Virtually Yours: Desire and Fulfillment in Virtual Worlds
The sex beds of Second Life have become home to acts of virtual desire for couples of all kinds. To outsiders looking in on the community, Second Life seems to have become a home for deviant behavior ranging from "age-play", where one of the partners uses an avatar appearing beneath the age of consent, to sex with Unicorns to produce baby unicorn offspring. These actions occur out of sync with "real world" relationships, and are redefining the question of what constitutes perversion or justifies moral outrage. What are the implications for virtual morality when we leave the mores of "normal society" and try to construct a new morality that understands how real the virtual can be? The philosophical turn to moral particularism gives us a balance for considering moral questions in a virtual space, meaning essentially that we have to take questions like "What is adultery?" and recast them in light of the particular situation these virtual worlds present. Evaluating the implications of such a subculture requires acknowledging that while nothing physical is happening, something real is. Are the sex beds of Second Life becoming the new forum for the Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, or are we looking at a new era for Philosophy in the Bedroom?
To be presented at the National Popular Culture Association Conference 2008
Queen's Quest: Gender and the Heroic Quest in Adventure Games
Released from 1984 to 1998, the games of the King’s Quest computer game series spanned over a decade and marked the most massive and successful series of adventure games. Adventure games are a particular genre of computer games marked by a focus on story and a lack of combat. The King’s Quest series is particularly remarkable among the games of this genre for its female characters and female lead designer. The fourth game of the series, King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella, was released in 1988 and heralded as the "first major female protagonist in a computer game,” as lead designer Roberta Williams noted in an interview with Dr. K. Wright (WomenGamers.com). The presence of female protagonists and a female designer changed the dynamic of the computer game, especially in the early years when the computer game was a male genre. The placement of a female protagonist in the major role of a game changes the nature of the experience of play. In an adventure game in particular, the player is always guiding the character to the completion of a quest, where a quest is a storyline motivated entirely by the action of the character and revolves around that character’s progression. In the King’s Quest series, the quests are those of a royal family in a medieval fantasy world complete with witches and dragons and thrones to be won. When women characters are at the center of the quest storyline, they are Princesses and Queens trapped in the patterns of royalty. In the man’s quest as well as the woman’s, some outcomes seem to prove unavoidable: there is death or incompletion, or there is success.
Presented at the National Popular Culture Association Conference 2007
Avatara
The user logging on to a message board, Instant Messenger software, a chat room or a Multi User Dungeon (MUD) for the first time is prompted for a few simple pieces of data—a name, a profile, perhaps an identifying icon or other physical presence. From this data and the other information the user provides, the user’s avatar is drawn and the presence of the user in cyberspace is defined. The avatar can be the same as or very different from the user behind the presence, and can be ever changing, liquid and malleable. The term “avatar” has come to mean most specifically on the web the physical image and handle, or name, that define a user. This is easiest to understand in the context of three-dimensional chat environments or massive multiplayer online role-playing games, where the user controls a moving projection in a virtual world—his or her avatar. The avatar is able to interact with the cyberspace world as the user’s physical presence in a world that is physically unreachable. Interfaces exist to allow users to customize their avatars to ideally suit the personae they are adapting, and whole websites center on furthering that process of customization. In the most sophisticated of these environments the avatar can become everything the user desires, and it is the avatar, not the woman sitting behind the screen, who is traveling. The avatar is the eye and face of the projected self.
Part of the Digital Eves Issue of WomenWriters.net
A Virtual Education / A Virtual World
When a revolutionary education tool comes out that supposedly makes use of "new technology," it's usually focused on text--images--static archives put on the Internet and labeled innovative. Popular tools for teaching are centered around the idea of "convenience" and "speed." Products such as Blackboard and MovableType offer educators a text based classroom on the screen, with supplementary materials for creating the familiar in virtual territory. These are not revolutionary materials, they are old tools in new packages. It is true that the Internet offers unprecedented access to information and tools for expediting once tedious exchanges thereof--but is that all that can be accomplished with this new technology?
Self archived at Virtual Ed/Virtual World
Wild Magic: The Animal Connection and Coming of Age in the World of Tortall
Tamora Pierce's characters often share a special bond with animals, but none moreso than Daine in Wild Magic. Daine is a young girl without mother or father. She struggles through the world with animals as her primary guides. Daine's growth begins with a return to the most "primal" of animal states: she becomes part of a wolf pack in the manner of Romulus and Remus, and as part of the pack abandons all signifiers of humanity. Beasts are always surrounding Daine, even as she tries to take her place in regular human society--she is trapped between animal and man just as she is trapped between girlhood and womanhood. Her struggles with her own identity are expressed through a battle with this "animal" nature that only the acceptance of a man first as mentor then as lover can conquer. Her victory and self mastery are expressed through power of her two halves, shown in a world of magic as the ability to transform her physical being from animal to woman.
Monsieur Bovary: Louise Colet and a revisitation of Madame Bovary
Everyone knows the story of Madame Bovary, as penned by Gustave Flaubert: it is the story of Emma Bovary, a woman who marries into an unsatisfying life and in attempting to find love finds only disaster. She eventually commits suicide facing ruin both financial and personal exposure. What is lesser known is how the publication of this novel infuriated a fellow writer of the time, Louise Colet, Flaubert’s former mistress. Colet had played the role of both consultant and inspiration as Flaubert’s work had progressed: she was not as pleased with the outcome. Louise Colet responded to the affront she saw in Flaubert’s novel with her own version of events, one given very little scholarly attention today but seen as infuriating by critics of the time. Colet's then infamous novel, Lui, was based on three romances: her short lived romance with Alfred de Musset; her affair with Gustave Flaubert; and Alfred de Musset's love of noted novelist George Sand. Colet is commenting on the entire masculine persona, and finding it wanting: in attacking both Flaubert and Musset, Colet is also attacking the very concept of the French male intellectual of the time.
Girls Can't Be Knights! Veiled and Unveiled Challenges to Patriarchy in Tamora Pierce's Tortall Novels
In her series of fantasy novels set in a medieval style kingdom, Tamora Pierce first offers a character who wants more than anything to be a knight. This girl, Alanna, is so devoted to the pursuit of her quest that she overcomes the gender restrictions of her society through cross-dressing. Readers follow this character through a succession of books as Alanna continually tries to overcome the problems of hiding her female form even as she develops breasts and goes through menstruation--all in a work of children's fantasy. Judith Butler's discussion of gender performativity becomes particularly relevant to a fantasy world like Tortall, where in drawing a society with medieval norms Tamora Pierce can offer a window on modern gender concerns. The role of women and to a lesser extent of lesbians is explored through the eyes of adolescents seeking to perform that which is socially unacceptable--and occasionally doing so through the aid of magic and the intervention of guiding goddess figures. In contrast to the popular children's fantasy novels of JK Rowling and CS Lewis, where girls play second fiddle to the strong male characters, Tamora Pierce's novels offer a venue for free play of gender identity and female power.
Paper presented as panel chair of “From Dorothy to Hermione: Girls of Children’s Fantasy” at the Northeast Modern Language Association Conference, March 2007
Look at my Magic Wand! Harry Potter Slash and Gender Play
The phenomenon of Harry Potter crosses the borders of nations, generations, and genders. The works have been translated into over 25 languages and topped the 300 million copies mark for sales worldwide. In virtual space, an entire culture has arisen among fans gathering to discuss the future of the characters they know so intimately, to play out their own lives in Hogwartsesque worlds brought to life by collective imagination, and writing and reading elaborate stories that rework the universe through the eyes of a fan turned storyteller. These stories are works of “fanfiction,” and they range from quick parodies and scene rewrites to novel or even series length visions. On one major archive site of such works, Fanfiction.net, there are over two hundred thousand such stories. Within the Harry Potter fan community there are a number of creators of what is called “slash” fanfiction. Slash is now specifically associated with those couples that are homosexual in nature; generally such pairings are between two males though what is sometimes called “femslash” is also present. Creators devote hours of their time to making these works available with no expectation of financial reward—the characters are not theirs—and can at most expect the praise of fellow fans. Despite this, new slash fanfiction is being posted around the clock. Such works exist in a new global virtual space, and often defy the norms of the creator’s own geographic community. Through this form of writing, a creator can make iconic characters perform any gender identity. What part do these ideas play in the notion of performing gender? Does this shared expression in virtual space carry with it new freedoms?
Presented in the Academic Track of WisCon 30: May 26th to May 29th, 2006
Cultures of Warcraft
This paper addresses the implications of the media artifact World of Warcraft as a representative of a new genre of "massively multiplayer online role playing games." The fundamental concern is finding a starting point for analyzing such objects by looking at the ways these games have been defined. Past inquiries into these sorts of games have approached them from disciplinary routes, limiting their meaning to simply another text to be analyzed like any other creative work. However, such approaches are by their nature limited and provide no compelling insight to why games like this may be important. Thus perhaps the most interesting analysis is being done by the community of gamers themselves, as they are linked in to the gaming experience enough to realize that World of Warcraft isn't suitable to be confined to a limited category of media. World of Warcraft is a computer game, where players interact in manners governed at least in part by a set of preprogrammed rules while working in an environment virtually constructed and designed for their diversion. However, when these interactions are looked at as a whole system, what emerges is an entire network of language customs, social expectations, friendships and guild networks, and a feeling of shared time passing as the society evolves. This is no longer dismissible as “just a game:” it is a culture of its own.
Avatara: The Linguistics of the Avatar in Virtual and Mythic Space
This digital work is presented as a progression of nodes, each with two sides moving to the next concept. The blue path deals primarily with the realities of current physical constructs and the state of the individual in the global village, the red path deals with myths and stories. The unifying text that directs the forward progress is drawn from the Bhagavad-Gita, one of the tales from which the very concept and term "avatar" originates. The motivating force behind the project is a question of language. Of all the terms that could be used for the presence of a user in cyberspace, the term "avatar" has risen, a word that comes from the presence of a god moving from divine realm to the world of his construction. By adapting a word that carries with it the idea of divine power and responsibility, what have we constructed in ourselves in cyberspace? And what roles do the new myths of the avatar play in defining the self?
Presented at the American Comparative Literature Association Convention: March 24 to March 26, 2006
Repossessing Literature: Fanfiction and the Reader-Writer
In the vein of reader response, the question of why readers read what they do often comes down to identity and the creation of self. The academics writing confessionals in Private Voices, Public Lives acknowledge that their choice of material to read helped them to shape their own voice and confront struggles in their lives. Such confessionals are one way to look directly at reader reactions, through the self analysis of habitual readers. Quantifying reader reactions is always a challenge: book reviews represent a small segment of cultural authority, while sales counts don’t actually imply reader satisfaction. Today, reader response takes a quantifiable form in the millions of “fanfics” posted to the Internet by readers transformed into writers. Why does this phenomenon exist, and what function do these creations inspired by literature serve for their audience? The question of reader response as it involves fanfiction is particularly interesting because there are two levels of “readers.” The creators of fanfiction are the readers of the initial work that inspires their own. Similarly, fanfiction itself has an audience of readers who seek out stories on the web—some following particular fanfiction authors, some looking to read on a particular pairing or subject. Some fanfic writers have been known to inspire the stories of others, with other writers piggybacking off of the version of the universe they have created. Crucial to the development of these interactions is the fan community on the internet, where stories are publicized, reviewed, and even canonized on mailing lists and archive sites. How are these interactions part of a reader’s relationship with literature?
Thresholds of Digital Libraries
The notion of the library as an archive of cultural artifacts is at the heart of our system of records. We save original manuscripts in carefully sealed off and restricted access vaults to protect them for inspection and study by scholars, while works are printed and reprinted and saved on shelves around the world. The idea of the dusty shelves as the home of knowledge is being tested by current digital media, which cannot be committed to these traditional academic archives. Preserving works of digital and electronic literature requires a different approach, but to what extent is their preservation more challenging than that of traditional print works?
Self archived at Digital Libraries
Fragmentation: Postmodern Identity as brought to you by the Letter T
This hypertext has as its focus an exploration of several works of postmodern literature, with a primary focus on William Gibson's Pattern Recognition, in relation to the notion of fragmented and conflicted personal identity in a time when information overload and cultural pressures overwhelm individual inclinations. The work is presented as a progression of nodes that follow one primary train of thought with divergent tangents at each central point. The visual juxtaposition of elements, centering around the "T" shape that is a crucial element of Gibson's work, is used to unify ideas around the graphic elements that dominate media representation today. As the very concept of self is a construct of images and words that changes from moment to moment and has only one constant, the reflection of current society and media, the work attempts to reflect that fluidity of concept and connection. The relation of elements to each other is hinted at through mouse over thoughts on the image map navigations.
Self archived at Fragments
Seasonable Hellfire: A Study of Charles Chauncy and the Great Awakening
During the period that would come to be known by some as the Great Awakening, two voices stood out from among the chaos surrounding the pulpit and defined the struggle between old and new that had taken hold of the era. These two voices were Jonathan Edwards and Charles Chauncy. Edwards was a leading voice among the New Lights, and his writings and sermons defended the revivalist movement, while Chauncy attacked the revivalist movement and defended the ways of the Old Lights. Both priests rejected the path of itinerant preaching, choosing instead to fight their battles with words spoken from the pulpit and published in colonial newspapers. From the fierceness of their dispute, the expectation would be that serious theological divides existed between the two. However, this is not the case. In the works produced by both, there are both stunning similarities and a few major areas of contention which suggest that while both started from very similar background and belief structures, they diverged on matters of style and class but only rarely of doctrine. Their disputes are encapsulated in their writings, particularly their two major works- Edward’s “Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival,” and Chauncy’s response, “Seasonable Thoughts Concerning the State of Religion in New England.” The views of these two leaders become clearer with a close analysis of these works placed within the context of their writings and personal backgrounds.
Self archived at Seasonable Hellfire
Louise Colet
The story of Madame Bovary is a familiar one: the story of the woman who may have been Emma to Gustave Flaubert, however, is less told. A poet in her own right, Louise Colet was Flaubert's mistress before Flaubert was known in the salons as anything but Colet's lover. When the affair went south the two--and their own literary friends--carried their battle out through words exchanged both in letters and in published works.
Self archived at Louise Colet