Love, Texts and Technology

(b4r:"none","none","groove")+(b4r-colour:white,white,#f06595)[(text-style:"buoy")[(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[Love, Texts & Technology ]]] I love my core reading list. I love it so. I love it many ways, and I'd like to think it [(text-colour:#eebefa)[[loves->loves]] ]me, too. That's why I wrote Valentines from the scholars on this list to us students in 2024, and distributed them with cupcakes in the T&T Office. <img class="fit-picture" src="https://veekenne.github.io/lovetnt/cupcakes.jpg" style="width:500px;height:350px; alt="Cupcakes" /> That, and I was in Dr. Anastasia Salter's Critical Making Course and, while I as a weirdo who's in three grad certificate programs in addition to the PhD have an additional year of coursework left, most of my entering cohort are now cramming away for their impending exams, an activity which I have found pairs best with baked goods. Here's a compendium of those Valentines. How do you want to study for your exams today, dear scholar? * [[Chronologically->Chronologically]] * [[Thematically->Thematically]] * [[I don't want to study.-> I don't want to study.]] * [[I just want to play.-> I just want to play.]]

Ah, feeling the linear stream of time? Well, funny story. Exactly what counts as 'first'? If you want to get technical, the oldest entry on the core list is a 1935 essay entitled [[The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction->The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction]] by Walter Benjamin. There are also several essays from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s included in Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Monfort's [[New Media Reader->New Media Reader]]. The first monograph entry on our list of loving scholarship on our list comes from [[1962->Kuhn: ]]. Sure you don't want to go [[thematic?->Thematically]]?

1979: Edward Said's Orientalism Calling all Postcolonial Scholars, past, present, and future -- <img class="fit-picture" src="https://veekenne.github.io/lovetnt/saidval.png" style = width:500px;height:350px alt="No 'Other' Gal for Me" /> This touchstone piece of literature is where we start to tap into the East vs. West concept, particularly through the perspective of western empires and their depictions of and embedded beliefs about 'The East' as lesser. Said also gives us the concept of "The Other" in juxtaposition to the West. That's why the print Valentine for this one says '(text-colour:#eebefa)[There's no 'Other' gal' for me, Valentine].' We can see this scholarship influence our more contemporary readings [[here->Ruha Benjamin ]], and[[here->Kishonna]], and [[here->Amed]], and in many more places, too. Or you can skip ahead [[chronologically, too. ->Ong]]

Thematic studies, eh? I like the way you think. (text-colour:#f03e3e)[Roses are Red] (text-colour:#4263eb)[Violets are Blue] All my Base are belong to [[you->1989: Zero Wing]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#eebefa)+(bg:black)) <img class="fit-picture" src="https://veekenne.github.io/lovetnt/derridaval.png" style = width:500px;height:350px alt=""Whoever starts to love, is in love or stops loving, is caught between the division of the who and the what." -Jaques Derrida" />

''Kuhn: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions '' When published in 1962, there was apparently a sort of paradigm in the scientific community that scientific progress was a sort of accumulation of proven facts (and ‘facts’ is probably not the right word, here, but this is just me attempting to separate Kuhn’s notion of ‘normal science’ with ‘revolutionary science’). ‘Normal Science,’ for Kuhn, appears to be the kind of research and experimentation of given phenomena that neatly fits within a given existing paradigm and doesn’t push any boundaries too significantly. When we hit an ‘anomaly,’ or series of them, we end up with a paradigm shift, which can lead to a scientific revolution. The sort of main example used here is the change from the Copurnican idea that the sun was at the center of the universe versus Galileo’s later contributions which revolutionized the study of astronomy, although at the time, Galileo was considered a heretic. How about we [[go a bit later?->Orientalism]]?

1982: Orality and Literacy by Walter J. Ong <img class="fit-picture" src="https://veekenne.github.io/lovetnt/ongvalentine.png" style = width:500px;height:350px alt="Gonna Write Chu a Love Ong" /> Ong sees oral traditions and what he calls ‘literate’ ones (ones where people write and print in addition to communicating and storytelling in speech) as distinctly different and by extension sees fundamental differences in the “mentality” (pg.3) of oral and literate cultures. His analysis accounts for both cultures of “primary orality,” which seems to specifically indicate Western-cultures pre-Gutenberg/the printing press, and “secondary orality,” which accounts primarily for Western-cultures (and some not, but he seems to more emphasize Western ones and non-Western ones which came into contact with western writing systems via colonialism) with access to print that later returned to oral communication as more common modes thereafter with the influence of technology (the telephone, etcetera). He also processes these claims through the lens of literacy history, structuralism and other literary frameworks in Chapter 7: Some Theorems. Important to Ong is sound in language and communication, hence why his valentine says (text-colour:#fcc2d7)['I'm gonna write chu a love Ong.' ] Hop Later?

''1989: Zero Wing'' Ever seen that gif with the badly translated old video game where the guy says "All Your Base Are Belong to Us!" Well, that's Zero Wing. <img class="fit-picture" src="https://veekenne.github.io/lovetnt/allbasevalentine.png" style = width:500px;height:350px alt="All My Base Are Belong to You, Valentine" />

Why don't you want to study? See if you can find the reason in this click poem. <iframe src="https://openprocessing.org/sketch/2239629/embed/" width="1000" height="1000"></iframe> Have you considered [[screaming into the void?->screaming]]

Then, play. Afterward, get back to what you [[love.->loves]] <iframe src="https://openprocessing.org/sketch/2239628/embed/" width="1000" height="1000"></iframe>

Here, let's have a sing along. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6NXnxTNIWkc?si=Dyhb-xH7GPBUIUdC" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

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Love, Texts & Technology

I love my core reading list. I love it so. I love it many ways, and I'd like to think it

loves

me, too.
That's why I wrote Valentines from the scholars on this list to us students in 2024, and distributed them with cupcakes in the T&T Office.

That, and I was in Dr. Anastasia Salter's Critical Making Course and, while I as a weirdo who's in three grad certificate programs in addition to the PhD have an additional year of coursework left, most of my entering cohort are now cramming away for their impending exams, an activity which I have found pairs best with baked goods.
Here's a compendium of those Valentines. How do you want to study for your exams today, dear scholar?

Chronologically
Thematically
I don't want to study.
I just want to play.