Alec Charles

The Work of Narrative in the Age of Digital Interaction: Revolutions in Practice and Pedagogy

There are three main challenges in the teaching of narrative development in the area of new media: (1) the interactive, multilinear and ludic natures of new media platforms do not necessarily lend themselves to traditional narrative structures; (2) the emphasis which these media put upon users’ otherwise unmediated forms of self-expression is not necessarily conducive to classical structures of narrative communication; and (3) many of the promises which these media forms have made in relation to narrative advances not only have not been realized and are perhaps unrealizable, but are also not always entirely desirable. Bolter and Grusin’s scepticism as to the potential of introducing ‘interactivity to the novel’ is, for example, echoed by Koskinen’s rebuttal of ‘interactive narratives’—‘no one in his right mind can write an alternative ending to the story of Jesus Christ’. Yet these challenges also represent opportunities. The questions which these technologies pose as to how we teach narrative open up possibilities as to the development of narrative structures, practices and modes of reception—beyond blogging and citizen journalism, beyond Wikipedia, social media, virtual worlds and video games: not amateurish ‘produsage’ but a late postmodern incarnation of Roland Barthes’ notion of scriptibilite. Such opportunities may promote ways to teach writing which themselves underpin the development of cultural identity and critical thought.

The Meta-Utopian Metatext:

Ulysses is a novel of immense and endless structuration, but one that resists structure itself, which eschews the closure and determinism of stereotypically Utopian mythologization. Joyces work acknowledges that we continue to cling to our Utopian dreams, despite all the material evidence. Yet Joyce advances a mode of Utopianism that, in recognizing the tensions inherent to its relationship with the real, not only self-consciously deconstructs but also therefore sustains itself. If the Utopian breaks down upon its contact with material history, then perhaps by inscribing—and, more importantly, integrating—its antithesis and its own absurdity within itself, it might achieve a balance and a self-awareness sufficient to sustain it beyond the moment of its conception, the revolutionary or revelatory moment, and to translate its abstraction into the very materiality that had originally threatened to extinguish it. Joyce reveals Utopian literatures potential for self-deconstruction while at the same time rehe...