is glad to have the young prince out of his care. Here is the proper heir to the throne of England being sent off with little promise for how he might be returned to his rightful place. Of course, Lovel might have been willing to do this to save young Richard's life figuring that he would form a plan later that would restore the Yorks to power.

When Richard was forced out of France by Charles so that the French King could sign a treaty with King Henry, the expulsion also seems to be a bit unemotional. Though Shelley writes of Richard, "Pride, indignation, and heroic resolve sustained the duke under this insult; but violent, angry emotion was foreign to his dispo- [127] sition, and only kept alive in his bosom at the expense of much suffering," there seems to me a detachment to these "emotions." At this point Shelley "tells" rather than "shows" the emotions, so perhaps that is the reason they do not seem to be fully demonstrated in Richard's character.Generally speaking, Richard does not seem to be a very emotional character. He seems to be "above" much that is happening in his life. Perhaps that makes him more Royal, but it seems also to make him less human.

2006-03-02T23:35:00.000-08:00

Wow! This book is amazing. I decided to start the book over again because I was extremely confused with all of the name changes. When I first read the story I thought Warbeck was being protected at the money lender's home, only to find out it was Richard of York.
As I re-read the story I'm finding more and more themes and I'm starting to realise the depth of the novel. On page 4 in chapter 2 we can hear Shelly's voice in her female character Lady Brampton when she states, "Lady Brampton's impatience did not permit the earl long to indulge in that commune with nature, WHICH WE EAGERLY SEEK WHEN GRIEF AND DEATH THROWS US BACK ON THE WEAKNESSES OF OUR HUMAN STATE, AND WE FEEL THAT OURSELVES, OUR BEST LAID PROJECTS, AND LOFTIEST HOPES, ARE BUT THE PLAYTHINGS OF DESTINY."(The Conference)
This quote coincides with a statement that she makes in the introduction of this book. Shelly believes that, "Human nature is the same in all ages." (Introduction) Shelly's comment about Lincoln's commune with nature goes along with her belief that we have no way of changing our destiny. We are "the same in all ages." It is interesting that she calls humans, "playthings of destiny," because she makes many references to chess as she is discussing characters in the novel. On page 6 in chapter 2 Lovel makes a comment about the money lender when he states, "Who would suppose," thought Lovel, "that this man holds half England in pawn?" (The conference)
It was also interesting the way she introduced her valiant knight characters. On page 1 of chapter 2 she states that, "Lord Lovel was possessed of knightly courage, untarnished honor, and gentlmanly accomplishment." While I was reading this I kept thinking of Homer and the Illiad/Odyssey. Homer would, build up, if you will, his heros by using epic similie and by telling of their great deeds. In a way Shelly does that here. She wants her audience to know who the good guys are.
I find myself reading online and marking stuff on a paper version because I'm afraid to mark the computer screen until I know for sure that what I'm thinking is correct. I'll have to finish the novel before I mark it. I don't want to post something and then have it be completely wrong later on. Using the blog has helped me keep track of my thoughts as well. This will be a great source of information once I finish the book. I'll know where my pre-conceptions have changed and why they have changed. Well that's all from here. Goodnight!

2006-03-02T08:24:00.000-08:00

Through out her novel, Shelley refers to Ireland as a savage place filled with degenerate English lords and wiley natives. In chapter 15 she writes, "Cork was an asylum for civilization in the centre of a savage district". Cork is relatively civilized because it is governed and inhabited by the English. the city exists as a microcosm representative of England's position in the world. The one truly civilized place amongst an uncivilized world. Even the French and Spanish can not match English blood. Hence, Richard enters Ireland as a civilized Englishman and the native Irish recognize his superiority. The tainted English Lords and local Irish roans and cheiftans support him unquestioningly and revere his nobility. He enters Ireland as the colonizer and the colonized worship his majesty and purity, naturally. Of course, one might argue that Richard lost some of his purity when he became Perkin Warbeck and lived amongst the Spanish and French. He is tainted from his travels abroad.
I'm struck with the similarities of her description of Ireland and its inhabitants to Puritan and early colonial discourse on native americans. Similar to Puritan writers and early colonial writer's portrayals of America and Native Americans, she protrays Ireland as an uncivilized, savage, barbaric, wild, and dangerous world. She describes the Irish in terms of their simplicity and natural hospitality to those who are superior. Their dress is ancient and provincial and their language is unintelligable to Richard. Therefore, their difference makes them savage, barbaric, and inferior. They fall prey to every scheme the Yorks may have to regain the English thrown, and frequently play the pawn. Furthermore, it is ironic the narrator considers Ireland barbaric and inferior in part because of their fueding and wars between "tribes" rather than families. Such were the circumstances of England.
Shelley's novel reveals England as the center of the world. Other countries exist as different chest pieces in the English nobilities attempts at legitimacy. Perhaps the novel looks at the legitimacy of history told by one voice only.

2006-02-28T05:37:00.000-08:00

This process of editing a chapter was even easier than I could have imagined. By simply double clicking on the screen and adding the brackets, you can literaly add anything to the text. I edited my chapter for the first time earlier this morning before class, adding a history side note I remembered from a previous class. While I can see immediately the usefulness of this type of text, I think the reader should do one of two things before reading any text on the wikki. Either first read a hard copy of the text without using the wikki at all, or read the online version, however don't click on any of the links. I believe this is useful because when first reading a text the wikki might tend to distract you. When first reading a text sometimes the basic plot or even the setting might be hard to understand. While a bunch of links to side notes about all these things could be uesful, it would be more beneficial on a second read through. The first time reading any text the person's mind should be focused sulely on that text and trying to make sense of the plot by him or herself. After a first read through then the wikki shows its unique usefullness because now when the reader understands the story and knows how it will end, links to side notes about characters, themes, plot lines, etc. makes tremendous more sense and become even more useful in the analysis phase. However I must also point out the fact that the wikki still is remarkable because of the fact that books that would never be published now get a chance to live again. This fact alone makes it very valuable and I'm sure this type of text format will become increasingly popular. It still can't replace the feel of a book in your actual hands though!

Just wanted to add sorry about spelling mistakes if their are any, I check but I'm terrible at it.

2006-02-25T07:04:00.000-08:00

OK...so at first, reading online didn't seem so bad. I didn't have to go out and buy a $38.00 book just to destroy it with my marking pen. I didn't have to carry the book wherever I went with false hopes of sitting down on a random campus bench to read it. But then I realized how long The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck was. And then I cringed. For the past week, I've spent more time at my computer than I have in the last two semesters combined. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not a college student who sits on his laptop day by day, talking to long lost friends online. You'll only find me here writing a term paper, shooting an e-mail, or (occasionally) writing a blog. But reading an entire 19th-century novel on my computer screen has been one of the hardest tasks I've ever attempted to complete. And I say "attempt" because I have not finished the challenge yet.

Dr. W-G is right: I've never read a book for an English project without a pen and/or highlighter in hand. I don't have the patience to write my notes in a Word document. So I'm forcing myself to remember almost everything I read. Not such a good idea.

That being said, I do find it a bit uplifting to know I can make a dent on this project with my own thoughts and formatting. To know that thousands around the world have access to MY work is pretty cool.

So, for now, I'll keep trodding through this "wonderful" technical breakthrough. Hopefully by the next blog, I'll have MORE positive things to say.

Until then....

Aaron

2006-02-23T19:18:00.000-08:00

-Think about how many hours we work in front of our computer desk for a day.
Well.. I pretty much live in front of my computer and I thought it was time for me to not complain about reading online for hours and hours. B.U.T.. I realized this is quite a work, and I found myself becoming impatient and keep looking at the clock. lolFirst of all, it was frustrating to realize that I still didn't get the plot right in spite of my second time to meet Perkin Warbeck.Secondly, as we all talked about this last time in class, my eyes and butts got tired and couldn't concentrate on very well. (but still I spend a lot a lot a lot of time in front of my computer doing homework, researching, writing paper, playing games, chatting,,,lol)

Since I could not mark or underline on the computer screen, I had to use my notebook and write down things that I want to look at later or things that I have no clue what it is about. It is good that at least we can highlight lines as we read. You know, some online text doesn't let us to highlight the text. One of my weaknesses was the fact that I was not familar with the history background. Their history is just..so....long.. Hopefully I can get through this novel and get something out of it!

Reading online is becoming very common I think. A lot of e-books are out there. I want to get used to it , and I hope I can and we all can find out more advantages as we keep working on it.
So far, my advantage of reading online is that I read faster than when I read a book which is good~ :-)

2006-02-23T14:01:00.000-08:00

Oh brother... the readjustment period. As english majors we are accustomed to reading literature with "A pen in hand", according to Dr. Webster-Garrett. I find myself going through withdraw because of the pen loss. I've been printing out the readings becuase it's been such a hard transition. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of the Web of Mind. I'm learning to love literauture in a whole new way, but I have to get used to leaving my mark on a text that anyone can read.

2006-02-23T13:40:00.000-08:00

After delving a little further into the hypertext I found reading the text on a computer screen easier. Marking my place by right clicking and highlighting an area, allowed an easy return to where I left off.
Shelley has a habit of introducing a character and then not mentioning him or her until several chapters later. For example, she introduces Edmond son of Richard III in the first chapter and then he drops out of the story until four or five chapters later. Hernan de Faro appears in one chapter and goes unmentioned in another. Although with so many characters it would be hard to talk about them at the same time or involve them in the plot all at once. Sometimes her time line is a bit confusing as well. Years will pass and I don' t know they have until she mentions Richard is 18 and only a chapter before he was 14. Sometimes I'm confused by her style of describing action and get lost in her character descriptions. I do like her character descriptions. She does a good job of creating an imaginable, vivid portrait of her characters. However, she places her portraits in the middle of action. During an escape or a battle scene she stops the action to describe Richard's rosey cheek or a brave character's stature. Is this a characteristic of Gothic literature? She provides portraits of the same character repeatedly, especially Richard, Edmond, Monina, and Hernan de Faro.
At times she will mention a character's inability to speak English, yet following that announcement the same character converses with an English person. Richard eventually learns French but not until he has lived with Madeline for a while. I'm nit picking now.
I like her characters and I enjoy reading the battle scenes. However, her characters are too perfect in their chivalric representations. I'm not sure if that is on purpose or if I'm mistaken. They share many characteristics with chivalric characters; for example, they possess bravery, modesty, beauty, passion, intellect, piety, and many others. Futhermore, they exist in exagerated and idealized versions of what their counterparts might have been. In other words, her characters do not resemble reality. Her telling of history seems to be ensconced in a highly romantic, chivalric world.
I'm constantly surprised at how easily the characters fall for the plots of their enemies.
Just from making the responses to and initial research of questions and issues, my understanding of the text is better. I like responding to texts as I go anyways, but I like the prospect of conversing with the rest of the class.
Furthermore, I'm surprised at how short her chapters are and I think it would flow better if I didn't have to click back to the home page in order to start the next chapter.
All in all, I found the chapters I've read to be engaging, fun, humerous, sometimes confusing, and enjoyable. I like following the characters through the chapters, and her character portraits are entertaining and funny. Several times her characters will stop in the midst of escape and tell a story.
It would be interesting to read and compare the other Perkin Warbeck text that was published at the same time as Shelley's.

2006-02-23T13:38:00.000-08:00

So reading on line is not fun. Luckily "Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck" makes up for the inconvience of having to strain my eyes until my head hurts. It has been such good reading that I have managed to keep moving through it, but it is difficult. I'd much rather be able to curl up on my couch with a blanket and the book and read, instead I have to sit uncomfortably with my computer in my lap. I also find it takes so much longer to read from a screen than from a piece of paper. I tend to lose my place constantly. I would much rather just buy the book than have to read from a computer screen again, even if it is convienent. I do like the convience of making notes directly to the page but that is about the only fun part. Well, got to get back to reading!

2006-02-23T13:11:00.000-08:00

So far it has been a slow read for me because of all the adjusting of the text and it is hard to look at the screen of the computer for long periods of time. I do think that incorporating technology in the classroom is a good idea because it has become so much of who we are and what we are becoming. I also think that the blogs are a good idea, because for some it is easier to write their thoughts down on paper or computer then to speak them out loud.

2006-02-23T07:35:00.000-08:00

Reading Mary Shelley's Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck online has definitely been an interesting experience so far. Reading it online is extremely difficult, after looking at the screen for 20 minutes in an uncomfortable desk chair, I want to be done reading! I do enjoy the novel so far, it's very confusing though.

2006-02-21T15:31:00.000-08:00

Hello and Welcome members of ENGL 637 and ENGL 438, new comers to the Web of Mind! This blog space is devoted specifically to our interests as a scholarly community interested in the Victorian period. While you are required to make at least two journal posts documenting your experiences and reactions to the online text of Mary Shelley's Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, I hope you'll bookmark these pages and visit them often whether to trade questions and info about class, to respond to one another in an informal and friendly environment, and/or to generally carry our community outside of our classroom walls.

Just as a conversation starter, working with digital texts is not something I envisioned for myself 10 years ago. At that time I was a teaching fellow at DU and a fellow graduate student went on for what seemed like hours about how I must integrate technology into my humanities classrooms. My eyes glazed over, I made mental notes about how pompous he sounded, and I generally acted like a luddite. That he was right is undeniable. That he was a little pompous is also true. People who are right and know it generally are.

Flash forward to 2001.

Lo! The time is now, saith the Presidents of the MLA and the ALA, to learn how to defend our selves and our discipline in an era of technocratic and shrinking funding.

It's a sad fact that today the humanities are often described as non-essential to creating competitive intellects. Point and case: President Bush's recent plan to help American students exalts the importance of science and math and ignores literature, the Arts, history, etc. Now, we all know that doing science and math well depends upon being able to read and critically think. These are the very skill sets literary studies is guaranteed to fine tune. But because I don't create a better rivet, something measurable in terms of the capitalist model of product relations, I'm often confronted with the assumption that the humanities have no lasting benefit for the individual or society. I, as is obvious by now, disagree.

But that doesn't change the fact that my field is changing. Classes are migrating online, academic publishing is going digital, and fewer presses are in control of what gets published. If we are to have access to all sorts of books, technology needs to become our friend, or at least no longer be our enemy, and we need to start creating digital archives. It's no longer satisfying or practical to sneer at the techno-geek (who makes a ton more money than I do, btw) from some lofty poetical position. I have to embrace my inner technophile and see the art and possibility of reading and authoring in this new context. In my opinion, if I have to go down this path of technology and books online, which I think I do, then I want to have some control over how this technology is developed and some insight into how it works and what it can do.

2005-10-31T08:37:00.000-08:00

Frankenstein: Boo!
When I left the Waldron Theatre on Saturday, I battled several different emotions. First was disappointment, a feeling of having been gypped. Why would a playwright feel empowered to so butcher a story, to so completely rewrite it as to have only the bare overtones of plot be true to the original? I also was vaguely embarrassed, which I at first associated with how seeing somebody caught with his/her pants down but which I soon realized was because I had pressured students to take time and money to drive all the way to Roanoke and watch a play I now felt was of dubious value. Almost in tears, I called my mother and complained that I had given up a Saturday with my son and wasn’t sure for what. Later, oin the drive back to Radford I realized a few things. First, Mary Shelley was always delighted with the different interpretations her novel inspired. So if she wasn’t a purist, why should I be? Second, the theatre is an amazing experience no matter what. The immediacy of it, the way the actors’ voices make me cower or grin, the way the audience’s nervous laughter infects and affects me as a spectator watching a spectacle and being part of a spectacle: no other art form carries that kind of emotional punch for me. And the play wasn’t that far off base if I let myself be a little less self-righteous. True, I don’t see Elizabeth as an almost vamp wearing red and Justine is supposed to be a servant economically and socially removed from the rest of the family. But, if Shelley’s premise is that these children all grew up together and shared each other’s passions and time, it would make sense that they all would be partly involved in teh experiement to a certain point. There is, of course, no evidence in the novel that Clerval and Justine knew each other let alone were in love, and in the novel the Creature frames her for the murder of Victor's younger brother. He doesn’t kill her outright, and, in fact, makes it so that Victor is more responsible for her death than anyone.

By far the best performance was that of the Creature in my opinion. Professor Waldman was a close second. Victor just annoyed me—mumbling and overacting disturb me. I noticed that the actor playing the creature towers over the others—a very 19th c. gimmick.

In sum, I give it a C-:

Adaptation: 4 out of 10

Theater Experience: 8.5 out of 10 (I LOVE intimate theatres)

2005-09-15T12:44:00.000-07:00

So the Williams essay was about what?? I can't say I understood more than five sentences in the whole thing and I actually fell asleep the first time I tried to read it. I think the main gist of it was that culture and society changes, and with these changes comes changes to the canon and all literature. Other than that, I was completely lost.
Mary Shelley's letters, however, were the best thing I have read so far this semester. I just think it's amazing to read the personal words of someone from so long ago - the words to the friends they held dearest. You can get no closer look at the society of the time than through such letters, because they are unbiased in that they were never intended to be published.
In relation to the Williams essay, Shelley obviously went through a lot of changes over the course of the published letters. In the first letters to Percy Shelley she sounds so ridiculously in love you think she might explode. She misses him every second he is gone and is not afraid to admit it. Then we get to read the saddest letter ever. I was really moved reading this because it is hard to relate to anyone famous as having a personal tragedy, because you always think they are untouchable. But poor Mary Shelley lost her husband, her love, her life. I wanted to just go give her a hug and tell her everything would be ok.
I don't really know how to apply any critical lens to this since it is not a "work" officially. In fact I think it might be a little too much to try and criticize someone's personal letters. I don't think she ever said as she was writing the letters, "what would a ____ critic think of this?" All she did was right what her heart felt, and how can that be so analyzed?

2005-09-08T10:58:00.000-07:00

Levine's argument seems much more academically based than Bloom's, which was mostly opinion. Levine cites other scholars who have analyzed the canon, students, universities, etc. Bloom pretty much just vented about everything he thinks is wrong with American education. As far as New Criticism goes, I guess Levine would be closer to the thought than Bloom. Bloom doesn't seem to be interested in what books of the classical canon have to say, just that he was taught they were the ones to read. Levine does not completely accept the New Criticism views either, but he seems to have a much more open mind about what texts deserve a closer examination on the academic level.
Levine shows how the canon of American literature has changed since its creation. At points it included all races of peoples in the US and at others was highly exclusive. He shows evidence that canons do and have always changed with the culture of the American people. And with so many different cultures living together under the same roof of America, how can anyone close their mind to the idea of a new canon? Levine discusses how America is not as much a melting pot as it has been referred to because all the races tend to have that feeling of being outsiders, of being part of something other than the American race.
I noticed several instances in which Levine uses the word "culture". In context with Bloom, it made me realize that Bloom was desperate to try and change our culture back to its motherlands. Levine also used "change" multiple times in the chapters, and I think that's what it all boils down to: Who is afraid of change and who isn't? Is change good? Of course it is hard to be completely for either side in all circumstances, but I think it is best not to be afraid of change but to embrace it. Culture and the American mind will change; there's nothing anyone can do about it. So why get so caught up in the past that you lose touch with the future?

2005-09-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

I just read Samantha's blog and I totally agree. I'd love to see how Bloom would react to Mary Shelley. She is everything he stood against; feminist, a female writer, etc. The thing that is different about Shelley is that she wasn't some self-righteous know-it-all like Bloom is. He thinks he knows everything about everything and has the answers for all the world's problems. Basically, it's his way or the highway! While Shelley did write about issues she had, she didn't claim to have all the answers.
Bloom's probably one of those critics who still believes "Frankenstein" was written by a man, or at least dictated to Mary Shelley by her husband, Percy. Even if the proof stared him in the face I'm sure he'd refuse to believe it. While I don't think Bloom is a horrible man, he does make some generalizations based on opinion, not fact, and that is what bothers me. He's also very judgemental and stereotypical. Basically, he's the last person who should be writing about others! His bias is out of control! A good writer takes both sides into account, not just his/her own.
Shelley's "Frankenstein" is written from a more indifferent perspective; an outsider looking in, while Bloom's book seems more to me like a lament you'd find written in the Middle Ages. While I can understand his desire to create this "perfect world" of learning, it's just not possible. No one and no thing is perfect and to strive for that is just a waste of time.

2005-08-31T21:09:00.000-07:00

Intro to Frankenstein
Hopefully I have finally picked a font color that shows up. I swear I'll figure this thing out one day. But onto the reading...
For starters I think Allan Bloom would have definitely been one of the critics to ask Mary Shelley how a girl could think up such a story. In fact he probably would have torn her to pieces. Being a child of two very controversial people, Mary Shelley would have fallen into his category of the "failing family". Surely Bloom would not have approved of Mary Wollstonecraft's premarital affairs and would have expected Mary Shelley to be another stupid student. If she was brought up in a family that didn't live strictly by the book then there must have been no hope for her. And he would probably have been deafened by stories of the sexual revolution of Mary Shelley's time. And look at her husband!
Mary Shelley shows her knowledge of Shakespeare and other classics in the Introduction, which would have met to Bloom's approval, but this was standard education of the times. I can just hear Bloom now: "That's the only reason she succeeded, because she had a focused education on the classics!" Well, the classics weren't as much classics then. She also shows a respect for religion that Bloom would have appreciated when she says how terrifying it would be for a person, in her story Dr. Frankenstein, "to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world." Although further investigation into her morals may not have pleased Bloom as much.
I would like to know what Bloom has to say about Mary Shelley. I think her fame is evidence against Bloom's theory that radical thinking (in the 80s form of rock music and sexual liberation) leads to an unhappy, unsuccessful, uneducated student.

2005-08-30T21:54:00.000-07:00

So I am officially not a fan of Allan Bloom. I didn't expect to really be that interested in it, much less hate it with such a passion. I'll give it to him that it takes a lot to really enrage a reader as much as it does, but what does it really accomplish? How did this rant of his affect society? Was Allan Bloom later made famous for creating this huge reform in the education system? I doubt it. He probably still sits in a recliner by the fire mumbling "stupid American students and their rock and roll...".
As irritating as it was, The Closing of the American Mind was much easier of a read than the selections from Altick. I'll admit I couldn't even finish the whole assisgnment in one sitting without falling asleep. Really the only part of Altick's work that caught my attention was his description of the ideal student starting on page eight. I am not much of a party animal (which around here is rare), so I have always been sort of a book worm. I was pretty pleased to find myself somewhat (but not quite entirely) of his picture of a happy scholar. I don't know how successful I'll end up being, but this was a little encouragement. At least I didn't want to hunt down Altick twenty years after his work to hit him in the back of the head with a stick.
Really I wouldn't want to be Bloom's idea of a perfect student. I could handle the work with the classics and everything, but not his obsession with the personal life of students as well. I can't live without my rock and roll and I'm certainly not the religious type to spend all my time reading the Bible and "modestly" covering myself from head to toe. Heaven forbid an adult woman be distracted by sexual urges or feel the need to develop a career before having children. If Bloom's text focused strictly on how to better the education system then maybe we could get along, but he takes his freedom of speech too much as a freedom to complain without action.

2005-08-30T19:48:00.000-07:00

My thoughts on Bloom and Altick:

In reading Altick and Bloom, I noticed a similar thought pattern: they both seem to have lost faith in the modern students ability and desire to learn. Bloom makes some astute observations of how rock music is degenerating students these days because it lacks the concentration enhancing power of classical music. This is not to say, however, that I am against classical, as I listen to both classical and rock music. Altick has a grim view of what it is to be a scholar, for example, on page 16 he says the scholar "must cultivate a low opinion of the human capacity for truth and accuracy-- beginning with his own." To me this is saying that to be a scholar you can't trust anyone. Altick goes on to illustrate errors made by various editors on various works, and how the scholar must always take a second look at material he or she finds even remotely suspicious. Bloom, on the other hand, paints a dark portrait of the American student, attacking everything from the inefficiency of American education as opposed to European education, the books used by American students, the music listened to, and even relationships engaged in. He speaks on how a student's home life isn't what it used to be in terms of a spiritual education, as well as how MTV is the ruination of today's youth (which I can partially agree with.) I do notice that Bloom has a few Emersonian ideas in his work. The idea of a return to the soul as necessary to revitalize the desire for knowledge struck me as reminiscent of Emerson, as well as Bloom's mentioning of a return to nature, echoing Emerson's essay Nature. However, I think that Bloom has a narrow minded view of what is "wrong" with the modern student, as he never factors in any types of learning disabilities. I come from an old-fashioned Protestant work ethic household, so my ideas may seem a bit archaic. I do agree with Bloom's ideas on relationships and the sometimes vast amounts of drama they can cause as being a detriment to the student(s). I also agree that a return to the soul is necessary for a renewing of desire to pursue knowledge.

2005-08-30T13:16:00.000-07:00

Bloomin Bloom

We discussed The Closing of the American Mind today, and I have little to add to our in-class discussion except a continued sense of outrage and alarm. How is it that Bloom gets away with making such outrageous (and, at times, overtly dishonest) claims about the state of American culture, Affirmative Action, feminism, rock-n-roll, race relations, etc. and never feels compelled to cite a study, reference statistics, or show an awareness of resaearch? He makes rabid generalizations and refuses to back up his claims with any evidence beyond personal opinion. And yet millions of people bought and believe his book. His rabble would never withstand the rigors of academia, the very institution he attacks. Has he never heard the adage that one must use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house? If he is going to demonstrate how hollow and soulless and uneducated current intellectuals are, then why doesn't he demonstrate some intellectual acumen, some balanced and ethical treatment of sources aside from his personal anger, some respect for his readers? I am more disheartened by the lack of rigor in his book than the claims he makes. His claims are unjustified, which he apparently recognizes since he, again, offers no evidence beyond personal opinion. But the model he presents of an academic is appalling. There's no respect for the profession or for scholars who scrupulously study the very issues he offhandedly blames on the opening of the university system to women and minorities (especially African Americans). It's really a very sexist and racist book, and shockingly careless with how it treats issues of race, the compexities of identity politics, and systems of privilege. Smugly reductive, mystifyingly self-righteous. And riddled with a language of fear--fear of change, of loss of control, of power and privilege. It's also painfully nostalgic, but for what I'm not entirely sure. For an era when all university students were versed in the Judeo-Christian tradition? For an era when truth was clearly discernible, when there were answrs? Did this time ever exist?

2005-08-24T14:27:00.000-07:00

This is a space devoted to the theoretical and intellectual discussions of ENGL 496, Fall 2005.
I have titled this bog in honor of a line in Mary Shelley’s apocalyptic novel, The Last Man. The narrator speaks of the “web of mind” connecting past and future, readings done and readings to be done, and writers across the ages. Her novel is marvelously depressed and convinced of a kind of intellectual stagnation. The same wars rage in the twenty-first century as were ongoing in the nineteenth: the same parliamentary debates regarding suffrage and labor party rights continue. In Shelley’s imagined future, women remain second class citizens and defined by their connections (as lovers, wards, workers, mothers, daughters, wives) to men. And English xenophobia and colonial mindset are entrenched. And yet there is this sense of hope because there is a web connecting all parts of humanity in a network of ideas, of connections between the spiritual, intellectual, and political, between the private person and public citizen, between the stories of represented history and those of an imagined future.

While we are together we will be asking ourselves questions about the purposes, goals, and objectives of literary study in a time and amidst a culture largely suspicious of intellectuals and their questions. The arguments on all sides (there are more than 2) of the culture wars have their roots in conversations that can be traced to Plato and before. What are the dangers of a democratized literacy? Should all people have equal access to all kinds of books? Are each of us equipped for what we might stumble upon? What if we aren’t? What happens when we teach certain texts to certain groups, but reserve other texts for other groups?

Example: Why is somed literature (gay/lesbian literature, for example, or Latin American lit, or Jewish American lit, or Islamic American lit) only accessible to students and/or readers who actively and doggedly seek it out (and many times have to special order it from an independent bookstore which means they have access to information about those bookstores and, in many cases, access to a computer. A person has to be privileged in order to gain access to knowledge, in other words)? Doesn't this problem of access and privilege contradict the humanistic vision of English studies—that it makes us better people by tapping into and expressing the human condition? What is the connection between socio-economic privledge, reading literacies and political voice? And how does it work? To what end do our seystems of priviledge keep us isolated and maintain the political staus quo? (By "political" I mean in the sense of Power, by which I mean having a voice and having one's voice matter.)

In any case, the questions I am working through will join the ideas and readings we read as a collective in agreat web of mind. Like a collective we will come together for discussion, but we may not always agree. Indeed, I hope we will not as it is very hard to grow or deepen one’s understanding when one doesn’t have to think through the ideas carefully and earnestly.

As an example of otehr communities having these conversatiions, check out The Valve: http://www.thevalve.org