The many parallels between computer hypertext and critical theory have many points of interest, the most important of which, perhaps, lies in the fact that critical theory promises to theorize hypertext and hypertext promises to embody and thereby test aspects of theory, particularly those concerning textuality, narrative, and the roles or functions of reader and writer. Using hypertext, students of critical theory now have a laboratory with which to test its ideas. Most important, perhaps, an experience of reading hypertext or reading with hypertext greatly clarifies many of the most significant ideas of
critical theory.
In fact, some of the most exciting
student projects
in
Intermedia,
, the pioneering read-write networked hypermedia environment created at Brown University's Institution for Research in Infiormation and Scholarship (IRIS),
Storyspace, html, and Flash
and published examples of hypermedia
take the form of testing, applying, or critiquing specific points of theory, including notions of the
author,
- thus Lars Hubrich's
Killing Me explores various effects of our notions of authorship by comparing how a friend of his reacted to a piece of music both when he didn't knew who wrote it and when he did -
text,
- and Pearl Forss's
What Is an Author acts an experiment contrasting reader's reactions to moving text versus reader-centered hypertext -
and
