The Electronic FrontierWomen of the Web

 

 

Welcome to our tour of Women of the Web  - an on-line tour of web work by women!  Much of the most exciting writing by women is occurring on the WWW.  Some of it is linear text that you would recognize as literature.  But some is part of the new electronic textuality that you have seen with Califia.  Women have developed surprising new ways to tell their stories and create new realities.  All you need to do to follow this lecture is to read on through and click on the links, which will take you to some places you have never been! To enlarge this frame to full screen for easier viewing, click Women of the Web.

 

    Here are the questions for which you should provide written answers which you may e-mail to me:

    1.Choose one example of a contemporary woman writer on the WWW. Explain what you liked about this work, first. Then, analyze it with respect to the issues we have discussed in class. Does it reflect traditional women's issues or not? If so, in what way? Does it represent, in your opinion, a valid and authentic voice for a woman in cyberspace, or does it rein scribe gender values inherent in technology? What elements of the message were most important to you? What aspects of the presentation did you like or not like? In what way does this piece break new ground in voices of women?

    2. You will visit several sites of dedicated to women writers we have read. Which one do you think is the most helpful? Which one seems to best reflect the work, philosophy, and life of the writer?

    Good! Now that you know what you might be looking for, let's begin. You can start with any category you like, but be sure to return here to complete the selections.

    please e-mail your reading responses to Marjorie Luesebrink


    opening poem

    Stephanie Strickland's Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot

    don't miss this!

     

    To begin our tour, I want to take you to a progressive dinner party.  [In the old days, suburban women used to get together to give dinner parties that were held at a series of homes.  Someone would host the cocktails, someone else the salad course, another woman the entree, and so forth. It was fun, collaborative, and much in keeping with the idea of a shared project.]

    Last spring, Carolyn Guertin and I did a survey of 39 women who were doing e-literature on the web.  This collection was published in Riding the Meridian (edited by Jennifer Ley).  The idea of a progressive dinner party came from Judy Chicago's famous art installation of the 1970's - "The Dinner Party."  In this installation, Judy Chicago constructed a huge, triangle-shaped table, made 39 place settings, and honored 39 women in art who had been, for the most part, ignored by the art canon.  Each of the place settings featured specially-embroidered place runners, dishes, etc.  In honor of Judy Chicago, and because there were some important similarities between her project and ours, we called our collection The Progressive Dinner Party.  Here, you can visit the work of 39 women in lit who are working on the web.

    The Progressive Dinner Party

    A valuable resource for further exploration has been created by Carolyn Guertin.  It is much more extensive and lists most of the work done by women in electronic textuality and new media in general.  It is called Assemblage: The Women's New Media Gallery and is sponsored by trAce out of Nottingham Trent University, UK.  Another good source for listings of women in electronic literature is the Electronic Literature Organization's Directory.  Here you can search further for works by artists and writers you enjoy!

    Because you will not have a chance to visit all of the links, see all of the projects done by women, the continuation of the tour will highlight some interesting work from these sites:  

    Projects by Women

    Mother Millennia by Carolyn Guyer

    One of the most interesting collaborative projects by a woman on the Web is Mother Millennia by Carolyn Guyer. This work is an ongoing collection of pieces from 1000 women and men. In each contribution, the author has drawn on memories of his or her mother - individually, they are comic, tragic, tender, and elegaic. Together, they form a tapestry that honors all of our memories of our mothers.

    Life on a Slice: Private Loves, Public Opera

    This site is a romp--a collaborative, ongoing soap-opera. If you get tired of "The Doctors" or "Another World", you can collaborate with these women on writing your own. Watch for falling irony.

    My Body by Shelley Jackson

    Shelley Jackson is the author of Patchwork Girl, a hypertext we will investigate in class. This is hew newest work, an intimate inversion of point of view--into the body itself.

    The Electronic Chronicles by Adrianne Wortzel

    Adrianne Wortzel's work is sohpisticated and futuristic. In the Chronicles, her "narrator", MuseEleanor, leads us into a world of future-past.

     

    In the year since we did The Progressive Dinner Party, much new and exciting work has been done.  In 2001, I did a collection for The Blue Moon Review which has some great new work.

    Intersections: Explore - curated by Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink

    The rest of your tour will involve some newer works.  Some of these require a Flash plug-in or other special software.  If you cannot access the work, don't worry, just go on to one that you can see!


Continue with Lecture XV.

 

 

 

Literature 45  - Women in Literature :  

Marjorie C. Luesebrink, MFA


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