Dr. Nicole Basaraba

Assistant Professor in Digital Humanities, TCD

Tag: hypertext books

Remediating the book metaphor – what makes a book, a book?

Publishers and writers have had the same definition of a book for thousands of years, since Ancient Greece: “The words ‘biblios’ or ‘byblos’ are translatable as either ‘papyrus’ the material, or as the object consisting of papyrus on which it is placed. The common translation “book” is misleading” (Havelock, 2011, p. 41). The word “book” meant
Read More

Navigating the non-linear hypertext – where to click now?

The hypertext novel is known for its puzzle-like quality because it is read in multiple chunks as the hyperlinks take readers into another space with a new section of text. It becomes the reader’s role to piece the story together into a narrative that makes sense. Schneider (2005) explains that the “non-linearity or non-sequentiality, which
Read More

Examples of hypertext fiction – how to write hypertext narratives?

Looking at examples of hypertext books there are only a handful that have been critically examined. Paul Hackman notes, “fifteen years after the first generation of hypertext novels emerged, hypertext literature remains on the fringe of literary studies” (2011, p. 86). One of the reasons for the lack of hypertext fiction novels, besides the issues
Read More