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worked
in
academia
a
decade
before I realized that
the
bureaucratic, medieval,
and
wonderful institutions calleduniversities
have
two
ways
of operating.
One
is
dictated
by
administrative structures
and
codified rules.
The
other
way,
penetrating
the
first at
every
point,
runs
throughnetworks of
people
andis
determined
by
the
folks
who
are
hiring
and
firing, interpreting policies
and
setting them, approving curricula
cha
ng
es
or not.
If
you really want to understandwhya department gave Profes
so
rX tenure
and
kicked out Professor
Y,
you
will
not find the
answer-or
rather,
the
complete
answer-in
the handbook specifying tenure criteria.
Only
when youknowthe people
in
the department will you begin to
see
the
fuller
picture.
Thesam
eholds true for the creative works, theories,
and
practices
that
constitute
the
world
of
literary studies.
On
the one hand
is
theskein
of
words, images, and
art
ifacts
that
operate according to a complex dynamic
of
tradition
and
innovation,competition,
and
cooperation.
On
the otherarethe writers, critics,
and
the
orists who produce the artifacts. While
no
one person working alone
can
swingthat small universe one way
or
another, individuals matter
in
determining its
tr
ajectory,
and
networks
of
people matter
even
more.
In
this experiment called
Writing
Machines,
exploring what the print book
ca
n
be
in
the digital age,onlypart
of
the story lies
in
the theories, concepts
and
examplesarticulated here. Another part, obvious from the moment
you
lay eyesonthe book, inheres
in
its visual design. Still another
is
comprised
by
the people
In
itiating change
and
resisting it, writing books
and
creating digital environments,struggling to
see
what electronic literature means
and
ignoring its existencealtogether. Telling a
fuller
story requires these narrative chapters interrogatingthe author's position, her background and experiences, and especially the community
of
writers, theorists, critics, teachers, and students
in
which
she
moves.Having become
an
autobiographer almost against
my
will,
r
am
reminded
of
Henry Adams' satiric admiration
of
Rousseau's determination
in
the
Confessions
that
he
will reveal everything about his life,from his masturbatory practices to
his
most wretched night thoughts.
An
intensely private person whose life was forever marked
by
his wife'ssuicide,
Adams
could not conceive indulging
in
suchself-display.
He
held
up
his third-person character Henry
Adams
as
a stick figure
II
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