MLA Convention 2020: Documenting a Graduate Course in Electronic Literature with Scalar

Conclusions

When we got started writing with our Scalar book, we mostly thought of it in terms of a final product that we had to work on in order to comply with a requirement for a class. Truth be told, as graduate students, we sometimes fall prey of habitual actions that somewhat have an incidence on the way we approach projects that pertain to our academic lives. Little did we know, however, that by asking ourselves what we understood by “electronic literature” we would thus be asking the same very ontological question that experts in this field have been asking themselves for some time now. A question that, as a matter of fact, is problematic and demands that authors do their best to explain where they stand in theoretical terms when it comes to delineating a field that it is still under construction.

In this line of thinking, we came to the realization that by working on the Scalar platform, we were therefore conceiving a piece of electronic literature. In other words, we are playing a part in the creation of a text that was going to be born digitally, that would contain hypertexts, digital images and whatnot. But, more importantly, we understood and that our book was going to remain open to eventual modifications or reinterpretations of its content. We actually gather that we are in the face of challenge with endless possibilities for us both as writers and as graduate students seeking to learn more about digital literature.

We agreed that we wanted our book to break with the conventions that arise when people think of books and that Scalar would serve well to that purpose. To begin with, using Scalar to design a digital book is very intuitive to the user and that is a plus when it comes to writing a project. We are convinced that the easier it is to navigate and operate a platform, the more second nature it becomes. Working on this spectrum, however, poses interesting challenges like that of adhering to the notion of “Creative Commons” for both donating your intellectual property to the world wide web and resorting to digital photos (for illustrative purposes mainly) that have not been cyphered under the Copyright philosophy. In terms of the literary genres that we explored, we decided to adopt a reader response perspective for writing entries on the bibliography we covered in our ENGL 561 class. Our entries range from summaries, responses, interviews, to reflections on the pedagogical uses of the texts we worked on.

Looking forward to the 2020 MLA Conference in Seattle, WA, we plan to develop further the section devoted to pedagogical engagements inasmuch as we consider it would be beneficial for us to discuss the potentialities of the use of electronic literature pieces in our ENGL 101 classes within the context of a panel presentation. We believe that the field of e-lit is avid of contributions from those of us somehow involved in the expansion of this field and, as such, we are willing to make a step forward and speak our voices. We feel this book is only the beginning of a larger enterprise and we trust its rhizomatic nature will bring about more endearing adventures.

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