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Introduction:
The irruption of digital technologies in the learning
process
The introduction of digital technologies in the learning
process has meant the creation of new educational spaces
which, when they take place through Internet and are
characterized by non-presence and asynchrony, are known as
VLE (Virtual Learning Environments). We know that
technologies are tools capable of building a learning frame
but it is necessary to endow them with contents and
humanity. E-learning is probably nothing more than a
manifestation of e-living. Perhaps circumstances are giving
us the opportunity to use the coincidence between the
appearance of e-learning as a tool and the need to modify
our traditional model of education, at least at the
university. At all events, we must insist on the fact that
the main revolution is not found in the prefix e (because
quite often a traditional monodirectional learning has been
hidden under the appearance of technological
sophistication). Different voices have warned of the
sterility of a technological environment that does not have
any pedagogical specificity (different from the traditional
models). After all, learning is learning whether it has an
extra 'e' or not and so VLE are only as good or as bad as
the ways they are used. Thus, the revolutionary point of
their use is not the technological aspect but whether they
really offer different and perhaps new ways of teaching.
What seems interesting is to rethink the concept of learning
in modern societies and to take into account that we have
more and more digitally literate students, who are, of
course, using the Internet as a source of resources to be
explored. The European Plan of action “eLearning 2001”
defines electronic learning as the use of multimedia
technologies and of the Internet to improve the quality of
learning. However, we firmly believe that e-learning is an
excellent opportunity for a real improvement of quality if
these multimedia technologies lead us to a more humanized
teaching process. The possibility to use complex systems on
a virtual campus allows and stimulates exchange and
collaboration, with remarkable effects in the students’
success and satisfaction. So the aim of my words will be to
show how good e-learning results are achieved when there’s
a good e-teaching method behind them. To do that, we will
show the example of a completely virtual university,
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (U. O. C.), where the
learning process takes place on a virtual campus and we will
focus on one specific subject: that of comparative
literature. If there were – and there still are –
some risks, I hope that we’ll be able to see that,
finally, the key to define “virtual” in terms of
human experience and not in terms of technological hardware
is the concept of “presence” (Varis, 2000),
which is crucial in our pedagogical model and our way of
teaching comparative literature at a virtual university.
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya:
the first virtual university in the world
In 1995, the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (U. O. C.) was
conceived as the first completely virtual university in the
world. In consequence, we needed to consider if it was
necessary to redefine the idea of teaching, learning and
studying. Our virtual campus works asynchronically and
serves the community of students and teachers. Even in this
heterogeneous and disturbing medium, the ultimate purpose
must still be to teach and to learn. Therefore, when the
environment is not the ‘classroom’ anymore, but
the virtuality of a computer screen, the methodological
approach is crucial and demands a prior reflection. The
cultural and social changes that the Internet has provoked
and the information society in which we are living now
compel us to reflect on the premises on which education and
its assessment methods have always been based and to
consider other ways and different possibilities in tune with
the new era. In the context of the excess of information
that surrounds us, we firmly believe that a lecturer’s
duty cannot anymore be the transmission of knowledge, but
rather a contribution to the generation of this knowledge
and the provision of the necessary intellectual tools that
will allow students to be able to think critically.
We’re now celebrating the first 10 years of the U. O.
C. and, of course, there has been an evolution during this
time because more technologies have been developed and have
become commonplace in our everyday lives. In all these
years, there has also been an important feedback between
students and lecturers and this has obviously contributed to
find our best way to teach literature or literary studies
(literary theory, comparative literature, etc) in these
circumstances, which have so often been considered hostile
for these areas of knowledge. This is why I would like in
this paper to focus on the challenging experience o f
teaching literature through the net.
Universal Literary
Topics
Taking as an example the course ‘Universal literary
topics’, I’ll try to show the way in which we
have organized this course taking as a starting point a
series of texts connected by the fact that they deal with
some of the basic topics of universal literature. There is a
hypertext material now contained also in a CD, which
combines linear reading with sequential or fragmentary
reading inherent to hypertext, as well as video or audio
resources organized around the topics of “desire”,
“journey”, “identity/otherness”. What we
offer are interpretations and readings of some key literary
works through a double intertextual route. That is to say in
a genetical and analogical way that relates different
literary, pictorial or cinematographic texts. During the
process, our intention was to analyse the text from a double
perspective, both towards the present and the future but, at
the same time, within a paradigm formed by other texts that
precede and influence it. The course intends then to
contribute to a transversal reading of universal literature
in a virtual environment of learning, and at the same time
it provides guidelines to students for a practical exercise
of comparative literature. It also suggests reading
itineraries which cross periods and literary traditions that
are far from each other in time and space. Following
intertextual connections that guide us within the
hypertextual corpus, some of the reading routes are
described as randomized and subjective and they show the
broadcast and the articulation of such a topic in the
literary tradition. Students, after familiarizing themselves
with the texts presented in the materials and with the
navigating tools offered by the materials, have to select
some other topics and to build up their own (hyper)textual
corpus which will constitute their final project. And there
is always a constant dialogue between the teacher and the
students so that, although we are a distance university –
or without distances, as our motto has it – the
concepts of presence and accompaniment of the students are
fundamental. This is what provides a true added value to the
teaching and studying of literature at the U. O. C. and it
ensures our success.
Our task in the day by day work as virtual lecturers
combines electronic didactic materials, on-line resources,
digital libraries, web-sites of reference, virtual
exhibitions, etc. and a virtual workshop that is very much
appreciated by the students. This workshop is a web that
allows them to compare their exercises with those of their
peers and to benefit from their corrections too. It is
necessary to seriously consider that on-line teaching using
these digital resources implies becoming detached from
acquired habits and transforming the discourse of
communicative techniques. The fluidity of hypertext obliged
us to rethink one of the main preoccupations of a writer:
the possibility to exert control over the way a reader
reads. Indeed the author-lecturer’s creative act
requires, on the part of the user-student, an interpretative
act and also intends the students to wander around the text.
Hypertext shows a new form of ‘textuality’ based
on the capacity of ‘penetration’ of a text
marked with all the links that open doors to new horizons.
In hypertexts, any illusion of control vanishes: seduction
is the only motivation we wanted to lead towards a
hypertextual wandering. Moreover, the ways of testing the “validity”
of a literary analysis have been deeply modified because we
can develop our speech according to a logic that is no
longer linear and deductive, but rather open and relational.
So, we must react to the transfer of knowledge by
accompanying students in their process of intellectual
maturation, contributing to the virtual blackboard or
inciting the debate in the virtual forum, correcting
exercises in a very personalized way, answering doubts,
considering new questions, etc. After all, it is a holistic
and beneficial task for the students, since it obliges them
to read, to compare, to listen to their colleagues, as well
as to the lecturer, to deeply participate in the course
(which is not usual in packed classrooms as the 100 students
per class that I have at the traditional University of
Barcelona), to organize their ideas in a logical form and to
present them coherently. In other words: to organize and
build their learning process in a radically subjective way,
using their own initiative and capacities. This use of
philology has been defined as much more attentive to the
subject that has to interpret than to the text that has to
be interpreted and to its objective historical reality. It
is more focused on the person that is learning than on the
lecturer, which is completely different from a traditional
university model.
The history of an experiment
We started to design the course in 2001, just at the time
when we were trying to see if the students at the U. O. C.,
students who had passed a selection process which at that
time was called a ‘pilot course’, were capable
of dealing substantially with their new environment through
its own language: that of hypertext. This was the challenge,
but at the same time we had to consider whether we, the
teachers, were prepared for our role of imparting contents
in the specific circumstances of a digital environment. We
were thus not only talking about a campus that allowed
interaction with, and tutoring and monitoring of, students
but we were also facing the risk of replacing our linear
discourse with a fragmented discourse which the students
would approach in ways that we could not control. What does
all this mean? Well, in lectures to my students at the
traditional University of Barcelona, I control the situation
to the extent that the discourse is linear and is delivered
in a linear way. That is to say, for the students to
understand what is to come, I have first to explain other
things in order to maintain a narrative coherence that has
to be complete to allow information transfer to be
effective. It was now not simply a question of having webs
or other virtual spaces to complement my teaching act in the
lecture hall, nor of producing paper materials such as
manuals on a particular topic plus activities for distance
students. No. This time we had to make a double leap into
the unknown to see if we could be replaced or at least
transported to the opaque limbo of a hypertext. This
challenged us to check whether we could do it, that is to
say if we knew how to “disorganise” our academic
discourse which was on the face of it so “organised”.
Obviously we used this peculiar textual form that hypertext
imposes on the works that we read and interpret, a form that
at first appears fragmentary. Fragmentary, because to
practise the art of screen writing or a certain
topographical script necessarily takes us to a certain
spatial arrangement of the contents. This is not
discursively linear in the sense that the discourse is
broken down into items, the words, which constitute blocks
of text linked through contents, but also fragmentary from
the point of view of accessibility of the texts, since only
text extracts have been selected and not whole works. One of
the students, Jakub Pytka, asked us why we had presented
extracts instead of offering the complete works, and I can
assure you that it was not a question of authors’
rights since they were ancient texts whose rights were now
public property. I have thus to confess that we acted
inversely to the way which, according to Chateaubriand, the
moralist Joseph Joubert did things. When he read, he ripped
out the pages that he didn’t like and in this way he
collected a personal library made of stripped volumes. A
collection of fragments, then, which is the consequence of a
certain teaching strategy, but which also reflects changes
in the mentality and perception of the reality that affects
reading and writing as well as cultural production as a
whole. I suppose that we found support in the principle
enunciated by Seamus Heaney in a poem from Electric Light
which is significantly entitled ‘The Fragment’.
The last lines go like this:
“Since when”, he asked,
“Are the first and the last line of any poem
Where the poem begins and ends?”
And I do not know if we succeeded in our
attempt, but the fact is that there were three different
proposals for the use of hypertext or for the diverse
presentation of information. The difference, far from being
seen as a lack of structure, was upheld even in the face of
contrary recommendations from technicians and experts. As a
sign of the diversity of proposed adaptations to the aims of
the course, the main one was to promote critical
perspectives which reconstruct the history of literature
according to deeply personal routes and canons. And to
achieve this we had to forge a close alliance between the
two methodologies employed for the purpose: the principle of
intertextuality (in the production of the materials) and the
conversational interaction in the forum debates. In fact the
course aimed to invert the conventional relationship between
the author-critics on the one hand and the literary text on
the other by transforming the former into the agents of an
exploration that passed freely from one work to another,
discerning their own thematic thread. The hypertext form of
the materials corresponds, then, to this type of
discontinuous reading that moves from one work to another
without a pre-established thread instead of the reading of
each text in its entirety. In this way, the three blocks
into which the material is divided represent three personal
anthologies of extracts – literary or otherwise –
selected for their intertextual relationship with an initial
text that is particularly typical of the topic that each
author has chosen and with comments based on this
relationship. The essential feature of these materials is
the presentation of texts and comments, selected in line
with very general themes and in hypertext format. In other
words, they are series of readings that are not sequential –
one text after another – but rather intertextual –
one text within another. Those of us who have worked on its
design have thought about the new ways of reading that the
Internet and digitalisation have created, where texts are
now not self-enclosed but open up an infinite set of
rewritings and interpretations. At the same time the readers
or students are much more free to follow their own
itinerary, moving from one text to another according to
intertextual associations that are suggested by their
experience and intuition. In these we find coexisting three
examples of intertextual routes that are relatively
arbitrary and personal to the extent that, as we have
already mentioned, the objective of the course is that each
student does the same at the end of the course by
constructing a textual corpus which will constitute the
final project.
The course is to be seen as an example of reading and a
particular literary hermeneutics in which three teachers,
who here act as “model readers”, offer our
reading itineraries through the vast corpus of the world’s
literature based around three specific themes: travel,
desire and identity/otherness. Subsequently, when the
students have surfed and discussed, reasoned and argued over
these three themes and the debates that they generate, we
ask them to do the same as we have done and produce their
own hypertext of readings.
Let us look at the presentation of
the course in the virtual classroom, which contains a whole
declaration of principles:
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the course ‘Universal
Literary Topics’. On Saturday 8th, from 1 to 2 pm and
from 2 to 3 pm, in the Faculty of Translation and
Interpreting, lecture room number 8, we will see each other
for the first meeting when we will be able to exchange
opinions regarding the work ahead. I will attempt to explain
how the course is structured and what kind of participation
I expect from you. However, what I would like to do
straightaway is to make clear that this course is conceived
for you to be the main characters. By this I mean that the
syllabus and contents have not been decided beforehand;
rather they will be constructed and selected in line with
your particular comments and reflections concerning the
materials which the course involves. The forum and debate
spaces are intended for you to freely put forward your
opinions and for you to participate constantly by conversing
with each other, while the set tasks will merely serve as
occasional compulsory checks. From now on, I am at your
disposal for any clarifications or the resolution of any
doubts. I am convinced that the journey that we are about to
make through the world’s literature will be an
enriching adventure for all of us.”
Raffaele Pinto 23/02/2004.
Travel, desire and identity/otherness
In the theme which I developed, the idea of travel led me to
the image of the Western traveller par excellence,
Ulysses. The eponymous Odyssey includes a text which serves
as a base camp and where Ulysses appears confined in hell,
burning in a tongue of flame beside Diomedes. The Odyssey
allowed me to make a leap to canto XXVI of the Inferno in
Dante’s Divine Comedy, but passing via Virgil’s
Aeneid, which provided the opportunity for an
exercise in the ideological reading that Dante makes of it,
with his clear underlying political stance. But the journey
did not end here, for I also took a trip through the
medieval romance so that, in the end, I could transfer my
discourse to a more theoretical reflection on the concept of
“borrowing” and “adaptation”. In a final
twist, this brings us once again to a practical application
and to the reading and decoding of iconographical discourse
by analysing the diverse interpretations that are to be
found in miniatures and certain modern and recent paintings
which illustrate the passage where Dante condemns Ulysses to
the flames.
What, then, did I want to show? First of all I wanted to
show that writing implies initiating a dense and complex
skein of references and allusions, thus making written works
into networks of interlaced textual paths. In the same way,
reading always implies associations, and in order to
understand we must interpret and achieve a profound reading
of a text. At times, this process can sometimes depend on
interesting and attractive detective work, where we pull the
threads to unravel the complex and therefore fascinating
skein of relations among texts, which is known as
intertextuality. At bottom, the striking similarities
between hypertext and text that we find in poststructuralism
and the constant citation that “texts refer to other
texts endlessly” are especially pertinent in this sort
of teaching approach, because it is in hypertextuality that
intertextuality recovers its ideal form of existence to the
extent that the formal properties of an educational
hypertext encourage the readers-students to reach their own
conclusions regarding the contents. From an intellectual
point of view the students become more active and therefore
also interactive. (I know that using the word ‘interactive’,
I am risking the use of a term whose content has become
diminished and banal because we associate it with almost
impossible mechanical actions while what we should really do
is to recover the sense found in Crawford’s The
Art of Interactive Design: interaction takes place when
there is the triple action of listening, thinking and
speaking, something which on occasion we forget.). Active
and interactive, then, also to the extent that the students
feel encouraged to make conjectures, compare opinions and
consult sources easily and directly, to meditate on the
proposed itineraries, to search through them, even perhaps
to spot possible textual continuations. In a word, to read
afresh.
So what does the hypertext format give me? Apart from all
the points that I have mentioned, I have to begin by
admitting that what I felt most keenly was fear. I was
frightened that I did not control my students’ access
to the discourse and to the order that I set down looking
for it to become intelligible. Fear too at not knowing how
to give a lecture on the basis of interruptions,
fragmentation, discontinuity, and thus condemn the
hypertextual arrangement of my discourse to be seen as
lacking coherence. Fear, obviously, of making the students
feel totally lost so that they would be unable to achieve
the goals which as a teacher I had set. In my face-to-face
teaching, where I use semi-virtual techniques, we can meet
the goals, but this experiment was completely different. In
short, what I experimented with was the fear and the
disarray of making truly ours the critical discourse that we
apply to literary works, where the reader’s perception
is radically different from that of the students. These
latter will expect to achieve enlightenment in a course
without knowing how big it is, how many pages there are, how
much there is left to read, where they are unable to see
where to glean the knowledge that they are expected to find,
and therefore whether there are also missing parts of the
course which will appear in the final exam. I think that
basically the fear is understandable to the extent that this
initiative was in fact a new way to teach literature. An
experiment, obviously, whose success depends exclusively on
the students’ acceptance of the method that has
inspired it. Bear in mind that our fear, the fear that I
have evoked, is only the worst part of the panic that is
aroused by materials like these, with nothing on paper and
when it hardly makes sense to print out the screens or links
for the students. Fear, I admit, which paradoxically grows
with the passing of time and whose consequences are truly
difficult to justify. Later we will talk about this in terms
of figures, but by now perhaps you would like to hear how I
tried to overcome my fear. Well, I did it by designing
diagrams, conceptual maps and hierarchies within the links
and pages so as to organise as far as possible, not to say ‘direct’,
the discourse that I wanted to get across. At the same time,
I tried to make the maximum use of the potentialities of the
environment to complement my expertise as a teacher and the
persuasive force of my oral discourse with audiovisual
information which almost forces an interpretation. In the
conventional classroom I can start with an introduction and
then read the text, making brief parentheses for
clarification, which I then sum up at the end. Yet, here
they got the original text or the Catalan translation, with
the possibility of a recital/interpretation by Vittorio
Gassman; they could follow the text on their screens, with
explanatory links, illustrations, complementary webs,
additional references, etc.
However, the procedure which I adopted was not the same as
that of my colleagues. Professor Raffaele Pinto wanted to
bring out the intertextuality in a fundamentally physical
way, with juxtaposed texts, with texts that referred to
other texts from a viewpoint that was strictly textual, or
rather genetic. He wanted to explore desire by diving into
the moral roots of the liberty of the individual, immanent
and lay roots which arose from an experience which was at
the heart of the inspiration of medieval literature.
Subversive at its most intimate moral centre, desire is the
psychological principle that casts doubt on the value and
authority of the laws imposed on the individual from
outside. Professor Pinto understands modernity as a culture
of the autonomy of the subject, who thinks, expresses
himself and acts according to a project of self-realisation
in the world. This is why he points out that Boccaccio’s
Decameron is the first literary text where this new
mentality is manifest in the narrative as a principle of
self-determination of the novel’s characters. In his
hypertext, Pinto brings out the extent to which Boccaccio
investigates the moral and ideological conditions that allow
the individual to become free from the servitude imposed by
the social, religious and political orders in the rigid
feudal system, as well as to see the world as a field of
possibilities, the realisation of which depends on just two
factors: one’s will and one’s intelligence. So
in order to talk about desire, he selected the preface from
Boccaccio’s Decameron, a text which, in its dense
brevity, explicitly sets out a synthesis of the significance
that desire had come to acquire in medieval literature and
of the modern values, which, starting with Boccaccio, would
have a cultural horizon that was lay and secularised. Pinto
draws from him a whole series of textual associations which
allow him to survey the appearance of troubadour poetry in
Romance languages and to establish textual links to Catalan
and Spanish poetry of the XVth and XVIth centuries.
For the third topic, Joan Elies Adell shows how identity is
born out of the disturbing encounter with otherness, and the
extent to which the other has been utilised to construct the
sense of self, the sense of centrality of the world itself.
In effect, historically the construction of the I has used
the other as a way, as a means. This is the reason why this “other”
has always been seen as exotic, peripheral, distant,
marginal, and for this very reason could not have a central
position or speak. The other has been a central figure in
the formation of modernity, a modernity which at the same
time demonstrates the impossibility of reducing the world to
one unique point of view. The other is the object of the
Western subject, constructed by the latter, as an object of
science, of anthropology, of Eurocentric reasoning. Thus, it
is when the other refuses to be simply an object (of desire
and of power) but rather insists on the fact that it is also
a historical subject that the problem arises. This situation
becomes even more complicated when this historical subject,
deprived of speech, responds in the same language, in the
language of the West, which is the language of its culture,
of its literary tradition. Joan Elies Adell’s
extremely exploratory hypertext forces the students to
re-think Western history starting from the role that the
other has assumed. This act of revision takes literary shape
here through a reading of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of
Darkness. With the background of postcolonial
literatures, the aim is to get across the function of
imperialism as a political and ideological system. If we
look back, if we re-read, from the colonised people’s
viewpoint, the way in which culture and history have been
shaped, we can see the existence of different ways to
explain the world and our part in it. Thus, postcolonial
literature and theory are here shown to be an invitation to
re-think, but also to move through the inherited languages,
including the unmistakable sign of otherness, the mark of
the cultural particularity of place and time: the sign of
historicity. To this end his hypertext analyses the first
chapter of the book and weaves a dense network of links that
annotate, interrupt and relate the text to others (in other
literary genres: poetry, essays, etc., and also
cinematographic). Instead of serving as buoys in the midst
of the navigation, they tend to generate a loss, which is
revealed as necessary and inevitable in the reading process
and in literary criticism.
The rules of this particular game
So far we have covered the course materials, but we have to
look more deeply at the idea that the web and the
CD[1]
are not everything. There are also
the tools that are common to all courses at the U. O. C.
There is the study plan, which is available to the students
from the beginning of the course. This provides a clear
temporal order for the contents and arranges them in a
calendar of tasks and guided readings. There are also the
virtual spaces of the noticeboard, forum and debate, as well
as the link to documents and resources, the connection to
the virtual library, etc.
The course is arranged around three activities for
continuous assessment and a final project, as well as
participation in the debates. Continuous assessment implies
an interchange of exercises and corrections between student
and teacher, and this allows the students who take part in
it and who pass to omit the final exam and receive the same
final mark as the average of those for continuous
assessment. Obviously, if they want to opt for a higher
mark, they can always sit the final exam, which is
compulsory for those who do not participate in the
continuous assessment or who do not complete it. As for
contents, the first task is for the students to describe
their view of the structure of the materials and the
consequences that this has for their studies:
familiarisation with the articulation criteria, main texts,
secondary texts, reading list, the search function in
hypertext. In tasks 2, 3 and 4 they have to produce a
reflection based on each of the three themes related to the
paradigm of modernity in literature. Finally, they have to
present a justification of the selected themes and this
takes the form of the final project. Each one of these tasks
is accompanied by a series of conversations in the forum in
which the contents are gradually separated out. There is a
debate about four basic issues: first, the course materials,
and then each of the three thematic blocks and their
critical evaluations in relation to them. At the same time
there appears a whole range of satellite topics which are
keenly taken up by the students: for instance, the
relationship between language and identity, between gender
and language, the subject, the role of women in history and
in literature, anorexia, and so on. Finally, there is a
collective debate on the choice of a critical category, and
the justifications and anthologies proposed by all of those
taking part, as well as a verification of the presence of
the theme chosen in the course materials or of close or
relatable categories.
The results
I should begin by saying that this course has only been
offered for three consecutive years. The course has always
been given by the same teacher, who is also the author of
part of the hypertext, and that I myself, as coordinator of
the course and the hypertext material only intervene in
responding to students in the forum concerning the course
materials, that is to say in the first phase of the course,
which according to the study plan corresponds to the first
two, or at most three, weeks. Having said this, another
basic fact is that the growth of students taking the course
is exponential, going from 7 to 29 and then to 53 in these
first three years. We have to compare this growth
considering that for an optative subject there’s an
average of 15 to 20 students per class and from 5 to 10 in
the first semester.
This extraordinary increase, which has not been observed in
any of the other subjects in the degree, would seem to
indicate the level of success attained. The level which is
not only seen quantitatively in the percentage of good
results but also qualitatively in the feeling of
satisfaction expressed by the students who have done the
course, as well as their sense of having worked well, with
great intensity, and very beneficially, and have shown a
high degree of reliance on, and positive gleanings from, the
classroom debates.
Even so, we will see that it has not been easy. And this is
so, paradoxically, because our initial warnings in the first
semester that the course was offered were greeted with
enthusiasm and understanding by the students. They
understood perfectly well the reasoning behind the ‘shape’
of their literature manual and they were relatively happy
with it, although they expressed their view that their
knowledge was slight when faced with a hypertext that seemed
so rich. Let us have a look at some of their impressions. We
can observe that the students saw the approach as
innovative:
“&As far as I can see, the material is fascinating,
although it looks difficult. I’ve read Laura
Borràs’s introduction, “Re-reading as a
liberating act”, and her point of view strikes me as
very interesting. I had never considered this approach but I
find it extremely appropriate and it opens new ways for me
to relate to literature.
M. Àngels Monte Ochoa de
Aspuru, “Diversos”,
14/03/2002.
“I am truly overwhelmed by the
quantity and quality of the material in the course
hypertext; it brings me face to face with own ignorance and
in fact with myself because it’s incredible how many
things there are that I haven’t read. To be quite
frank, after going backwards and forwards along the many
possible connections, it was difficult to find anything that
I had ever read. Just as well that we can turn to the saying
ars longa, vita brevis, in other words there are masses of
written works to be read in just one lifetime. Perhaps this
is enough to calm us down if, as Laura Borràs says in
her introduction, re-reading is the supreme liberating act
which allows us multiple journeys into literature; we cannot
lose sight of the fact that literary tradition is made up
not only of reading material, but also of the
interpretations of others& I just want to make the point
that literature and its history – of which the course
materials are a wonderful example – are a set of texts
connected by intertextuality, that is to say the
relationship among the texts, but there is also
interreceptivity, the relationship among the different
readings, between the reading of these texts and the texts
that went before &” Miquel Àngel Arasa
Favà, 15/03/2002.
“You feel foolish and aware how small you are when faced with
the infinite transversal lines – vertical, horizontal
and oblique – in the material, which a quick glance
hardly takes in. It is a mixed feeling: on the one hand, you
feel hurt by the reminder, which you consider unnecessary,
of your limitations; on the other hand, grateful because you
see that you are invited, with a large dose of freedom, to
initiate the creative task of designing one of your small
possible canons, some original but inevitably miniscule
thematic collection, or even to plunge into the moving
search and discovery of intertextual connections &
express the wish to share the bliss and joy deriving from
the quality of the contents of the course web.” Josep
Maria Àlvarez 15/03/2002.
“We are faced with an excellent material which expresses an
original idea. And it does this through a wide range of
readings which, above all, bear the cultural and literary
imprint of their authors. Material whose structure, in my
opinion, corresponds to a rather loose interpretation of
intertextuality and which in fact is quite close to the
functioning of our brains, which undoubtedly work through
the association of ideas, sometimes very subtle ones,
derived from our existential background & With this
premise, taking part in our journey might be a fascinating
adventure, an adventure that leads us to open the bottle of
our readings and our most hidden knowledge, to appreciate
passages, authors and concepts and see how far we are
capable of reaching. And at this point where, despite the
putative tolerance of the rules of the game, the course for
the moment still arouses in me a certain sadness. Miquel
Àngel assures us that he is overwhelmed by the
quantity of material and he feels that he is faced with what
he calls his own ignorance. Something similar happens in my
case, and this makes me ask myself: is my intellectual
baggage sufficient to construct an attractive trajectory, to
create a canon of intertexts in which the analogies appear
to have a minimal coherence? I’m afraid of losing the
intention into a puerile dead-end or a maze where each text
is a wall shut off by my own ignorance. These are some of
the doubts which strike me but they coexist alongside the
curiosity and interest that the course arouses in me.”
Josep Maria Roquer 16/03/2002.
“We have here some very good material. At last we are doing a
subject truly from within, exploiting the possibilities
offered by digital technologies. The hypertext format allows
one to go much deeper and more rapidly with regard to
informational and relational possibilities. However, I’m
afraid to lose my way in this sea of texts and images &
From the prior consideration that the possibility of a
transversal reading is undoubtedly a fascinating adventure,
I feel at the same time that this methodology also runs the
risk of an excessive fragmentation of the readings & My
state of mind at the beginning of the course and when faced
with the materials is one of total insecurity; everything
that I don’t know suddenly appears before me, and with
the possibility that it will grow bigger and bigger. I
appreciate perfectly and I share wholeheartedly Roquer’s
‘certain sadness’, and I also feel overwhelmed like
Miquel Àngel and foolish like Àlvarez. I also
have my doubts about whether my intellectual baggage is
enough as the starting point for the preparation of my own
text corpus & I must also say that I very much like the
treatment given to the non-literary materials related to the
texts, especially the pictorial ones. I have spent quite a
time nosing through them. Many thanks.” M.
Àngels Monte 17/03/2002.
“I think that the course texts and materials have been put
together in an attractive and practical fashion: the
resources that compare literatures and the intertextual
focus of the literary endeavour will be very useful to show
us, in an interrelated way, the aspects that coincide in
different literatures. & this relationship & will
allow us to set up a suitable space because we will develop
as literary readers in a creative way, teaching ourselves
strategies of observation and appraisal.” Joana Alba
Cercós 17/03/2002.
“The production of the materials is surprising in its
complexity and its contents. At the same time it is very
attractive to see the possibility of relating concepts and
ideas between one place and another, so that you can attain
different views, treatments and analyses of the texts.”
Martí Ninou Serra 19/03/2002.
These feelings of anxiety, of shortcomings, of being
overwhelmed, contrast with the excellent results that the
group achieved; they were of an extraordinary quality. You
can get an idea of the very high quality of the debate among
the participants if I tell you – though you must keep
it a secret – that several of us teachers were hooked
on the contributions and following them on a daily basis
created addiction. However, these reflections from the pilot
course contrast significantly with the lack of sensitivity
towards the materials demonstrated by the second set of
students. To begin with there was an initial moment of
perplexity over a manual that was not a book, but a web.
They could download the web onto their hard disks, but they
refused to do this and asked for the course on a CD.
Subsequently, their attitude changed when they had seen the
learning possibilities of a teaching approach based on the
students’ self-determination in relation to the route
and the contents. Let’s look at this through some of
their comments.
1. Complete perplexity over the lack of materials. It seems
that a web on its own was not synonymous with materials.
“Dear fellow students: I’m another one who has not
received any materials for this course. I have sent a
message to the office but I still haven’t got an
answer. Have you others received any type of print material?”
Cristina Gallego Jiménez, 27/02/2003.
2. Mystery that stems from the physical structure of the
material, of the medium.
“Although it is very
interesting, this course is somewhat mysterious”. Laia
Morral Plans 27/02/2003
3. There were also students who looked
beyond the form:
“The approach to the course strikes me as very interesting and
I believe that together we can make real discoveries.”
Josep Maria Agustí Julià 04/03/2003.
4. In the light of the bewilderment, authentically textual
versions of the
materials began to appear:
“Given the lack of a print version of the contents, I have
tried to make one, at least of the journey part, although of
course I have not included either the images or the links.”
Lídia Jiménez Comas 05/03/2003.
5. Three weeks into the semester panic
takes hold:
“I urgently need help. I can see that people are making
contributions and I still haven’t received the CD, nor
have I been able to download the material that we have to
read. Can anyone tell me what I’m supposed
to
do?” Teresa Alsina Batí
11/03/2003.
Notice the response to the cry for help!
“I have still not received the CD and neither have I downloaded
the course material. (I started but it took for ever.) What
I recommend is that you work with the material on line or,
even better, print it out. You don’t need to do it all
at once; begin with the journey, then the desire, etc&as
and when you need it. I suppose that you already know, but
just in case, I remind you that the course material in web
format (which I think has the same contents as the CD we’re
waiting for) can be found in the documents space within
the
classroom.” Marta Bordas
11/03/2003.
6. And when the CD finally arrived, it became clear that it
was not what they had expected. I suppose they thought that
the CD would be something like a book, not that it was just
a physical support for the web. However, this also showed up
their limited technical skills.
“At last I’ve received the CD but now I have the problem
(like many of you) that I can’t install it. I will try
to do what Glòria suggests, to see if I finally can
consult the materials. I have printed out the journey but it
is not the same. As soon as possible I will make my personal
evaluation of the materials, I mean the first task. I can’t
wait to see these materials which, from what I have read,
are very interesting.” Teresa Alsina Batí
16/03/2003.
In effect, comprehension comes when they understand that ‘it
is not the same’ because there is a complete
correlation between what we provide and what we demand. It
is not a question of us forcing them to the difficult task
of surfing to find academic contents with a view to study
and memorisation, which is probably where most of the
worries and fears come from. Instead we have provided them
with academic material in web or CD format so that they
explore it, discuss it, comment on it, learn things from it
and, at the end of the semester, produce their own
material.
Finally, I will present the total rejection of the material
format which came from the third – and for the moment
last – group of students. This caused a delay in the
functioning of the course as can be seen in the collective
postponement which they were granted of the deadline of the
first task.
“Friends, I see that many of you have so far not sent in your
first task. I imagine that this is due to the intensity of
the debate generated by the format of the materials, which
is of great interest for the high level of your
contributions, and all this is difficult to cover in a
limited time. I therefore consider it appropriate to
postpone by a few days the handing in of the first task. I
will accept your contributions until 8pm next Wednesday. In
parallel, we will continue with the ongoing discussion on
the first block, related to the theme of desire.”
Raffaele Pinto 13/03/2004.
The initial confusion:
“I chose this subject because I thought it might be very
interesting. What I didn’t realise was that all the
material is in hypertext format, and the truth is that I’m
afraid that it will tire me. To get home and open a book is
not the same thing as to be stuck the whole time in front of
the computer. Well, I hope everything goes OK. ” Fina
Roldán Cobo 02/03/2004.
“It’s the first time that I’ve seen a course in
which hypertext is used. I find this materials format very
interesting because each of us can choose the link which
seems most attractive in order to go deeper into the text
and relate to other information. One might say that it’s
like a realisation of the associative organisation of our
memory. This does not mean that I agree with using materials
of this type because, although you can choose the path you
want to follow, the paths are limited. By contrast, when we
read a book, our memory and imagination are unlimited and we
can relate to any ideas that we want.” Teresa Alsina
Butí 03/03/2004.
“I will see how I get on with the hypertext material, since I’ve
already had to drop out of one course because of it. I’m
sorry but it upsets me. I prefer a system with books where I
can make my own notes undisturbed and not go backwards and
forwards making notes from the screen. In spite of all this,
I will make the attempt.” À ngela Murillo
03/03/2004.
“In this course, I am surprised at the type of material that we
have to use but I still can’t give my opinion about it
because I haven’t really delved into it. I admit
though that my first thought was to print out the lot.”
Rosa Maria Navarro Fernández 06/03/2004.
However, something was beginning to change:
“I was quite surprised that all of the material related to the
course was in digital format. Perhaps this is because I’m
technologically a bit old-fashioned, or perhaps it is
because I have a great passion for the traditional format on
paper. So, full of scepticism and reservations, I started to
wander virtually through the course content, and, in doing
so, I discovered that the format was not all that bad. It is
obvious that hypertext has many interesting aspects. To move
around the CD is like taking a walk, a trip that is
interesting because of the topics of this course, a trip
where you are constantly on new paths, paths that take you
forwards and backwards as if you were walking through a
maze. It has its pleasant side, but in spite of that I
recognise that for a reader accustomed to conventional
linear reading, it will be a problem, as one constantly gets
lost among the words. Perhaps it’s all just a question
of getting used to it, of stopping to see as unknown and
strange a way of learning that seems interesting. And this
topic really could turn out to be interesting because the CD
is of a very high quality. I can only talk about its
strengths: visually attractive, filled with things that
could help us in our research – I’ve even found
fragments from Francis Ford Coppola’s clever film
Apocalypse Now, which, as you know, takes as its model
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Definitively an
interesting find.” Oriol Grau i Mas 07/03/2004.
“My first impression when I saw the material was that I felt a
bit uncomfortable not having a printed version and not being
accustomed to a format with a sea of fragmented contents. It
was certainly my lack of experience that caused this sense
of disorientation – I didn’t know what order to
follow or whether it was the right one. On the other hand,
if there is no paper version, it is also a way of saving ink
and paper. I suppose it’s a matter of getting used to
it.” Rosa Teixidor 08/03/2004.
The initial contact results in rejection and, in
consequence, the defence of books and paper. We also find
thoughts about the contradiction between studying at a
virtual university and rejecting materials that are in line
with the times. This perhaps is evidence that some our
students choose the U. O. C. because it is a distance
university rather than due to the conviction of the value of
its media, but this is also surprising.
“I am one of those who prefer the paper format (although it’s
odd for a U. O. C. student to say this.) I like the contact
with paper; I like to underline with those fluorescent
marker pens in various colours and make my own notes in
pencil. However, I appreciate that the subject requires
something more that the linear format that a book allows.
The most serious problem for me, though, is not the question
of one medium or another. For me the real problem is that
you might get lost among all these hypertext windows that we
can open. We know where to start but we don’t know
what our destination is or whether it’s the right one,
whether we have left something behind or whether we still
have to go further.” [So not everything was
pessimistic.] “Take heart, this is the future.”
Gerard Cortès 03/03/2004.
“I have been reading your contributions and I really agree with
most of you. The advantages of the electronic format are
already well known to us: sound, image, unlimited copies,
free edition of a text, links to the Internet, etc. However,
reading from a computer screen is exhausting and hinders
concentration. Long texts need to be in the traditional
format of book or print. As a fellow student has said, it is
odd to say this at the U. O. C., which is virtual par
excellence, but I feel that reading from the screen is
physically very tiring – your eyes, your body posture.
And clearly, there’s nothing like a book.” Ana
Luisa Campo 03/03/2004.
“I’m sorry to have to say that I prefer paper. I spend
all day in an office facing a computer. Now I have to repeat
the headaches and the bad posture when I get home in order
to study at the U. O. C. . Personally, I don’t think
it will ever be possible to replace a paper book with one in
electronic format. I’m another one who uses the basic
techniques of pencil notes in the margins, underlining,
circling, etc. Up to now most of the courses that I have
studied have supplemented the paper version with an
electronic edition – for me this option is ideal –
and those that use only the electronic format are tiring and
heavy, and I believe that in the end the student does not
perform as well. ” Fina Roldán 03/03/2004.
“I see that most of you are in favour of the traditional book.
I completely agree. I have been wandering through this great
hypertext maze and, to tell the truth, it involves a great
physical and mental effort. So many windows are confusing.
However, I feel that if we could only get used to it, the
electronic format has many advantages. The main one is that
it reduces paper consumption, and it works easily and
quickly. With a book, for example, if it had an appendix, we
would have to find the corresponding page, but here this
doesn’t happen – you just click and the window
opens automatically. For better or for worse, technological
innovations force a reconsideration of traditional methods
& The Internet is another broadcasting medium, much
broader than paper, but it doesn’t imply the
disappearance of existing media, just as the cinema didn’t
kill off the theatre and television didn’t do away
with the cinema. I have never done a course where the
material had such an articulate structure, although it seems
very functional because it is so well organised. I have to
confess, though, that I chose to print it out to have it in
the way I like. As I said before: I prefer the paper format,
I can’t help it!” Monserrat Llombart
04/03/2004.
“Up to now – in my experience at the U. O. C. – the
web or the CD have been used as material complementary to
the basic information contained in the print materials. This
system – that of the CD – does not, I believe,
aid the reading since, as we all know, the paper format is
much easier and more convenient to read. This fact implies
greater fatigue, more breaks to have a rest and consequently
more interruptions of the close reading of a text.
Personally, I believe that a paper version of the material
would help us a great deal. On the one hand, I find that the
material contained in the CD is excellent. It has been put
together carefully and in good taste, and everything is
there – maps, diagrams, photos, etc. I believe that
the CD authors have done a good job. Anyway, if my initial
view of the study materials is not very positive, I hope
that this changes during the course. Perhaps the fact that I
am not used to studying with a CD leads to this negative
view; only time will tell.” Albert Domènech
06/03/2004.
Slowly there began to appear defenders of paper and books
who nevertheless started to be sensitive to the specific
features of the medium and we now see messages that attempt
to find a compromise between the two media.
“Although I am convinced and in agreement with the view so far
that paper is easier on the eyes than the screen, even
though the latter has advantages & just imagine the
notes that would be necessary if you transferred the
hypertext to paper. Notes of notes, and so on.”
Rubén García 03/03/2004.
“From the start, I personally had reservations about the
hypertext format due to the fear of not being able to cover
all the information that it provides. However, as I have got
into the material, investigating the different windows and
links & it is like an adventure – I have to admit
that I have been completely seduced. And I have only covered
a small part. I feel that the advantages of this system are
remarkable. Like David, I believe that the transversality
makes the course even more interesting, facilitating the
task of relating one text to another, of relating works and
authors, etc. All this, bearing in mind that although I use
virtual communication, I still write letters, and I believe
that there is nothing like reading a good book, and that a
screen will never have the charm of some old yellowed pages.
I hope that we enjoy this hypertext adventure.” Alex
Ogier 03/03/2004
“I feel that the course materials in web format (not just
hypertext) have advantages and disadvantages in comparison
to the book format. The first clear disadvantage of the web
format is the need to read on the screen, making us
dependent on a relatively unmovable device, with a landscape
format for long texts, where the book has a portrait format,
and the impossibility of making notes or marking and
underlining the text. This disadvantage is compensated for
in the case of ephemeral information, where one moment’s
reading has no subsequent use; here the web format is
preferable to a permanent material such as paper. Although
this ephemeral nature is not a typical feature, the web
format is also superior to paper when the contents are
subject to revisions and changes for whatever reason. In the
case of the course materials, the book format would be
better because of the permanent nature of the contents. The
main advantage of the web format is the possibility that is
called hypertext. In most cases, the significance of this
neologism is limited to links between words and related
information. The relation can be of different levels, such
as the following: One: Dependent information, equivalent to
a book’s footnotes. It is the only sort of hypertext
that I’ve come across in the materials, and it is
applied in two ways. Two: Superposition of the explanatory
note or the opening of a new window. (By the way, if you
forget to close it after consulting it, it stays underneath
and if you try to use a new link, you get tired of waiting
because the information is sent to the same window, and
since this is underneath, you don’t see it until you
realise what’s happening or when you think the system
has got blocked.) Three: Jumping to another text and leaving
the previous one. This leads to erratic reading. Luckily,
the course materials have not used this tactic and have
preferred to organise reading in branched menus. Another
clear advantage of the web format is the availability of
search devices, since the text is digital, and this is also
true of word processors and browsers. These search devices
allow simple searches (like those of Word, Explorer or the
materials) and also sophisticated searches using word
fragments, wild cards, logical operators, etc. In the case
of search devices dealing with limited texts, the most
sophisticated use that I have experienced is that of
converting all the words into base forms, so that all verb
forms are equivalent, the same as the forms of nouns and
adjectives, (gender, number, prefixation, suffixation,
diminutive, comparative, etc.) In the case of the materials,
the search device is of the least sophisticated type of all
those I have described. This is perhaps not so important for
the type of simple searches that I suppose we will have to
make on our texts from mixed sources and the didactic
presentations. In the search device of the materials, I see
a special advantage: it gives you at once all the documents
that contain the search expression. However, I would
criticise it because you yourself have to find the
expression within the document, and you have to do this with
the browser’s editor if you don’t want to get
lost in a long text. Given everything that I have said, I
think that I would have preferred the texts on paper. So
much so that, for my reading, I have converted them to Word
and printed them out. As for the research work, I will go
back to the web materials in order to get the maximum
benefit of each format.”
Xavier Rebull 04/03/2004.
“There’s nothing like paper. Take my word for it, reading
a book, even if it is only a part or a page, sitting in
front of the computer is not the same as sitting on the sofa
or lying down in bed, with the freedom of movement that the
computer denies us, because who has read a book that you can’t
put down without changing your posture while you read?
Everybody does so. You make yourself as comfortable as you
like or that the situation (of the book) allows. On the
other hand, I also recall that we are in a virtual
university, and society is changing, so the way to teach and
the materials used in education also have to change”.
[However, although it seems that she is convinced,
notice that the reasoning is poor and implausible.] “I’m
telling you, in this case it seems to me appropriate given
that you don’t have to go forwards and backwards
between pages; instead the screens solve this problem for
you”. [In the end, it seems that the only
advantage is of an ecological nature or because of questions
of space.] “On the other hand, we must be
ecological. This is also positive because there is a
considerable saving in paper. Imagine the amount of paper
needed to print the materials for this course. So, for those
of us who are studying, for the moment a few trees have been
reprieved. To be practical, we also have to think about
space, since all we need is a computer and a little place
for the CD. Books take up space, and there comes a time when
there’s none left. Don’t you find that’s
true? ”. Monserrat Jou 04/03/2004.
“(&) Regarding hypertext, I also believe that it is a
wonderful system to extend and complement the information
contained in a work.” [But very soon we get the
resounding confirmation.] “Personally, I have
printed out a large part of the links to give myself an
overall idea of what the CD contains. Perhaps this is not
the best way, because in the future if we have to print out
all the hypertexts, the house won’t be big enough to
store all the paper, and hypertext, which is designed to
save paper, will have the opposite effect. Perhaps one
should only print out what is really interesting and leave
the rest on the CD. Hypertext is like a great library at
your fingertips.” Carles Amengual
06/03/2004.
Although it is difficult to believe,
there were a few positive initial reactions, even though the
wording expresses shock, confrontation and, above all,
moderation.
“It is the first time that I happen upon a hypertext for my
studies. But for the moment it strikes me as brilliant.
Although the organisation and the system of links that take
you to more links might seem disturbing, ” [Here
we come to the true reason why the materials are not totally
rejected.] “I find that the horizontal invasion of
my desk that I used to cause when I was studying is now
reduced to my PC and not much more: papers, set books, one
or two reference titles. Previously it was: the set text,
the text supplements, the sheets with the recommended
reading list, the manual or encyclopedia to look up terms.
Whew! For me the defining description would be that the
occupation is at an end. For the moment, delighted; but we
will see how I manage when I get stuck in. I might start
climbing up the walls &” Monserrat Poveda
02/03/2004.
“I have been surfing the course web and I find that the
material is simply pleasant and enlightening. I think that
in a subject like this one the idea of tranversality with
different texts is fantastic. How many times when we were
reading a book have our thoughts turned to another? Well,
here I find very sensible the links to other literary works
that can illustrate a particular topic. It is not a question
of whether the windows that open annoy you or not; it is
rather than they simply take us deeper into the matter. I
think that it is good material, although I will undoubtedly
notice that something or other is missing, but the important
thing is that it is instructive and, above all,
user-friendly. And it strikes be as being just that. I can’t
imagine this course in paper format. Well, I can imagine it,
but with notes in the margin telling us to consult a web
page or a book. In courses like this one I am completely in
favour of hypertext materials. At least this is my feeling
at the moment and I hope that it stays that way. We will
continue to discover things, of course.”
David Font 03/03/2004.
“I would like to say that I like these materials in hypertext
format. Even so, the first time that I was faced with
similar materials – I am thinking about Medieval
literature, which presented all the texts like this –
I felt a bit nervous. I had the impression that I was
missing something, that I hadn’t read everything.
Subsequently, I learnt to read right through without
interruptions (without opening windows) and get the gist of
the thing. The second reading served to go deeper, to take
notes & In the end I found it fantastic: I had a lot of
information available to me. So, the materials of “Universal
literary topics” has neither surprised nor worried me.
I feel that one notes the clear imprint of Laura
Borràs. I have already done a couple of courses with
Laura, and one of the things that she has made me familiar
with is the virtual workshop, a space where we find the
reading list, the supplementary links and the students’
projects. Highly stimulating!”
Assumpta Grabolosa 04/03/2004.
We note that, as well as the opinions of the other students,
the open dialogue in the forum also clarifies
standpoints.
“After reading Xavier Rebull’s
message, I believe that there is one word which eliminates
pros and contras: Complementariness. By this I mean that we
have to benefit from the two possible formats, digital and
paper. One can complement the other. We must break down
barriers.. ” Monserrat Llombart 04/03/2004.
“Well, you’re right: lots of complementariness. As a
matter of fact, it’s fantastic for me to have the
basic course material on a CD – it saves my back. This
does not mean that I don’t print out parts so that I
can make notes, etc. Nor does it mean that paper is
forgotten for ever more. My notes, diagrams and summaries
are still to be found on my desk. I find just one problem,
if we want to call it that: the hypertext format. It’s
a one-way format. The authors produce it so that we can
follow it but not work on it. Let me explain. I don’t
mean the text or the contents; I mean underlining, adding
notes, etc.” [Gradually, then, they accept them
and start to see new possibilities, and want to realise more
potential aspects.] “Like a PDF, where you can
mark, underline, circle and insert notes. I am not sure
whether such a format would complicate things further –
perhaps it would. But if we have to study with it, perhaps
we would have to be able to really make it our study
notebook.” Monserrat Poveda 04/03/2004.
“It is clear that it is easier to read a page from top to
bottom that to immerse yourself in hypertext, which is more
complex and for me, perhaps because of this, more rich.
Links are like closed doors; they arouse my curiosity as to
what lies behind them and I can’t resist opening them.
Material that makes me inquisitive strikes me as wonderful.
It is true that in the beginning I have a certain sensation
of confusion, but once I passed through the first stage of
discovery, I have continued to find reference points in the
material itself (index, menus, conclusions) which help me
not to lose my way and allow me to wander without worrying.
This material requires a new effort to get into it; we will
have to find or invent strategies, (for example, one fellow
student reads it through without stopping at any links and
opens them during a second reading.) Anyway, I also think
that it is a very stimulating way to present the course and,
as other students have said, the contents are very good and
attractive. I think that the disadvantages that have been
mentioned so far are easily overcome. The only point that I
find a bit tedious is the thing about re-reading. ”
Maria Serrahima 07/03/2004.
“After reading the many contributions, what has surprised me
most is the rejection that the format of the course material
has provoked. And the surprise comes from what for me is the
contradiction of studying at a virtual university, but not
accepting what that entails, which includes, among other
things, that the material is also in a different format. By
this I don’t want to appear to be the great defender
of hypertext because in fact my first reaction when I saw
the CD and started to surf it was one of anxiety. Anxiety
because I got lost and I was faced with a heap of material
which I didn’t know how to handle and which
overwhelmed me. Even now I’m not sure that I know how
to handle it, and perhaps it will get the better of me, but
as it says quite rightly in the presentation, we only have
to know how to connect the pieces as we surf. And this is
what we have to get more and more used to, even though, like
most of us, I still prefer materials and books in paper
format. I agree that hypertext places movement restrictions
on one’s studies, but I do not agree with what some
have said: that an educational text has to mark out a
specific route while an informal text has to allow freedom.
I believe that literary texts are the highest expression of
what authors wanted to say, whether or not we like what they
say or the way they say it. By contrast, an educational text
cannot stake out a route; it has to lead us to a goal, that
of knowledge, but leaving us free to get there by different
routes. And that is what the format of this course material
allows us to do. We can go straight ahead, or we can use the
many links that are provided to make stops on the way in
order to dig deeper.” Teia Bastons 07/03/2004
“I suppose that the fact that the materials are in a still new
format enriches the forum with opinions of all sorts.
Personally, my wander through the course materials made me
curious. (&) I understand that it is easier to use
papers, scribbling on them, making them your own, but we
must appreciate the great possibilities that hypertext
offers. As readers, we’re free to decide how far we
want to go in the hypertext journey that we have to
undertake. In effect, in certain courses at the U. O. C.
hypertext offers us a learning that is more agile, more
pleasant and more interactive. At the moment I recall, like
Assumpta, the materials of Medieval Catalan Literature. We
have to consider that those made available to us pages and
pages of different books without having them on our desks
and we can consult them one by one. And it allows us to do
this while we weave our own way and it makes clear that
literature is a living discipline. I will finish with one
last point: this course is also special with respect to its
contents. Because to study world literature starting from
desire, travel and identity/otherness rather than
chronologically or starting from the most renowned authors –
which is what traditionally happens – is truly
innovative. And interesting. And I feel that the formula of
transversal study is a fine way to refer to themes and
present them because it often stimulates the students and
spurs them on to broaden their knowledge. And for me this is
authentic learning.” Rosa Clarena 08/03/2004.
“Let me finish by saying that I find it courageous to present a
subject (and even more so a Literature, a concept that we
always associate with books) in this format. I feel that it
would have been half-baked if the CD had just been of
supplementary material. Personally, I have no problem with
the visual fatigue that the screen is supposed to cause or
the fact that I can’t read in bed, as someone
mentioned. For me these arguments are not very serious. The
truth is that I work for hours in front of a screen and I
have never studied lying in bed or on the sofa. As for the
contents, I feel that the authors of the CD have produced a
presentation that is ordered, pleasant and, as someone has
said, quickly arouses your curiosity. For all these reasons
I feel that we should get stuck in and see how it goes.”
Joan Piqué 08/03/2004.
And with the euphoria of those who up to now had been
reticent, confirmations started to arrive:
“In my presentation I was not too
positive about studying with the format we’ve been
given, and after the first week I would like to confirm
this. I am speaking absolutely personally, and I have total
respect for those like Núria who are enthusiastic
about the CD. My sincere congratulations. By contrast, for
me, it is tedious to get home after a long day at work, to
sit down facing the computer and not be sure where to begin.
(Open and close windows, go from one side to another,
nowhere convenient to take notes, difficulty to concentrate
in the short study time that I have.) It would be easier for
me to have it on paper like other courses, and use the CD to
refer to supplementary material and as a means of
researching information and/or to accede to interesting web
pages, as many of you have said. As a matter of fact, I have
started to devote more time to the other subject that I am
enrolled for. After reading your views, it is difficult for
me to add anything new, especially after the contribution
from Àngels Gayetano and the pros and contras set out
by Xavier Rebull, with which I agree one hundred per cent.
The CD is all right; I grant you that it is well organised,
but I don’t see it as the only material. And rather
than ending up printing it out, I would prefer to have it on
paper to start with and not waste paper and ink. I’m
sorry; I’m afraid that more than one contribution is
like a hankie with tears.” Á ngela Murillo
07/03/2004.
“After reading my fellow students’ contributions and
after a look at the CD which contains the course material, I
have to align myself with those who are more or less against
the materials being exclusively in this format. I have had
the opportunity to study two courses with CD materials (the
two medieval literature ones), but in both cases it was a
matter of material that was supplementary to the basic
course, which was on paper. I feel that it would have been
more appropriate to provide the basic material in paper
format. The other, as a fellow student as said, could
present a sort of text that was longer and denser, providing
all sorts of complementary material – links,
illustrations, diagrams, etc. – in digital format. For
me the computer represents my connection with the
university, with the class as we might put it, but I still
can’t see it as my study tool. Apart from visual
fatigue and the difficulty to concentrate, I have to make
the most of any brief period for my studies, making notes
and revising, and at many of these moments I don’t
have the computer. I have to say that I find the material on
the CD well produced and very suitable and, although I have
printed out a lot of the contents – basically the ones
that I feel should have been provided on paper – I do
not rule out a change of opinion during the course.”
Marta Puiggarí 07/03/2004.
But let us not think that all is lost. In the end, there are
some changes in their attitude.
“I admit that before I delved into
the study of the CD, I had my doubts about this new study
method. Like many of you, I felt that it was suitable only
as a complement to the print material. Now, after having
gone a bit deeper, I am delighted with what I have seen, the
quality of the images, the very original way to present the
course, the links, as well as the freedom that hypertext
gives you to create your own itinerary.”
Rosa Maria Navarro 08/03/2004.
And the final compensation arrived after
months of intensive work. I made 12 long contributions and
articles were needed with further readings on the theme in
an attempt to move them on from the low-key debate about
paper or screen where they had got stuck. I tried to get
them to see that what was needed was a reflection over the
two choices: the form as a function of the type of content
and the cognitive experience that we wanted to engender. The
teacher also made 6 contributions in the same vein.
Subject: Materials
Date: 13:50:45 01/03/2004
From: Raffaele Pinto
To: World Literature Noticeboard
Friends,
As you know from your study plan, the first week’s
task is “Opinions on the structure of the course”,
which implies that you familiarise yourselves with the
criteria underlying the arrangement of the material (main
texts, secondary texts, reading lists, etc) and with the
function of ‘research’. You have until 2 March,
which is the deadline for handing it in. Since we are
dealing with a hypertext in the strict sense of the term
(since it is not possible to transfer it to paper), it is
very likely that some of you will find the reading
uncomfortable. Not because of the medium (a screen instead
of a book), but because of the presence of windows, which
interrupt the page you are reading and take you to another
page, which in its turn is interrupted by other windows, and
so on indefinitely. Just as one of you pointed out last
Saturday, the sensation of discomfort arises from the fact
that there are no beginnings and endings either in the
literary texts themselves or in the comments upon them,
which refer to each other in an apparently random way. In
order to avoid the impact of this format being too
traumatic, we might start our conversation in the forum by
commenting on this new way of reading which the course
proposes. I expect comments that freely express
difficulties, discomfort and even criticism of the
arrangement of the materials. Above all, do not forget to
mention the inconveniences, however personal they seem –
there will certainly be fellow students who share them.
Friendly greetings
Ciao!
Raffaele Pinto
Subject:
Date: 16:53:11 05/03/2004
From: Raffaele Pinto
To: World Literature Noticeboard
Friends,
I am reading with great interest your contributions to the
forum. As well as indicating interest and a sense of
responsibility in relation to the subject, they include
suggestions which will certainly be taken up in future
editions of the materials.
(&) I also remind you that I am at your disposal for any
individual consultation – you can use my private
mailbox.
Ciao!
Raffaele Pinto
Subject: Fragmentation of the texts
Date: 12:32:10 07/03/2004
From: Raffaele Pinto
To: World Literature Noticeboard
Attachments: Jameson.doc
Friends,
I am intervening in your interesting discussion (in which,
unfortunately, half of you have still not participated) in
order to focus on one aspect of the hypertext format of the
CD which I feel is especially worthy of consideration –
leaving aside the legitimate complaints about the
inconvenience of the screen in comparison to paper. (&)
I dealt with this topic in an article that reproduced a
contribution to a symposium on literature and new
technologies which took place at the U. O. C. last year. I
am attaching it so that those of you who want to go deeper
into the topic will find some useful arguments. The article
was intended for publication on paper, so you can print it
out.
Ciao!
Raffaele Pinto
Subject: more fuel to the flames
Date: 01:39:29 10/03/2004
From: Raffaele Pinto
To: World Literature Noticeboard
Attachments: Joan_Elias1.doc Laura1.doc
Friends,
Laura’s contribution broadens our debate considerably.
It invites us to reflect on our post-modern situation as ‘Gutenberg
orphans’, if you will forgive the expression. The
problems that Laura brings up, are not just related to the
contents of the materials, but in fact represent an
invisible thread running through all of them, and in a way
reconstruct a unity where it seemed that there was just a
casual coincidence of topics. I believe, in fact, that this
leitmotiv will keep turning up throughout our critical
journey. And I trust that Laura, with her valuable
contributions of ideas, also wants to join us on our voyage.
For all of us, it will be an unexpected luxury. For your
dossier on new technologies, I am attaching two theoretical
papers, one from Laura and one from Joan Elies Adell, author
of the block of materials on identity/otherness.
Ciao!
Raffaele Pinto
Subject: First assessment task
Date: 16:27:39 10/03/2004
From: Raffaele Pinto
To: World Literature Noticeboard
(&) In fact, I congratulate all of you on the high level
of participation and for the quality of your reflections,
which will certainly help us (Laura, Joan Elies and me) to
improve the materials, which are an experiment in a new way
of teaching literature. An experiment whose success depends
exclusively on your acceptance of the approach that inspired
it.
After this first week (or two) of familiarisation with the
structure of the materials, now it is time to get down to
the contents, beginning with the block that deals with the
topic desire. My intention is that you contribute to the
forum with the same spontaneity and freedom that you have
shown so far. The forum should serve for you to think aloud
and not feel afraid to put into words your reactions to what
you are reading, the texts and the commentaries, both of
them being the object of your critical and aesthetic
appraisal. Finally, I think that I am interpreting the
feeling of all of us who are taking part in this beautiful
adventure when I ask Laura to keep up the ‘counter-attack’
whenever she feels like it. Having got used to enjoying her
point of view (without doubt the view that most sees the
subject from the inside), we would miss her lucidity if she
wasn’t there.
Ciao!
Raffaele Pinto
Number of messages to the
noticeboard
Some final assessments.
“My main assessment of the course is that it has taught me to
read from a more general, more transversal and more critical
perspective. I have learnt to read a work not on its own,
isolated from the world of literature, but rather by fitting
it into the whole. It is a critical and generalist view that
is highly enriching. At the same time, this view is
personal, fitting in to our own history of reading and
literature. What Raffaele calls ‘for me’. I have
really enjoyed the approach to the subject, which avoids
both passive reading and lectures from teacher to student,
and makes you think. Because the information itself is
always there in one place or another. What is needed is
precisely this capacity to think critically. As for the
approach, I have found the use of hypertext very suitable,
especially in this type of university. However, I suppose
that the web could continue to grow. The debates have struck
me as very interesting, and you feel motivated when you know
that they are being closely followed. In sum, it has all
been very positive and enriching.” M. Alba Serra
13/06/2004.
“The aim of the course was to promote critical perspectives in
order better to understand the works that were set before
us, and in my opinion it has been quite positive. The text
readings sent by Raffaele, the personal consultation of
books, internet searches and the CD material have all helped
me to understand the authors and their place in history. The
aspect of modernity in the texts. To tell the truth, I would
have liked to be able to go deeper in the works. But
participation in the continuous assessment has encouraged me
to read the Divine Comedy and the Decameron, and I
feel that this is a great achievement. Analysing the works
and looking at them critically has motivated me to
understand them and to continue working on them. I think
that the teaching approach is quite coherent. The first task
on intertextuality helped us to begin to familiarise
ourselves with the contents and feel at home with the
materials. My participation in the forum has been rather
poor because I have been busy, but as a student I am very
pleased with the individual treatment. I feel that there has
been recognition that I had little time to devote to the
course, and this has motivated me to continue with it. I
feel that it would be very interesting if the course could
deal with classics or works that the students had read
previously (as happened in the last assessment task) and
relate these to the works included in the course. This would
involve the student more and help to analyse the contents in
other areas and to compare them.” [And lastly a
bit of advertising!] “That’s all, I thank
you all and I’d like to tell you that on 15th and 16th
of July at 9pm in the Beckett Workshop I will perform a
monologue that I have written, my first work as a director.
You’re all invited. Big hug.” Rosa Teixidor
Castellà 13/06/2004.
“I would not like to take my leave of all of you without some
brief reflections. Right from the beginning, I felt that the
goal that this course aimed at was that each of us, after a
first reading guided by the hypertext, would come to their
own reading, or re-reading, of the proposed theme. I really
believe that this has been achieved. Each of us in our own
way. What I mean is that all of us, through the experience
of what we have read and our particular cultural interests,
which obviously vary a great deal, have been able to imagine
and find new paths and itineraries. I very much appreciate
the contributions to the forum because this has made the
course dynamic, active and participatory. Even if it was
only in a small way, many of us have got involved. In a
university like this one, where we in fact see each other
very rarely, the contributions of our fellow students help
us to ‘live’ the subject in a different way, and
to feel part of a goal and an experience. (I also say this
because I have suffered courses in which the teacher and the
students made not a single appearance in the forum. In these
cases, I felt completely alone and it obviously affected my
dedication.) It’s obvious that at times we haven’t
read carefully each other’s messages – I include
myself – and on occasion our contributions have been
disconnected. We should have sent a message that week but we
were all short of time and on the last minute. In spite of
everything, we’ve kept up the pace. We have to thank
Raffaele for sticking closely to the syllabus timetable. We
have always felt that he was by our side & However,
after reading the materials that Raffaele has given us –
some have made me think a lot – I would have liked him
to contribute a little to our debates. That would certainly
have been interesting and useful. Well, nothing else. I’ve
enjoyed this course a lot. I’ve felt comfortable and
perfectly free to choose and construct my own paths, to seek
and find readings and, above all, to put into practice the
series of ideas that the readings have suggested to me. Have
a nice summer.”
Assumpta Grabolosa 20/06/2004.
It seems that, at last, it has become clear that it is not
enough with the virtual environment or even the materials
that are a reservoir of contents. Practice shows us that,
after the close accompaniment that they have had, the
students finally understand the philosophy behind the
course; they more than achieve the aims of the course, take
an active part and show a very positive attitude to the
subject which had caused so much mistrust at the beginning.
I will now show some figures comparing the three generations
of students that have taken the course to see how much
interaction there has been in the classroom, and the steady
growth over the three years of the controversy regarding the
materials in the body of messages to the forum.
Or the number of messages whose aim is to express views
about the ‘form’ of the course.
It is also significant to observe the drop-out rate and even
the increasing amount of ‘silence’ due to the
fact that some students [2]
remain ‘voyeurs’ and do not participate in the
dialogues with their fellow students . Regarding this point
it is worth noting that the increase in the number of
repeating students is always a result of dropping out during
the first six weeks and not from failing the course,
something which could also happen and is quite normal in all
courses. All in all, this is a factor that we need to watch
since, in just three semesters, the number of students who
drop out or postpone and who therefore repeat the course is
on the increase:
And we believe that it is not just the amount of work that
puts them off (data on the number of activities):
This figure is surely also influenced by the pedagogical
choices made in the course. In any case, I can assure you
that the process is extremely stimulating and the results
demonstrate that it is all worthwhile. Data on contributions
to debates:
And finally, data on the academic
results:
As well as entering into and understanding the dynamics that
we propose for the course, if it turns out that the students
realise that the best way to carry out their own work is by
using the same hypertext format and constructing their own
webs, then we find that they have squared the circle. We
give ourselves a medal and the satisfaction that this
produces puts a few kilos on us. You can consult some of our
students’ work in the HERMENEIA web: some arising
directly out of the course: Josep Maria Àlvarez
(work
on pornography), Teresa
Vilà (on
adultery) and M. Alba Serra (on
war),
and some out of their teaching: Josep Maria Roquer
(web
of poetic hermeneutics),
Núria Casademunt (alienation
in Kafka).
We would have liked to tell you about other experiments that
we have carried out. For example, we took a cabaret to the
university and studied it during a whole semester of the
course on Comparative Literature; we could also mention the
work in progress in the course Digital Literature, which
will come on line next September. We intended this to be
eminently practical given that there are already other
degree subjects that have a historical approach to
hypertext. We also wanted the students to act as literary
critics of works of digital literature but the existing
works would have been a challenge to the linguistic
competence of most of the students. Consequently, we have
designed a work of digital literature with different surfing
possibilities[3]
so that students can undertake an authentic and complete
exercise of literary criticism. If we have had so many
problems when the materials were simply hypertext, now that
the task of exploration we are requiring is much more
complex, I don’t know what the degree of acceptance
will be. We will have to wait and see, but in any case the
challenge is there to be taken up.
_______________________________________________________________
[1]
This transformation in the presentation of the contents
derives precisely from the reticence towards the web of all
the students. Who knows whether the CD gives them the sense
of ‘physical possession’ and therefore the
possibility of controlling the information, an idea which
the web does not seem to provide them.
[2]
The teacher has made several
calls for participation from the silent ones. Quote: “However,
I’m worried about the group’s low level of
participation. I still haven’t heard anything from 32
students. Although they are not compulsory, these
contributions to the forum are for me the only indication of
your interest. So I hope that you will all be capable of
overcoming your shyness and expressing your opinion, (like a
substantial number of you do.) ” Raffaele Pinto,
05/03/2004.
“I have the feeling that every time we go deeper into the
topics there is a reduction in the number of people
interested. By contrast, I do not want anyone to feel
excluded from the discussion because the initial
methodological approach, the ‘for me’ of the
literature, entails that all of us are affected equally by
the topics dealt with in the literature (and with equal
rights to express an opinion)” Raffaele Pinto
26/04/2004.
[3]
The Diary of an Absence
aims to be an example of intimate personal writing through
something which has been put into words but which perhaps
should have remained unsaid. Arranged in the form of a
diary, this narrative follows the paths of absence by
delving into the pain that is caused by desire, a desire
that is reflected in this particular box of raptures in the
face of a separation from the loved one. To the idea of
introspection arising from the exercise of spiritual
reflection and the flood of torn feelings that this brings,
there appears the idea of the house as a cloister, which is
the scenario in which the tale in our hypertext exercise has
been set. A closed space, with rooms to walk through, just
as we travel different routes when we go deeper into the
intimate truth of the suffering narrator. The apparently
illogical ups and downs of the narrator’s thoughts are
metaphorically translated into the maze where the reader
gets lost, this reader who has come in search of words that
will lead towards the interior that tells a story of love,
of the loss of love, of passion and of impossibility. The
Diary is an eminently textual product, situated in a
determinate visual and musical dimension, which offers the
reader a pilgrimage, a journey to be undertaken. We have
chosen to use technology for a goal that is aesthetic,
narrative, semiotic and hermeneutic. In this regard we must
point out that here you will not find a range of the most
advanced media as a technological exhibition without any
other purpose than the mere display of resources, but rather
a group of computer-based media in the service of an
aesthetic digital product. Its fundamentally hypertextual
nature evokes the most secret and intimate aspect of
hypertext – something that becomes still more relevant
when you bear in mind the element of confession, of
self-confession that is implicit in a private diary. At the
same time we find a combination of the creative synergical
possibilities of artistic languages like image and music
which tell us of its hybrid nature. It is a multiple,
complex product in that the text is annotated with the
comments of a ‘model’ reader – in this
case another teacher at the U. O. C. – who goes
through it and into it in the search for meaning. The
critical view of an external eye, which immerses itself in
this chronicle of pain and absence, is realised in the first
interpretative exercise, which invites the readers to
express themselves while at the same time offering possible
clues to the reading which are to be
discussed.
The Diary of an Absence presents five
possible approaches to the text and therefore five different
possible readings.
1.- First, there is the exploratory immersion in the
house-scenario that it offers, through the rooms, the words
acting as passwords and points of access to the different
days of the text. This is a way where curiosity and the
chance in our choices take us to words that act as a call
that allows the hidden text to appear, the text to which
they refer, to which they in fact belong because that’s
where they came from.
2.- Second, one can follow a numerical reading by looking in
the ‘treasure map’ for the numbers that allow a
chronological reading of the diary’s pages.
3.-Bearing in mind that each diary page corresponds to one
day in a month, a third reading is also possible based on
the texts that have been discovered/revealed in the linear
order of the calendar. We must remember, however, that the
correspondence between the word selected and the day of the
month to which it refers will not be visible until the
content of the word has been revealed.
4.- Another possible way of reading is the one which allows
us to consult the map or plan of the house and its
surroundings to see which object entails an access to the
text and where it is situated.
5.- Finally, the map situates in space the different lyrics
that constitute this painful melody, and one can allow
oneself to be taken where the music suggests, to go to the
text that corresponds to the music that is evoked. Words,
numbers, objects, lyrics and chance are the means for this
particular journey into the darkness of the soul.
In this context, we ask ourselves: Is reading something that
can be shared? Will everybody have read the same Diary if
everybody’s reading is necessarily different? Even one
single person can read it differently on different
occasions. To what extent will a linear reading of the Diary
of an Absence, the reading that is most literary and least
playful-exploratory, diverge from the reading that one can
carry out on paper with the fragmented and random texts of
the individual pages of a diary? Will the choice of music,
of the landscape surroundings in which the words, objects
and texts are to be found, in short, will a digital reading
represent something more, an aesthetic experience different
from the analogical, conventional reading of the Diary as a
diary? What type of reading emerges in this changing
context, with so many senses involved, with so many options
for the reader? These and many other questions can only be
answered by our students after they have engaged with the
Diary.
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