From Web Fiction to e-Book Publishing: a Journey into some Online Genres and Tools

Córdoba

Workshop; Cuarto Encuentro Nacional de Pofesorados de Inglés ?Lost in Digiland? Txt U more l8r?; 2009

Profesorado de Inglés del Instituto Superior de Formación Docente "Juan Zorrilla de San Martín"

In this workshop we will address two large poles in literary inquiry: both production and reception as integrated in and adapted to online tools and web services. To begin with, we will consider the concepts of reading and writing following Goodman?s model from a transactional sociopsycholinguistc view (1994). From this perspective, reader and writer engage in a ?transaction? with a text; i.e. they not only interact with a text by being active participants but they also ascribe meaning to it by the inclusion of their own background knowledge both in its production or interpretation thus transforming it. Considering the Kristevan notion of intertextuality (1986) and drawing on G. Genette´s transtextual relations (1989), we will focus on the concept of hypertext, in general, and web fiction in particular. Largely based on G. Deleuze and F. Guattari´s notion of the rhizome book (1987), understood as a fictional entity with multiple points of entrance and exit and characterized by both heterogeneity and rupture, we will review some online experiences with hypertext narrative. We will also probe some new and user-friendly web services and internet tools for e-book publishing and explore the use of these resources within the framework of tertiary and university language teaching. Finally, we will survey some interesting and useful reading resources for e-books and other digitalized texts. Participants will be able to gain hands-on experience in the mechanics behind hypertext fiction and in the use of some new publishing and reading resources.