Tony's response to "Visualizing English: Recognizing the Hybrid Literacy of Visual and Verbal Authorship on the Web"

To understand the somewhat esoteric references, in “Visualizing English: Recognizing the Hybrid Literacy of Visual and Verbal Authorship on the Web”, we must understand some of the Bahktinian ideas that Craig Stroupe is using as a foundation. For example, Mr. Stroupe details an argument for the true hybridization of English departments by using an argument of W.J.T. Mitchell that equates the resistance towards this hybridization as

This section without the context of Bahktinian theory might seem hyperbolic - almost as much as the “English Downfall” video, but when we put it into the context of an oppressive upper class that the Bahktinian Circle argued against in 19^th-20^th century Russia we may start to understand the urgency: “The key views of the circle are that linguistic production is essentially dialogic, formed in the process of social interaction, and that this leads to the interaction of different social values being registered in terms of reaccentuation of the speech of others. While the ruling stratum tries to posit a single discourse as exemplary, the subordinate classes are inclined to subvert this monologic closure. In the sphere of literature, poetry and epics represent the centripetal forces within the cultural arena whereas the novel is the structurally elaborated expression of popular ideologiekritik, the radical criticism of society.”

This may explain his reasoning for defying the resistance in equating the visual and the verbal discourses, but his reasoning for the actual equating of the two is less clear. He dislikes the implication that illustrations should be subsumed by text on a page. He wants to preference the idea of “illuminations” instead of “illustrations” of a text. Visual representation should “speak” with the textual and not just support it, which brings up the Bahktin dialogic again. He presents some examples where the images contrast ironically with the text on the page, and somehow through the inspirations of text from artworks and the inspiration of artwork from text. And while this certainly makes some interesting arguments, I don’t know if I am convinced.

The production of a visual art piece and a written work are very different – they are composed differently for different effects. Frequently, the visual artist and the writer are not the same person and in anticipation of this issue he adds the editor/webmaster as a third presence that coordinates the pieces. This collaborative effort seems to create a preference towards the editor’s work as an overseer of the individual components. He does refer to this dichotomy through the comparison of Peter Elbow’s “Writing without Teachers” and Elizabeth Castro’s “Netscape 3.0 for Macintosh.” The former, an article that discusses the empowerment of writing, and the latter a book that ostensibly describes the power of creating webpages (the Elbow article is available for free download in PDF form, but the book is not – so I have to trust that Craig Stroupe is accurate).

I am not familiar enough with Bahktin to be certain but in my limited understanding of his theory if each text (if there is a defineable text and not what Julia Kristeva referred to as intertextuality) is open to dialogic interpretation, does each image have this property as well? And if so, how many conversations do we have going on within each page of illuminated text, or within each discernable complete text? This idea presents a depth to Borges short story, “The Library of Babel” that I am not certain he even realized.