A critique of Aarseth, Chats with Joel Plaskett & Lloyd Kaufman, Treats from a Taste of the Danforth and More!

[...] Aarseth set out, in his ballsy dissertation, to “describe any text according to their mode of traversal” (62), a very literal application of McLuhan’s musings on media, which explains his odd disconnect with the aspects of imagination that transcend media, that can live in story outside of the text, or game itself. This kind of jazz makes me a little sad, because it’s dudes like Aarseth that are working far too hard to antagonize Literary Studies, and in turn, are serving to make the Literary community feel, well, antagonized by academics who are interested in these types of study. Also, as an aspiring academic who is definitely interested in the study of electronic literature and digital poetics, this kind of stuff makes me especially angry, considering I feel as though literary studies and the study of burgeoning new technological media really could work together to create some damn good work. The last fifth of my thesis is entirely devoted to looking forward to work that is being done in the Canadian post-pomo landscape with technology and traditional forms of literature working hand-in-hand. Am I just a hippy or something? [read the full article]

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