@ play

In the end, is this hypertextual document able to be an academic dissertation by creating some form of new knowledge?

I strongly believe that it does. The analytical content of this dissertation comes to a conclusion that attempts to delineate the new and unique distinctions that the computer brings to what a story is and can be. And the rhizomatic form of this dissertation illustrates how hypertext can enable unique explorations and new modes of narrating, communicating, teaching and learning. Deleuze and Guattari note the rhizome, "has multiple entryways and exits and its own lines of flight," and it, "connects any point to any other point, and its traits are not necessarily linked to traits of the same nature; it brings into play very different regimes of signs, and even nonsign states. The rhizome is reducible neither to the One nor the multiple... It is composed not of units but of dimensions, or rather directions in motion" (21).

As I have said, I created this dissertation primarily for the web. I could burn this site to a CD-ROM, but the continual dynamics would be lost. The textual version is an artifact mapped from the hypertext. In looking at them together, I think the textual version is easily the lesser of the two versions. I believe that this has to do with the fact I was engaging in a different type of writing that does not translate well into linear, textual discourse. The secondary version becomes a textual exquisite corpse, pieced together from a variety of perspectives and ins and outs from the rhizome of the web. The hypertextual links will only be underlined artifacts within the text and the connected ideas will be severed and separated from each other.

This dissertation is a dynamic and rhizomatic document. A lot of the meaning comes in between and around. The associative linkings from words, phrases and images move rhetorically and performatively between pages and out into the web at large. There are meaningful and relevant logics and strategies involved with the interface and the links. There is an associative and metonymic reasoning occuring between each and every page. Every link was carefully chosen so the word or image is not only relevant to the page it is on, but also to the page to which it links.

There are a variety of layers of linkings that weave the document together into a rich tapestry of multilinear experiences. For instance, all of the definitions have images and these images are purposefully sprinkled throughout the site, creating thematic connections between the various roots of the rhizome. Also, notice the color of the links. If your browser is set to its default settings, a link to a page that has been visited will be purple. A blue link will take you to a new page (this assumes viewings in one browser on one computer). This gives you some sense of where you have been and where you are going. The rhizomatic and indexical frames allow you to choose between a completely associative experience, or one with an index to help guide you.

Hypertext allows for a document that can be played with by reader and writer (even simultaneously) in new and exciting ways. It can be exploratory and constructive all at once. Meaning can be interactively, and performatively, created by all involved. To engage a hypertextual document is to play with the rhizome, to explore outside of normal standards and hierarchies. The web allows for a living document.

I have come to think of this new hypertextual process of knowledge as "ludic academe." Hypertext has the capability to fundamentally expand and enhance our academic endeavers. I do not believe that this is the end of text. Instead, I see it as a process that will add its own unique stamp to what and how we know. It is a rigorous and playful academic process that rhizomatically problematizes the balance of authority and allows readers and writers together in the same space at once, even if they are in different places within the conversation. For I still believe readers and writers occupy different places. They are now just doing so in a new space and in different ways - ways that we are just beginning to explore and use and play with.