Pathfinders Main Menu Introduction to Pathfinders An introduction to Pathfinders with detailed information about the project Judy Malloy's Uncle Roger Judy Malloy's Opening Page John McDaid's Uncle Buddy's Phantom Funhouse John McDaid's opening page for Uncle Buddy's Phantom Funhouse Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl This is the opening page of the Jackson Reading Path for Patchwork Girl Bill Bly's We Descend Bill Bly's opening page Traversals and Interviews Documentation The documentation used for the traversals and Interviews Authors' and Contributors' Bios The bios of those who authored and produced Pathfinders References and For Further Reading Books, essays, and non-print media informing Pathfinders Nouspace Publications | Washington State University Vancouver

The Interview with Shelley Jackson about Patchwork Girl

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This interview of Shelley Jackson, conducted by Dene Grigar and Stuart Moulthrop, took place on Friday, October 18, 2013 in the Electronic Literature Lab at Washington State University Vancouver as part of the Pathfinders project. Jackson is the author of Patchwork Girl, a hypertext poem riffing off Mary Shelley's Frankenstein that represents a high mark of the genre. The interview is divided into nine parts and provides insights into the development of the work. 

Jackson, Interview 1
The video file is saved as a high-quality 1280x720, compressed MPEG-4 Movie (.mp4) H.264 codec, with a high-quality audio track (.aac). The duration is 7:41 minutes, streaming from the Vimeo video-sharing site.

Jackson and Dene Grigar discuss the tension between fragmentation, which some see to be an essential quality of hypertext, and the literary idea of unity.  Jackson resists that idea that hypertext works against the unity of literary writing, pointing out that the very conception of the work joins her writing to previous print sources.  There is a discussion of feminist theory from the 1970s and 1980s, especially French feminism, and Jackson's engagement with the idea of plural identity, ostensibly as an aspect of feminine consciousness (an idea for which she shows some skepticism).

Jackson reflects on the experience of returning to Patchwork Girl after nearly 20 years, saying that she had initial anxiety but ultimately feels "proud" of the writing she has done -- though dissatisfied with the gap between her artistic intention and the limitations imposed by Storyspace.

Jackson, Interview 2
The video file is saved as a high-quality 1280x720, compressed MPEG-4 Movie (.mp4) H.264 codec, with a high-quality audio track (.aac). The duration is 9:24 minutes, streaming from the Vimeo video-sharing site.

Grigar asks what Jackson might have done (or might do) differently if re-writing Patchwork Girl with more contemporary software.  Jackson resists the idea, explaining that Patchwork Girl emerged from the specifics of Storyspace, especially its visual signature of boxes in rows, which suggested to her both the Graveyard (headstones) and a patchwork quilt.  The work "is about text as body," and is in some sense inseparable from its (technical) embodiment.  A smoother, more intuitive interface wouldn't do.  The work needs it discontinuities, its patches.

Jackson talks about the history of Patchwork Girl, noting that it began with the final assignment in George P. Landow's graduate theory class at Brown in 1993 or 1994, where students were required to create a hypertext.  In some sense, Patchwork Girl began as a series of doodles in the margins of Jackson's notebook "while listening to [Landow] lecture."  These were images of monstrous, scarred, female bodies.

As Jackson goes on, she connects the Landow sketches to an earlier academic encounter, a course taught by the poststructuralist theorist Avital Ronell (most famous for The Telephone Book) at Berkeley in the early 1990s, before Jackson came to Brown.  Jackson says she has never acknowledged her "debt" to Ronell, and is doing she here for the first time.  From Ronell she learned that it was possible to read older, traditional literature through the lens of contemporary theory.  So began a fascination with Frankenstein (covered in the Ronell class), and particularly with the "chopped-off" story of the female monster.

DG: Had you read The Telephone Book before writing Patchwork Girl?  SJ:  "I had fingered it."

Jackson, Interview 3
The video file is saved as a high-quality 1280x720, compressed MPEG-4 Movie (.mp4) H.264 codec, with a high-quality audio track (.aac). The duration is 10:25 minutes, streaming from the Vimeo video-sharing site.

Jackson, Interview 4
The video file is saved as a high-quality 1280x720, compressed MPEG-4 Movie (.mp4) H.264 codec, with a high-quality audio track (.aac). The duration is 10:25 minutes, streaming from the Vimeo video-sharing site.

Jackson, Interview 5
The video file is saved as a high-quality 1280x720, compressed MPEG-4 Movie (.mp4) H.264 codec, with a high-quality audio track (.aac). The duration is 10:25 minutes, streaming from the Vimeo video-sharing site.

Jackson, Interview 6
The video file is saved as a high-quality 1280x720, compressed MPEG-4 Movie (.mp4) H.264 codec, with a high-quality audio track (.aac). The duration is 10:25 minutes, streaming from the Vimeo video-sharing site.

Jackson, Interview 7
The video file is saved as a high-quality 1280x720, compressed MPEG-4 Movie (.mp4) H.264 codec, with a high-quality audio track (.aac). The duration is 10:25 minutes, streaming from the Vimeo video-sharing site.

Jackson, Interview 8
The video file is saved as a high-quality 1280x720, compressed MPEG-4 Movie (.mp4) H.264 codec, with a high-quality audio track (.aac). The duration is 10:25 minutes, streaming from the Vimeo video-sharing site.

Jackson, Interview 9
The video file is saved as a high-quality 1280x720, compressed MPEG-4 Movie (.mp4) H.264 codec, with a high-quality audio track (.aac). The duration is 10:25 minutes, streaming from the Vimeo video-sharing site.

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