Of Two Minds: Hypertext Pedagogy and Poetics (Studies in Literature and Science) (Paperback)

~ Michael Thomas Joyce (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

In Of Two Minds, noted hypertext novelist and writing teacher Michael Joyce explores the new technologies, mediums, and modalities for teaching and writing, ranging from interactive multimedia to virtual reality. As author of Afternoon: A Story, which the New York Times Book Review termed "the most widely read, quoted, and critiqued of all hypertext narratives," and co-developer of Storyspace, an innovative hypertext software acclaimed for offering new kinds of artistic expression, he is uniquely well qualified to explore this stimulating topic.
The essays comprise what Joyce calls "theoretical narratives," woven from e-mail messages, hypertext "nodes," and other kinds of electronic text that move nomadically from one occasion or perspective to another, between the poles of art and instruction , teaching and writing. The nomadic movement of ideas is made effortless by the electronic medium, which makes it easy to cross borders (or erase them) with the swipe of a mouse, and which therefore challenges our notions of intellectual and artistic borders.
Joyce makes it clear that we are not just the natural heirs but, through our visions, the architects of new technologies that promise to enact our visions as much as change them. The collection summons writing from artists, poets, teachers, scientists, and feminist thinkers, and in so doing builds on notions of human possibility as a basis for the broadest kind of conversation in what Joyce deems our increasingly multiple, polymorphous, and polylogous culture.
"Weaving between theoretical speculations, reports of actual classroom usage, polemical addresses, and a rich web of allusions, Of Two Minds strongly makes the case that hypertext creates a topography of textuality that requires new mod es of thinking about texts." --N. Katherine Hayles, University of California, Los Angeles
A volume in our Studies in Literature and Science series.
Michael Joyce is Randolph Distinguished Visiting Professor of English, Vassar College.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: University of Michigan Press (October 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0472065785
• ISBN-13: 978-0472065783
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,437,848 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Grandaddy of Hypertext, June 22, 2000

By A Customer

_Of Two Minds_ is an ambitious attempt to delineate ways in which hypertext can be taught and the ways in which it affects reading/writing and our relationship to reading/writing. Michael Joyce, a professor of English at Vassar College, is the author of the first hypertext novel (Afternoon, a Story) and worked with the programmer of the most commonly used hyper-fiction program "Storyspace." He is, then, one of the singularly most qualified voices on the topic of hypertext(ual) pedagogy. Joyce elucidates what is a still-emerging and vastly complicated field.

5 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good critique of the written language, October 8, 1999

By A Customer

Micheal Joyce does a good job explaining the fundamentals of hypertext in his book. He provides a clear delineation between what the differences re between exploratory and constructive hypertext. Considering I found this book at one of the 80% publishers list price sales, it proved his point that books are merely fleeting objects soon to be replaced. At most time sthe book is fairly straightforward, but during some of interstitials, the paragraphs required multiple readings to understand what he was saying. I hope to get some mileage out of his argument on the Highschool poliy debate topic this year:eduation. I guess I should probably read Landow now too.