A SLIDE:

Miller's article names names: Joyce, Landow, Moulthrop, Amerika, Coover, etc.  The other names that immediately roll off the tongue might include Bolter, Bernstein, Kendall, Kolb, Douglas, Kaplan, Guyer.  Only the last three of those 12 are female.  Of the "major" electronic journals in the field of computers & writing -- Kairos, Rhetnet, CCC Online, CMC Magazine, C&C Online -- only the last has a female editor.  Can you speculate on this disparity?

Mick [to MichaelJ]: but don't canons self-form?  If I was teaching Hypertext 101 at some community college here in Dallas, wouldn't I *know* where I should start?  Afternoon?  Victory Garden? Socrates in the Labyrinth?  Etc.?  Isn't that canon?
bernstein says, "Miller's article names men. That's her business."
MichaelJ [to Sandye]: I do constantly. Hi-Pitched Voices, the women's hypertext collaborative, was an extraordinary "publication" in the root sense, a constant, recurrent, focused gathering of texts of and about women.
MichaelJ says, "Carolyn Guertin is creating a critical mass on web theory and readings."
bernstein says, "You named 3 men, 3 women. Your list is pretty arbitrary, too; you’ve got writers and critics and editors all mixed up"
Joel [to Mick]: Maybe not.  Seems to me you *could* simply fork out the obligitory "classics" of hypertext theory.  Or you could establish criteria of your own and forget the would-be canon, and choose a body of work that you can stand behind.
MichaelJ says, "Douglas, Shelley Jackson, Mary Kim Arnold, Judy Malloy, Kate Hayles, Martha Conway ..."
bernstein says, "Look at Cramer, Guyer, Arnold, Jackson, Lusebrink, Marshall, Malloy, ...."
bernstein says, "Larsen. Kathy Mac."
MichaelJ says, "The point is not to add it up but to agree with Sandye, that the field has seemed to center on certain voices (mine among them) and ignore the extraordinary weave of women's thinking, writing, and collaboration"
bernstein says, "I disagree completely with that."
Mick says, "Again, this becomes a useful starting point ..."
Mick says, "The position that hypertext is a male-dominated field is a *popular* one -- Miller's article, recent discussions on ACW-L, etc.  But we cannot conflate popular with "true" necessarily ..."
MichaelJ says, "Perhaps the most influential "journal" in my thinking (and the greatest source of Mark's annoyance with maillists) was the TNC TechNoCulture maillist, established by Ann Balsamo and Stuart Moulthrop, which for two years attracted a constant, radical, dialogue about gender issues and electronic life"
bernstein says, "If a falsehood is true because people repeat it in ACW, scholarship is in a sorry state"
Sandye asks, "I don't think adding it up is that useful, but I do wonder why the women's voices aren't as often heard ... what is it about the medium that might encourage that?"
Mick says, "That nine of the 12 people listed in the slide were men may be the kind of misconception this sort of interview can clear up."
Sandye nods Mick
bernstein asks, "Who edited the MFS issue on hypertext?"
Mick says, "No idea."
bernstein says, ""Kate Hayles."
MichaelJ says, "I did feel insulted and angry about Miller's cheap shot about the "war-like" aspect of hypertext talk and especially her appropriation of my sense of "yield" which is anything but warlike, very feminist ecriture.
MichaelJ says, "While we are tallying the influences, don't forget that there wouldn't be any literary hypertext (and I am prepared to argue there would not have been a hypertext ACM community) without Nancy Kaplan's teaching htext fiction at Cornell ten years ago"
Mick says, "An interesting discussion similar to this sprang up in the C&W community recently ..."
MichaelJ says, "Also on the list should be Sandy Stone"
bernstein says, "I can't account for YOUR opinions of the relative importance of different writers and thinkers, but I can't see how women are marginal here."
Mick points out the the founders/editors of most of the "major" journals in the C&W field are men"
Mick says, "December, Crump, Taylor, me -- exception is Syverson""
bernstein says, "Cathy Marshall belongs there. Ilana Snyder. Jan Walker. Nicole Yankelovich. Sheesh"
bernstein says, "Syverson and Grigar."
MichaelJ says, "Yeah but there would be no dialogue here without Cindy and Gail's early and constant work"
Mick says, "while all the MOOs we use most frequently are founded or co-founded by women --"
Mick says, "Haynes, Bruckman, Gardner, Cross, etc."
bernstein asks, "Question: if this assertion is so easily falsified, why do many of the ACW community think it true?"
Mick asks, "It's a question Sandye asked in Hawaii in her paper -- why do men edit and women MOO?  (an overstatement for effect) ... is there something worth pursuing there?"
MichaelJ says, "Exactly! What is coming out here is that, for all the lip service we give to "alternate forms", we may be missing that the real publishing revolution has been quietly conducted by women who have developed and popularized alternative forms of journaling and collaborative discourse"
Mick whews.  I *knew* deep down somewhere we were agreeing ... ;-)
bernstein shakes head
Sandye has to admit that the names I hear most often cited to me in other forums are male, even though, as you have demonstrated, women's voices have been an active influence ... I just wonder why
Mick [to bernstein]: because, like it or not, the men's work is still the "canonical" work ... bad word.  But teachers are more likely to assign Joyce and Moulthrop than Greco ...
bernstein says, "Not necessarily true. Jackson's Patchwork Girl has become very popular in the classroom."
Mick says, "I'm glad to hear that ... it's a good work."
MichaelJ says, "I regularly have my students read Caroilyn Guyer's _Quibbling_ and Shelley Jackson's _Patchwork Girl_ and they *always* marvel that these works are not better known,. Almost always one or more of them report that the experience of the work literally changed their lives and/or their understanding of literature (the comments are similar to the way people talk about Winterson's work)"
bernstein says, "Greco is also going to have tremendous influence. It'll take a little longer. She has plenty of time"
Mick says, "But, Mark ... didn't you say earlier that popularity wasn't a yardstick for judging effectiveness?  I'm not trying to be difficult here, and that undercuts my own argument ... I just find it interesting"
Joel says, "It seems like, if we were able to cite and assign reading/getting-familiar-with good projects as it is to assign Books, then we'd have as many or more women in the bibliography as men."
bernstein says, "No -- someone said that Joyce was assigned more often than Greco. That's true, but may be beside the point."
MichaelJ asks, "How many of your students have read the work of Carole Maso, perhaps the most important literary writer in America today, a print novelist and yet utterly hypertextual?"
Mick exclaims, "But *that's* the reason a faceless demographic like ACW-L will believe most hypertexts are by men!"
bernstein says, "Joel: it's as easy to assign Quibbling as it is to assign, say, "Mason & Dixon""
Joel [to bernstein]: true
Joel [to Mick]: true
Mick whews again
Mick says, "Here's a loaded question ..."
Mick says, "If we're in "Just as easy to assign" mode ..."
bernstein a loaded question? for a change? he wonders?
Joel says, "though I know I, and probably most of our field, values innovative teaching and expanding work, coming up with readings for a class immediately reinstates a canonical kind of thought...and a canonical-looking reading list."
MichaelJ says, "You know it's only in the last year or so that my own email has started to suggest that people are *reading* _afternoon_ as well as discussing it. That is, it has taken awhile, I think, for teachers especially to understand that they can include these texts in "regular" lit courses"