Notes on the Collision Between Humanities Scholarship and Hypertext: Virtuality Rewarded?

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between the valuation of pastiche as an aesthetic form and the perception of value as it applies to electronic projects which combine a variety of media. In particular, I focus on the issue of hypertextual scholarship and the academic value assigned to it. I argue that criticism of hypertextual scholarship often draws from a postmodern aesthetic denigration of pastiche, rather than being solidly grounded in objections to limitations or problems with the technology itself. The postmodern denigration of pastiche rests on three major characteristics which critics such as Lyotard, Baudrillard, and Jameson posit as the form's defining features: a duplicitous intention or a lack of direction; superficiality or facadism; and excess or endless proliferation. Charges against hypertextual scholarship have followed exactly these three characteristics of pastiche and demonstrate how pointedness, depth, and uniqueness or originality mark our sense of academic research ideals and at the same time are often perceived as inherently antithetical to hypertextual scholarship. Adapting to electronic forms of academic communication and presentation of research involves making over our assumptions about what constitutes critical authority, moving away from models that emphasize product and the primacy of the scholar-hero and towards those that rely more on process, collaboration, and communal forms of learning -- in essence, a post-post-modern revaluation of pastiche.