But what's great about the Web is that it isn't static--how can we say that there's an end it's evolving toward?

This is the thesis, in brief. And it's useful: we should dispense with words like "disembodied," which occlude our understanding of the ways our bodies inhabit virtual spaces via real interfaces in material ways.

I love that academics don't even know how to spell McDonald's.

Yay! #ivanhoe

Cool extension of the good/old model of Iser: not only is a new text produced by each reader/reading, but neither reader nor text is a stable unit outside of the encounter of reader/text. Similarly, in the above reference to Hayles, one can't isolate the cultural forms of Web 2.0 media from the subjectivities that experience them, since the two sides constitute each other anew, constantly.

I don't know why I find this so hilarious. Can someone tell me?! Nominees for thought bubble addition to scene?

What did we once think the future would look like? How does the future look now? Why is the fantasy of "disembodiment" in virtual reality naive? How does the author describe the interface between one's body and the visual phenomena onscreen in 2ndLife?

"Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat!" Brands and companies have been reaching out to their fans much more often as of late, not only to reach more individuals but to also further push their products upon a greater number of people.

Here are some "epic company twitter fails" for your enjoyment.

Systems that undermine other systems.

Interestingly enough, with the growth of free and open source resources online, and the establishment of game platforms like Steam and Origin, indie games have become their own genre!

Power to draw us into a story's narrative.

Funny that he is pooh-poohing Katy Perry in the first sentence.

Bogost has a LOT of feels...

Don't games, in essence, require points, winning and losing? The reason games fit so perfectly into the domain of education is because they are a quantitative measure.

LOL just got called out HARD.

Personally, the idea of "serious games" seems like a bit of an oxymoron; the attraction of games is to take something mundane, such as certain aspects of education, and approach them from a new, progressive way. If we are "gamifying" things just to maintain their "serious" nature, isn't this counter-productive to our efforts?

To call malware, spyware, and adware "software fraud" is a bit light, isn't it? Doesn't that make this point... fraudulent?

Another emotional point. Your argument crumbles with your flawed logic. You're forgetting intrinsic subjective value - who are you to dictate subjective experience?

But it also introduces a wider audience to games who wouldn't normally be present.

By maliciously targeting the idea of pointsification so much, are you then dismissing the community of competitive gamers?

Relax yourself - they also can participate in creating a new form of storytelling if everything is viewed objectively.

Let's not forget the social aspect of the game which does in fact translate into real life interaction. If a game has a P2W model, you're able to then use that as a form of achievement. Your feelings outside of the game do exist in relation to that non existent entity.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, little lefty - remember, there's cooling happening as well.

~ a just as concerned moderate studying environmental science

I can't decide if this reads as highly sarcastic and ironic or not...

I agree entirely, but then what do we call a game that challenges our very moral perceptions? Our beliefs and ideals and understanding of the world?

@ Novels

Point for MLA works cited on the web: you can link to electronic sources.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/bb/ms_hayford.html

I find it troubling calling "The Sims" a "toy", still more of an RPG in my opinion. All the quantifiable definitions of a "game" aside, I would still call it a game.

I fail to see the difference between RPGs and simulation games. It seems all the same to me

sort of funny how "clique-y" the literary community is when it should be imperative to embrace new ideas and media

sadly admit that I'm not quite aware of the purpose of RSS feeds

Through reinventing, does the original game lose itself? Should we keep the ideas associated with half-life within the game or should they be removed. Are we just using the engine?

Interesting - but isn't it still an experience outside of your experience that you control? That you direct?

This isn't true. Infrastructure growth, growth of your population and progress in the game are all quantifiable outcomes.

Reminiscent of Iser's virtual text and implied reader?

WHAT. There are one too many words in this terrible phrase, which is both pretentious and ridiculous.

So, essentially...the medium is the message? I think I've heard that somewhere before...

This interestingly reminds me of Conway's Game of Life! (Who knows if it is a game according to these standards honestly)

I certainly relate to this argument moreso than the Sims one - Facade is really an experience, and although you can assign yourself the goal of 'keeping them together' it's really a set of algorithms with inevitable outcomes and a little bit of luck.

Throwback to our in class discussion about escapism!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_(game) for those who, like me, were woefully uneducated on this.

I'm not sure how I feel about this rigidity... if it was written specifically to be experienced on the computer, that's a different story to saying it can therefore only be experienced that way. That kind of rigidity is why the prejudice and judgement is how it is on digital humanities and novella. We have no conception of the future of literature as of right now.

I find the use of the word portal within digital interactions oddly fascinating, similarly I find "hub" intriguing - both connote this idea of other levels, platforms, transformation and transportation. It says a lot about how we view, and always have viewed technology.

Not sure I see the similarity with Liz and Richard Burton, but ok, if you say so.

the actual warship was found, it's very impressive of a discovery. Looks like Melville is very much alive.

http://articles.latimes.com/1987-11-11/news/mn-13566_1_somers

Definitely wish there was a conversation view rather than the posts appearing in a chronological order. The posts show what they're a response to but the visual is definitely lacking to keep some kind of order.

This too (i.e., the original move's title) is confusing, just in terms of formatting.

Would be great if this were a link to the move or in quotations marks or something to set it apart.

A lot of talk about this opera has been about its apparent homo-erotic subtext, and Zachary Woolfe spelled out a bit of itin a 2012 article for the NY Times. A considerable amount of scholarship has constructed the suspicion that Britten, Forster, and Crozier's adaption hinges on a suppressed love between Claggart and Budd.

Woolfe notes,

"Forster wrote that Claggart's aria at the end of Act I, which consciously echoes Iago's "Credo" in Verdi's "Otello," represents "love constricted, perverted, poisoned, but never the less flowing down its agonizing channel; a sexual discharge gone evil."

This leaning by Britten and co, interestingly predates Eve Sedgwick's analysis of homosociality, which makes explicit comment about the fraught relationship between Billy, Vere, and Claggart that is explored in the opera through dramatic and musical means.

Theater scholar Minou Arjomand makes an interesting note about the relationships between Britten and the two. After a 1964 revival of the work at the original location, E.M. Forster wrote back to the reviewer at The Times after the article written had entirely excluded mention of him or Crozier. Unfortunately, often it so goes that collaborators get moved into the shadows alongside the Big Name. While my quick look around suggests that the Crozier has been excavated since the performances mentioned (if only by the glaring abundance of scholarly work on this particular opera, holy shit, Arjomand's scholarship reminds us of the mutability of Text and what a peculiar thing a musical adaptation of literature can be.

I mean, it's an opera. And opera certainly isn't casual listening (not for me, anyway). But there are some nice parts, so perhaps they're worth spotlighting--

Biographer Paul Kildea has put forward the hypothesis that Pears, who was intimate to Britten (both musically and otherwise), may have given Britten syphilis, the complications of which had ended his life just three years prior. If so, the resonance of this being his last performance stands a moving tribute.

Britten from beyond the grave (not to mention Forster): I love it!

I don't know. My experience at Sleep No More was game-like. After 30 minutes of exploring, my goal became very clear: find your way back to the bar.

This sounds simultaneously amazing and horrifying. In fact, I'm pretty sure this may be the digital version of Edmund Burke's theory on the sublime and the beautiful.

Exactly. The goals aren't removed, but they become user/player/gamer-directed.

We're barely even on the cusp of defining literary form, let alone digital and game forms. To consider and formally define them is to note their worth and continuty, which many people struggle to do with modern forms

This relates to our discussion on 4/23, particularly Josie's comment about how her goal in playing The Sims was to build the biggest family tree, but that was a goal she chose/gravitated toward, not one outlined by the game-makers (#sorrynotsorry for the Hunger Games nod).

Also, hypothes.is should add a function for mentions. I tried @JosieWatson, but as you can see, nothing happened.

How does Bogost's discussion of "serious games" fit in here?

What about l'art pour l'art and all that jazz? McDaid is promoting a purely telic view of literature (i.e., that it has some goal beyond itself).

Because I need to consider some things that are “not games.”

How Saussurean. From Course in General Linguistics:

In the same way a word can be exchanged for something dissimilar, an idea; besides, it can be compared with something of the same nature, another word. Its value is therefore not fixed so long as one simply states that it can be “exchanged” for a given concept, i.e. that it has this or that signification: one must also compare it with similar values, with other words that stand in opposition to it. Its content is really fixed only by the concurrence of everything that exists outside it.

Is the "magic circle" of a game like the assumed "fourth wall" in theater? If so, then a game radially disrupts, or separates one from, reality (i.e., from all angles), while the theater (and perhaps, by extension, literature, etc.) does so linearly.

WAIT. There's not only highbrow and lowbrow (and apparently, "middlebrow," according to an article I read last week) but there are also electronic textual versions of these categories? This remnant from phrenology has gone too far.

Ceci n'est pas une pipe?

About five years ago, Kaplan tried to do this for online SAT and ACT homework. It didn't work. Also, it was way too complicated. Teachers/tutors had to go through a four hour seminar about the badge, etc. system so that we could then explain it to our students. I did the seminar twice and still didn't get it.

Why can't gamification be an additional part of the process rather than replacing the existing whole?

Cute.

Is there a autotelic/telic distinction here? Making games for the sake of games versus making games for a higher sociocultural or political purpose? Are games the "new art"? Or just an extension of art?

In terms of written rhetoric, interesting that here, the phrase is uncapitalized and bracketed by quotation marks, while before it is Serious Games. Reads as much more serious.

I would be interested to hear different writer's opinions on this notion. I'm sure many would be intrigued by the idea; it definitely widens the avenue for the potential of a piece to stay relevant over time. But I would imagine that some writers would dislike the fact that readers believe in an idea that there is no such thing as "the piece itself," and that their piece is a thing to be changed. Then again, the amount of effort and thought that it would take for such a reader to practice this game on that writer's piece should be flattering to the writer.

A tad pretentious; lose the quotes!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/16/jane-austen-movies_n_6329370.html

I learned through the lens of close reading, and it is still a touchstone of my ability to connect to a work. However, games like IVANHOE and the current technological influx into the classroom has made the ability to close read that much more precise. Not only can I look at "just" the text, I can find all the resources and context that surround that text.

I don't think we're hesitant to "remaster" or "rework"; if anything, I think our culture has been extremely spoiled by the acting of the rewrite. If and when we don't like a character, we simply rewrite them, kill them off, or change their persona. To a certain extent, it seems as if we're more afraid to accept a piece for what it is, or for what the author intended it to be.

Using networks for the sake of using them.

So essentially misinterpretation. Interpretation should exist within the scope of the text - by altering the text, you then create a new text open to a new form of interpretation. However, you're now a level removed. It's still a misinterpretation of the original text because it's something that didn't happen.

This coincides with the idea of fan-fiction. If there's a loose thread in a book where other things are possible, fans will immediately write it out and share it online.

Why is this in quotation marks? Seems a bit derisive.

A game for the Alice books would be super trippy and fun.

I recall this Stein essay as a discussion of composition over generations, but I could be mistaken. Her writing can be headache-inducing at times.

Comma Haruki? Is he well known enough to be alluded to by just his surname, or is there another Murakami I don't know about? Also, Haruki Murakami's work doesn't really seem to jive with the preceding texts...like a literary version of the Sesame Street segment "One of these things is not like the other."

So, like our annotation project, gameplay in literature encourages a move away from the Formalist approach.

This has nothing to do with anything, really, but I just need to share that I have such complicated feelings about Harold Bloom. Thanks.

What about criticism as art? Think Oscar Wilde's "The Critic as Artist," and later, Joel Spingarn's "The New Criticism." From the former:

That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one's own soul. It is more fascinating than history, as it is concerned simply with oneself. It is more delightful than philosophy, as its subject is concrete and not abstract, real and not vague. It is the only civilized form of autobiography, as it deals not with events, but with the thoughts of one's life; not with life's physical accidents of deed or circumstance, but with the spiritual moods and imaginative passions of the mind...

Particularly helpful.

I've always thought of literary analysis papers as creative writing with a need for evidence. The ability to formulate ideas and critical analyses from a text itself (and others' interpretations of the text) is absolutely invaluable, and a skill that needs to continue to be honed!

Compare this to the Harry Potter series, which J.K. Rowling ended with Hermione marrying Ron, a pairing she later admitted was almost entirely fan-driven.

It's fascinating to see how an author's work can become adopted entirely by their readers (Barthes would be proud), so much so that they steal some of that world-building authority from the author. Especially with the rise of the digital and fandom age, with fandom and twitter, the fourth wall no longer has to exist, and there are many different versions of the same world out there for one to explore. #TeamRowena vs. #TeamRebecca

This claim makes me realize how game-like, in a way, the marginal space of hypothes.is is: the gratification of sharing ideas with peers or being praised or replied to or disagreed with, etc.

Strong claim to the broader significance of the game, its implications for thinking about how the humanities is changing (or should change) in the 21st C.

Great design feature: as a litcrit professor, very important to keep the reflective aspect front and center even as we're immersed in the play. For similar reasons, Brecht thought that theater-goers should smoke cigars, like boxing fans, since the smoking created some distance from the "game" and hence space for critical reflection rather than mere absorption.

Obvious links to the way recording a novel underscores its status as a "score," a means of generating performances, and with Barthes's musical metaphor for "playing" a text.

I'll be curious to see what you students think, but I think the WordPress plugin would be cooler if each user could play any role in any move.

I like this. To take a "lame" or "out of fashion" text and make it cool again by reading/playing it in a radically new way. In one of his essays, Benjamin talks about the "revolutionary energies of the outmoded," and this game would seem a way of generating such energies.

Doing things with novels: get it, folks? There is nothing new under the sun.

Useful link to fanfiction in our own moment and of a piece with Rubery's analysis on one hand and Barthes's on the other, allowing for a "readerly" approach that "rewrites" the text with each reading.

I would be intrigued to know the meaning behind this reference - perhaps it's to Walter Scott's novel, which re-shaped 19th century genres and literary interests.

An interesting discourse following our consideration of audiobooks resembling printed books - why do we actually need novels to resemble "conventional" physical presentations? I think it's so largely to do with the lack of cultural identity that we have as a society - our music, clothing, art forms; we have nothing original, therefore nothing can or should be.

It's kind of frustrating how long drawn out this description is - I understand the modern necessity to sound as obnoxiously intelligent as possible (point and case there), but this doesn't really say much for a first impression on what Ivanhoe does, just what it means for the academic circle.

A tool used to splice rope and wire (google) https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&q=what+is+a+marlinspike

frozen water vapor (can be found on vegetation etc) (google) https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&q=what+is+hoar+frost

"Dominie" might here mean pastor (google) https://www.google.com/#q=what+does+%22dominie%22+mean

Does this imagery aim to draw a parallel between these "negroes" to a historical point in Africa predating the slave trade? (The Egyptians are considered to have one of the greatest ancient civilizations.) This imagery is at a contrast with primitivism.

This quote, along with a later section (p.63 in our book : when Delano is deeper in the ship and meets the sailor holding the symbolic knot), make me wonder if there is a parallel between "the ship" and the enchanted forest we encounter in works of Shakespeare. (Even if Melville is making a slight satire?) Both "places" are able to border reality or create a new space where the truth, which is hidden or obscured in reality, is able to come to light.

The footnote on p.41 in our book tells us that Melville combines "Delano's More" and Babo, "captain of the slaves" into this one character.

a man's overcoat (google) https://www.google.com/#q=what+is+a+surtout

another term for a pirate (google) https://www.google.com/#q=what+is+a+freebooter

The idea of annotating movies is exciting. How great would it be to annotate the Marshall McLuhan scene in Annie Hall?

In the 21st century, immediacy is a commodity unto itself.

I've used the same copy of A Room of One's Own for multiple classes, the first of which was my AP English Literature class during my senior year of high school. Every time I use it, I get to reread my annotations from two, five, or ten years ago; it's amazing what changes in terms of what I found unfamiliar or what resonated.

I never had to take English 120, but isn't this the book the department recommends for it?

The idea of offering literary intimacy, often perceived as "missing" from digital texts, harks back to the ideas presented in "Community Reading and Social Imagination" (Bérubé et al.).

Will the DIY annotation movement replace the prevalence of Norton Critical Editions et al. in the classroom? I can't help but think of the additional benefit of saving money on expensive anthologies and scholarly editions that can be quite costly.

This is important from a pedagogical standpoint; so many high school and undergraduate students are never told why they should annotate.

There's a great parody of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? here: Do English Majors Dream of Annotations?

I very much concur with the frustrated tone held here, especially considering my educational background. In England, everything on a syllabus is dictated by one of three core programmes. Teachers don't mark any of our final assessments; all of our exams are forwarded to massive educational warehouses. We don't get our papers back unless we pay to get them back (despite the fact that they are technically our intellectual property) and we have no ability to gain extra credit or form our intelligence outside of formal examination. For someone like me, who struggles greatly in formal sit-down examination, you're really doomed to fail. There is no"play" in British education.

My first instinct was to say "but what about the Sims?", but really if you think about it, they're a bunch of algorithms that live for an average of 2520 minutes and can go to space through looking into a telescope, etc. ... that's definitely at least some form of escapism!

Or can add to the original text by writing new material that is also interactive.

The Library of Congress article supplied in this piece (http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2012/11/glitching-files-for-understanding-avoiding-screen-essentialism-in-three-easy-steps/) also describes screen essentialism, which is essentially, "digital objects aren’t just what they appear to be when they are rendered by a particular piece of software in a particular configuration. They are, at their core, bits of encoded information on media."

I find this concept incredibly interesting, since it understands artifacts produced by computer technology on a very reductionist level. Pretty much, at its core, a PDF is no different than an mp3 or an .mov -- all are skeletons consisting of strings of text code.

I see it more as a dramatic turn from traditional pedagogy. It's so removed from its original form that it almost seems playful.

I can see this almost being synonymous with reading.

This could actually be a sound platform to explore the issue of existentialism in a "playful pedagogical" sort of way. Now the idea of a postmodern/nihilist Sims sequel is firmly planted in my brain -- the objective of the player to lead their Sims character to a meaningful life, despite the character possessing the knowledge that their life is literally just a game, and can be ended simply by "pulling the plug" (LITERALLY).

If metafiction is a staple of postmodern lit, what is metagaming a staple of??? Cue existential crisis...

I've been waiting for this unit to link to this Flavorwire article called "A Sad Person's Guide to Interactive Fiction."

So much cooler than the look-a-raw-potato-can-be-a-battery project we did when I was in second grade...

This is so crucial!

For those unfamiliar with learning objectives...here's an cheat sheet of Bloom's taxonomy, which is old-school at this point, but still valuable vis-à-vis pedagogy and its history.

I like this; that way the concept (e.g., how to solve the problem, how to answer the question how to analyze the poem...whatever learning objective you choose) remains, even if the details don't, and can be applied to similar (or different) scenarios.

During my career as a test prep teacher, I taught a few classes with students who were hard to engage. They were silent, which is so very difficult for a classroom setting that uses the Socratic method combined with group work as its foundation. The kids would sit in their groups and work independently. I finally created a quiz/board game amalgam (they dubbed it "Kateardy") that got them to interact not only with me but also with each other.

Never underestimate the power of competition and candy when trying to bring teenagers out of their shells.

Am surprised no one's brought up roleplaying yet. It's popular in fandom, and is basically like writing collective fan fiction (which is sometimes then published for other people to read as a work in and on itself! Work into Text much?).

Interesting juxtaposition of product versus productive. Wonder what the etymology is.

What about mimetic play?

I've never played, but I hear good things! Reminiscent of the Sims games, that has grown into a sandbox world (think adult dolls?) wherein the developers have very cleverly begun to promote and incorporate fan made "custom content" to the game. The Sims Resource is one such place that hosts a wide array of custom content. http://www.thesimsresource.com/ Fascinating to see the developers themselves promote these fan made works.

I like this. We don't often have that freedom to get creative with a text, but I do so love when we're given the imaginative space to do so.

"Performances" Is such a broad category--I would argue that there are some performances (e.g., theatrical productions of plays) that are extremely serious.

After so many years in an education system that emphasizes the need to follow instructions and do exactly as we're told(specifically, high school more so than college, funnily enough), I find myself floundering a bit when we get assignments form professors now that simply go: Do your thing, go nuts. It's a terrifying but amazing feeling.

The same space where people learn the best! I remember learning Mandarin in Singapore and memorizing the characters best when we did it as a game, rather than with stone cold memorization.

Yes.

Someone elses's or your own? As I've gotten older it feels like I've almost gotten more dependent upon other people's imaginations for entertainment, for play (video games, TV, movies). I suppose that's why I am so drawn to creative writing, because it does allow me to tap into that imagination of old.

"Zombie play": I love it. And as the parent of a Pre-K and 1st grader in the era of Common Core + high-stakes testing, it's amazing how accurate this account is, even for the youngest students.

Here's a zombie game.

Again, a keyword from literary aesthetics--ambiguity--creeps in the back door.

Yay failure! Losers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your games!!

I'm not the first to observe this, but "play" in this account sounds exactly like the "aesthetic" in Immanuel Kant's philosophy.

really love the fact that Drucker calls the ebook qualities "kitsch-y". The animations are simulating physical books, but most ebook readers read them for convenience and sans the page turning etc.

"Bucephalus was the horse of Alexander the Great, and one of the most famous actual horses of antiquity"

Reminiscent of Melville's descriptions of people of color in both Moby Dick and Benito Cereno.

So this is where our class intersects with marginalia- what are individuals doing with their novels, outside of the realm of straight reading?

Harry Potter fan fiction -- a touchstone of marginalia -- has become its own significant form of literature. I would argue that Harry Potter is not a children's novel; the breakout of young adult fiction has bridged the gap between children's books and "adult" novels.

Can't it be argued that children have their own, distinct voice? Even if that voice changes over time, it is still uniquely "their's".

But is this really just an aspect of childhood imagination? There is something to be said for individuals who maintain this aspect of youthfulness and continue annotating into their adult lives. Does this mark them as more creative than their non-annotating counterparts?

Again, reminiscent of Iser's theories. Although, I wonder about the insight the juxtaposition of the public text and the private response, particularly the helpfulness of the latter. Will any random private response (i.e., annotation) do? Certainly, Melville's Marginalia provides insight, but what about a text with otherwise anonymous annotations?

Also, this:

Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin!

Like the letters practiced in copybooks?

Yes, but the New England Primer, for example, was far form secular...check out "H" (My Book and Heart / Shall never part).

But were they allowed to do much with this perfectly feminine penmanship? Virginia Woolf's hypothetical Judith Shakespeare from A Room of One's Own comes to mind.

The metaphor of writing as personal growth seems a bit far-fetched to me.

May be an old wives' tale, but I'm pretty sure there's a popular theory that adults whose handwriting doesn't change are more likely to be sociopaths or serial killers or something of that...ilk.

Echoes of Plato's Republic...

So, Lerer is talking about the aesthetic discipline of writing. Did this practice really end in the early twentieth century? Because I remember several units on proper penmanship during my elementary school years in the early to mid-90s.

Iser? Iser.

We haven't talked much about our imminent Billy Budd game yet, but I wonder if "the annotator" (child or novice adult or scholar) is a feasible "part" or "role."

I wonder if the paperback of Ulysses I spilled a Venti iced coffee on in 2009 will make it into one of these displays some day. Probably not, but a girl can dream, right?

If this is something children do whatever time or social world they live in, do the margins begging to be written in become Twitter feeds and Facebook walls in a twenty-first century world?

This aim seems to combine not only reception history and reader-response theory but also Iser's ideas of the virtual text and the implied reader.

How does reception theory as a mode of literary criticism fit here? Should there be a reception theory devoted merely to book as objects? What about Benjamin's ideas in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"?

"Filling in the blanks" is not only having a moment but also aiming to reach a new audience. See Mo Willems's Don't Let the Pigeon Finish this Activity Book (2012) for ages 3-8 and the current trend of adult coloring books (Johanna Brasford's are so popular that she was moved from the Tarcher Perigee imprint at Penguin Random House to Penguin proper) and activity books like Keri Smith's Wreck This Journal.

Imagine opening up an old book and seeing Melville's annotations! (and adding your own to them as well?).

Benjamin would argue that this is the very basis of storytelling, novel or not, and that storytelling is inherently built upon the backs of stories from the past.

Aw, come on.

But the stories never did. Benjamin would be quite proud.

Fascinating when one considers the many scholars of Literary Theory who believe that the author is entirely separate from the work, for example, Barthes and Foucault.

Trade system with China very popular at this time, 17th century, as spices, silk and other goods were very precious to Westerners. Delano is a prominent figure in trade systems with China(Hughes, 3) and noticed a lot of cultural differences, foot binding for example but also fails to notice human conditions, which Melville linked to slave revolt.

http://www.thepeacefulsea.com/canton-system.html https://drewarchives.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/henryhughespaper.pdf

Diseases were poorly understood. They still held the notion that it has to do something with atmosphere or spirits (four temperaments). The observations are not wrong but such theories are. This is interesting as observations lead to misunderstood conclusions. Seeing as how Delano can observe behavior of the sick but not of what would be coming. Melville adds on to this temperament sentiment: "using Delano's trusting disposition and generosity. There is a lot of disposition and feelings towards slavery in general. Philanthropic abolition to ardent favored practice of it.

https://goo.gl/bgJAHV

It appears that there were many storms, namely hurricanes, during this time that Melville simplified. Storms were problematic since sailors and explorers had little technology to forecast weathers and sail safely. Melville used this to explore the theme of seeing and unseeing as you cannot forecast ahead what might happen. Fog and storms also limit distance of vision and no instrument, telescope or binoculars can help. The is mention of Saint Dominick the ship that sailed during Haitian revolution. So the writer explores that the ship is a reference to either events during those times. All in all, this would be reference and connection to chaos, hazards and displacement. Gales and Black violence displace each other but Melville makes it so that they happen simultaneously. It is said that "The ship was driven with ill intent," which most people would agree to slavery.

(pp 445-451) http://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1314&context=fac_journ

As has been mentioned before, I wonder how much Melville's use of the light/dark dichotomy is rooted in racial prejudice, and how much is just a metaphor of seeing and "illumination" (not that we can ever fully divorce language from life as such through which it is upkept).

Aside from the syntactical way that this sentence arranges the slave and the master-- the former gets the independent clause, from which follows the fact about the latter-- it is interesting to note Melville's play with these two symbolic items, the padlock (there) and the key (here).

".. suspended by a slender silken cord, from Don Benito’s neck, hung a key. At once, from the servant’s muttered syllables, divining the key’s purpose, he smiled, and said:–“So, Don Benito–padlock and key–significant symbols, truly.”

The binding character of the two items is given a magical dimension and affirmed through Captain Delano's satisfied comment. But I want to note that while this serves very effective as literary language, this instance in which physical binding is brought to the foreground of the narration existed within the matrix of an economy, in which a whole fleet of financial practices operated in conjunction. Not to be forgotten is the complicity of insurance underwriting, and so ownership here wouldn't depend so much on our padlock and key, but on a document stowed away in a filing cabinet somewhere.

In 2000, California State Legislature took up the Insurance question and passed SB 2199.

"The Legislature found and declared that: (a) Insurance policies from the slavery era have been discovered in the archives of several insurance companies, documenting insurance coverage for slaveholders for damage to or death of their slaves, issued by a predecessor insurance firm. These documents provide the first evidence of ill-gotten profits from slavery, which profits in part capitalized insurers whose successors remain in existence today.

(b) Legislation has been introduced in Congress for the past 10 years demanding an inquiry into slavery and its continuing legacies.

(c) The Insurance Commissioner and the Department of Insurance are entitled to seek information from the files of insurers licensed and doing business in this state, including licensed California subsidiaries of international insurance corporations, regarding insurance policies issued to slaveholders by predecessor corporations. The people of California are entitled to significant historical information of this nature."

Though we cannot know for certain what the case was for Alexandro Arando, it is interesting that his companion is then used to perform the theater of property relationships.

However, Melville's use of the Deposition as a factual account, working to create distance from the narrator's testimony, uses the Deposition to strike a counterbalance. The findings of SB 2199, another instance of law working to bring something to light, reported that,

"…There is a tradition in the Corporation, though no written evidence of it has come to light, [ftnt. 1 - many of the records of the period have unfortunately been destroyed] that in the middle of the eighteenth century a cargo of slaves (each of whom was branded on the thigh) was insured, and heavy weather being encountered on the voyage, some of the Negroes were jettisoned, and in the consequence a claim for General Average was presented by the owners."

"An Act of 1799", the same year that the encounter on the San Dominick occurs, "put an end to such inhuman practices, for it provided that: 'No loss of damage shall hereafter be recoverable on Account of the Mortality of Slaves by natural Death, or ill-treatment, or against Loss by throwing overboard of Slaves on any Account whatsoever, for restraints and detainments of princes, and people of Africa, caused through any Aggression for the Purpose of procuring Slaves'.

SB 2199's transcript can be read here.

At first reading this I could not figure out the significant to the silent black man that met his end so I gave it a metaphorical meaning. I thought this was a representation of the black man's will. But now will some historical context and the original the man voiceless end takes on multiple meanings. Seems like a pun on his voicelessness. Firstly he was figuratively silenced because his revolt failed. He also showed his will because he did not beg. And lastly, historically Blacks were not capable of arguing/defending themselves in court against a white. So in this sense, Babo and his crew were figuratively and literally given a voiceless end. (American Slave Code pg. 1-2)

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t8rb75634;view=1up;seq=7

It seems more often than not , when being taught about the "slave trade" historians forget to teach about the slave revolts that happened aboard ships. Yes, we learn about the slave revolts that happened decades/centuries after Africans landed in their intended country but what about the ships that never made it. After doing some research I've found out that between 15 and 20% of slave ships had a revolt. Some ships made it back to Senegal and some disappeared at sea. So why then, with 1 out of 5 ships being taken over, does Captain Delano not figure out the situation sooner. Historically crew members prepared for revolts and were aware that a mutiny may arise.

http://slaveryandremembrance.org/articles/article/?id=A0035

Paraguay tea, in this instance, is yerba mate, of which Paraguay was the leading producer prior to its independce (after which, it would be superseded by Brazil and Argentina). The mention of throwing of the "heavier sacks of mata" come right after the mention of the reduced number of slaves remaining on the ship ("now not more than a hundred and fifty... but then numbering over three hundred souls"). One can suspect as to why over half of the slaves perished (scurvy and fever are mentioned earlier in the text) but it would not to be unreasonable to assume that some of them, like the heavy mate, were thrown off for the same reason. Joseph Mallord William Turner's 1840 painting "The Slave Ship" deals with this practice, and would not have been unfamiliar to the culture-savvy readers of Putnam.

The infamous Cape Horn is particularly known for being a difficult naval route, and many a ship have been known to suffer losses rounding it. The real Delano, sailing in 1799, dates before a lot of the documented wrecks. Audiences who kept up with maritime affairs would have been no stranger to stories of naval dissapearances in those waters. A short scholarly compilation of this can be found at here

This play on light and dark is extremely fascinating, particularly if one considers Melville's use of the color white in Moby Dick. While the color white is often used to symbolize purity and goodness, Melville inverts this idea entirely. Ishmael ponders over what Moby Dick's whiteness means - is it evil? And if so, is black then, good? Or is the color white the combination of both evil and good, or perhaps the absence of both altogether?

The whiteness of the whale is a topic that Melville frequently ponders. For example he states, "[i]s it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation? . . . Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color . . . is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows . . . ?" This can be found here.

Melville may be playing with these ideas again in "Benito Cereno," as he likens the whiteness of the ship to religious motifs of the monastery and the monks, and yet he also fills that very same ship with shadows. If so, what implications does this have for race relations in "Benito Cereno" ?

The "negroes" of Benito's ships are strange characters in this sense. I am having a hard time understanding why at this time Captain Delano did not at first think that it time to question Benito alone or attack the ship. According to the American slave code, slaves were to be considered property, they were not to raise there voice or hand at any white. Just the act of raising its voice would result in 39 lashes or death. This should have been a direct indication that things upon the ship were awry. (American Slave Code pg. 1)

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t8rb75634;view=1up;seq=7

Even though Delano didn't participate in the slave trade, he did participate in the industry of sealing. Found this from NYU.edu website w which was called a "barbaric industry that fueled conspicuous consumption"

https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/nyu-stories/greg-grandin-on-the-slave-trade.html

I found it interesting that Melville opted to not include Delano's passage about seamen's superstitions. I thought this added another dimension to Delano's persona.

Interesting to see the overall attitude towards natives is similar in Delano's Narrative with senses of a "religious exceptionalism" and "blessing" them with their religious practices. A holier-than-thou sentiment when he mentions that the natives can now have an accomplished civilization from the white men.

Nathaniel Parker Willis's "Night Funeral of a Slave" is reminiscent here, wherein a slave owner mourns the death of his slave. In the piece, there is a deliberate emphasis by the owner that his slave is also his friend, his most trusted companion. However, that manipulation can be seen blatantly throughout the text as ownership and possession are hidden in the guise of friendship, through the use of extremely racial rhetoric, specifically, the emphasis on color.

The text presents the slave owner in mourning as he proclaims, “I lost this morning the truest and most reliable friend I had in the world” (333). Despite the forced and deliberate change from slave to “reliable friend,” the ownership of the dead slave continues to seep throughout the text. In Willis’s desire to convey the slave owner’s friendship with his dead slave, he serves only to highlight his blatant ownership of the slave – the antithesis of the equality and freedom that a friendship implies. “I have a hundred others,” the slave owner continues, “many of them faithful and true, but his loss is irreparable” (333). While his speech is supposed to highlight the slave owner’s affection for his slave, it serves only to emphasize how, to him, this “lost” slave is merely one of many. The traits that the slave owner chooses to commend them on; “faithful” and “true” speaks most directly to his objectification of his slaves into mere tools that serve his purpose as well.

This type of manipulation, or perception perhaps, can be seen often in Benito Cereno, particularly in Delano's perception of Babo, particularly when he is so awed by the latter's loyalty that he offers to buy him. By commending Babo on his loyalty and companionship, this serves only to push the Pro-slavery agenda (much like Willis's intention) for it insidiously praises traits in the slaves that are directly beneficial to their own enslavers.

The narrator's tone here could perhaps also be called into question. A decidedly unreliable narrator, one must wonder if he is speaking to the flaws in this perception, or if he is standing by and supporting this manipulation.

Willis, Nathaniel P. “The Night Funeral of a Slave.” Littell’s Living Age Vol. XXI 1 Jan. 1849: 333-334. Web.

In The life of Toussaint L'Ouverture by J.R. Beard published in 1853, the three heads of the rebellion, Dessalines, Christophe, and Clervaux, penned a proclamation entitled, "In the name of the Blacks, and the Men of Colour" (Beard 287). Within the proclamation, there states:

"[a]s to those who, possessed by senseless pride, interested slaves of guilty pretension, are blind enough to think themselves the essence of human nature, and declare that heaven made them to be our masters and our tyrants–let them never approach the land of Saint Domingo; if they come hither, they will find chains and banishment" (288).

This role reversal of "master" and "slave" is particularly interesting as it undoubtedly reflects the very nature of "Benito Cereno." Just as Delano is disillusioned by Cereno's appearance of power, the real power rested in the hands of Babo. Delano's inability to notice the real power in Babo echoes the power that the three heads of the rebellion had as well.

Not only were the men instituting their claim upon Saint Domingo with their proclamation, but their threat to individuals who supported the slave trade likewise flipped the institution on its head. Pro-slavery individuals were not threatened with death, but with "chains and banishment," sufferings that were undoubtedly inflicted upon countless of slaves.

As previous comments have pointed out, Melville's alteration of the ship's name to San Dominick points to the Haitian Revolution in the French colony of Saint Domingue that began in 1791. The rebellion was a nation-wide slave revolt against the French, and while L'Ouverture was undoubtedly the leader of the revolution, there were, according to The life of Toussaint L'Ouverture by J.R. Beard published in 1853, three other heads of the rebellion included Dessalines, Christophe, and Clervaux, who penned a proclamation entitled, "In the name of the Blacks, and the Men of Colour" (Beard 287).

In it, they state, "[t]he independence of Saint Domingo is proclaimed. Restored to our primitive dignity, we have secured our rights; we swear never to cede them to any power in the world" (Beard 287). This section is absolutely reminiscent of the curious question found in "Benito Cereno," wherein the reader wonders what exactly the motivations are for Babo and his men.

While the obvious answer would be freedom, Melville curiously tells the reader that Babo, in fact, was a slave back in his homeland as well. Why then, would their ultimate destiny be home? The proclamation from the Haitian Revolution, undoubtedly gives the reader some insight to this question.

This "primitive dignity" that they speak of may allude to one's innate freedom to choose for oneself, to decide on one's destiny. Applied to "Benito Cereno," the proclamation appears slightly paradoxical. On one hand, one's ability to choose frees Babo from his enslavement on the ship, on the other, it also delivers him back to enslavement in his homeland, the antithesis of refusing to "cede" his regained power.

However, there may be an interesting resolution to such a conflict. Should the narrator be trusted and Babo was indeed a slave back in his homeland as well, perhaps this "primitive dignity," and their motivation for overthrowing Cereno, was merely to regain the illusion of choice in a world where they were frequently robbed of them.

As mentioned previously in class, this quotation (excluding the final line, "[t]he negro") is used as an epigraph in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Interestingly enough, the entirety of the novel is available online (much in the fashion of "Benito Cereno" on Project Gutenberg) by DePaul University's e-portfolio site. The epigraph page can be found here. It is fascinating not only to see the texts that may have influenced Melville's writing of "Benito Cereno," but also the works that may have been in turn influenced by Melville.

The exclusion of the final line, "[t]he negro," particularly in a work like Invisible man, where Ellison's primary focus revolves around an examination of African Americans and their visibility in American society in the 1930s, raises interesting questions about Melville's work as well.

Ellison's question of visibility, for example, speaks greatly to Melville's "Benito Cereno" as Delano is entirely incapable of truly seeing the situation for as it was. So blinded by the politics of the era, and the pervading notion that Africans were not to be in power, Babo and his power are literally rendered invisible to the Captain.

Is Ellison attempting to answer Melville's question with his novel? In that even the invisible African is able to cast a shadow upon society? Further, what does this say about "Benito Cereno" as a whole? Perhaps this too, depends entirely on what we do and do not see.

Toni Morrison addresses this use of language which is often of a paternal relationship between whites and slaves, or the relationship of an owner to a pet. This language is dehumanizing and looks to create a justification for slavery. Morrison says that the "willful blindness" of Delano's language "...absolves him of all responsibility." Morrison believes Melville does this to reveal how racism is constructed to sustain slavery and argues that the "'happy, loyal slave'" discourse has present-day consequences. http://www.thenation.com/article/melville-and-language-denial/

Amasa Delano describes, in A Narrative of Voyages and Travels, an almost identical situation when the rebel slaves were captured from the Tryal:

"Whilst putting them in irons, I had to exercise as much authority over the Spanish captain and his crew, as I had to use over my own men on any other occasion, to prevent them from cutting to pieces and killing these poor unfortunate beings. I observed one of the Spanish sailors had found a razor in the pocket of an old jacket of his, which one of the slaves had on; he opened it, and made a cut upon the negro's head," (Norton Critical Edition, 207).

Whilst both the real-life and Melville-drawn Delano ensured within the range of his authority that the captured slaves would not be hurt (ensuring them a trial), the real-life Delano appeared to have more sympathy and pity for the captured slaves. By contrast, Melville's Delano seemed to have an indifference towards the slaves at best (aside from ensuring they were not killed prior to trial). Perhaps this use of artistic license incorporated by Melville (certainly related to the difference in POV between the narrator and Delano) renders the moral ambiguity of his text as more effective.

Now this is an idea that I can buy into - as a young student with learning disabilities, I struggled inherently with outlining and verbalising my own opinions, let alone understanding the misconstructed-construction of others, like my professors. There's also the fact that many just don't try in a classroom environment, and to have my failures or those of an apt student posed against and akin to those who simply didn't bother has always been a constant source of frustration and anger for me.

This frustrates me, as the professor, in my eyes, did little/nothing wrong - yes, censorship and moderation is needed in communal projects such as this, and I agree entirely that had this occurred during the day/an accessible time for the professor, it would have wholly become his responsibility to monitor it. However, in lieu of the lateness of the event and his detachment from the students, I think it's more irresponsible to blame him than anything else, as it discredits the will of the student. After all, were a group of students to have a heated, controversial conversation outside of class-time, we would not expect a professor to mediate it from wherever he/she is.

In theory for sure: but much like many great ideologies, this is a flawed argument in its blatant optimism, in my opinion. Professors do, indeed, need to be able to adapt and diversify their teaching in order to expand the students reading and understanding of the subject and, on a grander scale, life. However, the reason interactive whiteboards, tablets and even simple projectors are called teaching assists is for the simple reason that they were created to further and assist educational potential. To deny that they greatly benefit education to the point of modern reliance in the field is to deny that the typewriter revolutionised the physical book.

I find this very interesting in relation to modern scholarly studies of Melville as somewhat of a mystery and confusion. That is marginalia doesn't illuminate or endear him to us is intriguing.

The glory of functional marginalia as opposed to my haphazard scribblings of "lol" and "relatable"