Date: 20 March 2002
Topic: Aesthetic and Social Forms
Leader: Jerry McGann
JM: introductory remarks
Barthes and others initiated a shift of emphasis and attention from "work"
to "text." With digital technologies, we're seeing this shift reversed.
We're returning from "text" to "work." Can we now edit works?
If this course in knowledge representation is to be taught, I think we
need a unit on textuality, on traditional textuality.
Schillingsburg: standard account of the various approaches to textual
editing
Buzzetti: logician, studies the history of philosophy, proposes a new
approach to text
JD: What can logic not describe? When is it really rhetoric?
JM: essential part of this article--critique of SGML and TEI. must be
read by anyone doing markup.
Uses Hjelmslev's classic 4-part structure. expression --> form and
substance; content --> form and substance (64) In this structure, the
rhetorical issues reside in the substance of the expressive plane.
Two dominant trends in traditional text theory: interest in form--seen in
studies of the history of texts; interest in substance--seen in reception
history.
Two dominant trends in digital text studies: hyptertextual--gained
prominence with WWW, American; conceptual--database models, European.
What I've been trying to do for the last 9 years in meld the history of
text with history of reception of text. Looking for a new method of
markup that would allow this. Leaning towards relational databases as
most appropriate data structure.
JD: film theory in 60's and 70's tried to explore the intersections of
form and expression. Seems like rhetoric fits somewhere here.
The structure is rhetorical as well as the content.
---What followed was a discussion of Buzzetti's presentation of Hjelmslev's structures. We spent some time trying to understand the breakdown of the levels at a very basic level, and Johanna provided an example from film studies to help distinguish between the level of expression and the level of content. Most confusion seemed to stem from the dual levels of content--how can content have both form and substance? Geoff foresees infinite regression here. So does Jerry, but he still sees the utility of the structure as a critical tool. We tried to venture into a discussion of where rhetoric is at work here. How and where does rhetoric mediate between content and expression?
We also discussed the relationship of markup and databases. Steve points out that both data structures are processed as hierarchical trees by a serial processor. The von Neumann funnel still applies. Many of the limitations discussed here are limitations of the current machines.
Andrea asked Jerry if, in his quest for a hypertextual environment, he was really trying to reproduce the rhetoric of the library. He answered "yes."
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