NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Jay David Bolter

Jay David Bolter is a professor of Language, Communication and Culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Some of his main points of study include the evolution of media, the usage of technology in education, and the role of computers in the writing process. The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is a public, coeducational university located in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, and part of the University System of Georgia. ...

Biography

Jay David Bolter was born in 1951. Bolter received his B.A. in Greek from Trinity College, The University of Toronto, in 1973. In 1977 and 1978 he received his Ph.D in Classics and an M.S. in Computer Science, both from the University of North Carolina. The University of Toronto (U of T), in Toronto, Ontario, is the largest university in Canada with more than 60,000 students across three campuses. ... The University of North Carolina is a sixteen university system which comprises all public four-year universities in North Carolina, United States. ...

Bolter received a number of prominent fellowships throughout his studies. They included a fellowship at Yale, Cornell, Universitat Gottingen, and a fellowship with the American Council of Learned Societies. Yale can refer to an educational institution: Yale University, one of the United States oldest universities. ... Cornell redirects here. ...

From 1979 until 1991, Jay David Bolter held a number of different professor positions at the University of North Carolina. In 1991 he moved to the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he remains to the present day. The University of North Carolina is a sixteen university system which comprises all public four-year universities in North Carolina, United States. ... The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is a public, coeducational university located in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, and part of the University System of Georgia. ...

Bolter is a co-designer and programmer for Storyspace, hypertext writing software. He created the software with John B. Smith and Michael Joyce. Bolter refers to writing spaces as nodes. He has also offered a view of the world wide web as an arena for the interdependence and convergence of new technologies. His interview with frontwheeldrive.com in 2001 offers insight into his ideas of how technology has influenced the writing process. In computing, hypertext is a user interface paradigm for displaying documents which, according to an early definition (Nelson 1970), branch or perform on request. ... Michael Joyce (b. ... The term node can refer to: Node, a spatial locus along a standing wave where the wave has minimal amplitude. ... WWWs historical logo designed by Robert Cailliau The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is a global, read-write information space. ...

StorySpace

StorySpace is a software, created by Bolter, John B. Smith and Michael Joyce for creating, editing, and displaying hypertext fiction. It was developed to support hypertext fiction in particular, although it can also be used for organizing and writing fiction and non-fiction intended for print. Michael Joyce (b. ... Hypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature, characterized by the use of hypertext which provides a new context for non-linearity in literature and reader interaction. ...

Some of the notable hypertext fictions created in Storyspace include: Michael Joyce's afternoon, a story, Stuart Moulthrop's Victory Garden and Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl. Michael Joyce (b. ... Afternoon, a story is a hypertext fiction written in 1987 by American author Michael Joyce. ... Stuart Moulthrop is an innovator of electronic literature and hypertext fiction, both as a theoretician and as a writer. ... WWII-era poster promoting victory gardens. ... Shelley Jackson Shelley Jackson (born 1963) is a writer and artist known for her cross-genre experiments, including important contributions to electronic literature and hypertext. ... Patchwork Girl is an early form of hypertext fiction which is not linked to the internet. ...

Bolter has used Storyspace to revise several of his own books. More importantly, Storyspace provides facilities for writing and editing, which includes a map of the structure of the links, making it accessible for new users. Storyspace is being developed by Mark Bernstein of Eastgate Systems. Eastgate Systems is a publisher of hypertext fiction and a developer of hypertext tools including StorySpace, in which much early hypertext fiction was written, and Tinderbox, a tool for managing notes and information. ...

Opinion on Bolter's Work

Windows and Mirrors

Richard Holeton reviewed the "Windows and Mirrors" text and summarized what the reader would take away from the piece. Holeton states that "the authors contend that interaction design has focused too much on transparency, while digital art is opening our eyes to reflectivity, and the book takes the form of a series of lessons that designers should learn from digital artists".

Remediation

The piece that Bolter and Grusin wrote together received a great deal of acclaim for its insight into remediation. Many are impressed by the argument put forth by both men, which on Amazon.com is summarized, "They argue that new visual media achieve their cultural significance precisely by paying homage to, rivaling, and refashioning such earlier media as perspective painting, photography, film, and television".

Writing Space

There has been a great deal of praise given to Bolter's work, especially his work entitled, "Writing Space". Donna LeCourt in her review of "Writing Space" said that, "This book provides a well-documented, insightful history of how technology of writing has the inevitable effect of organizing the reader's and author's relationship to text and the acts they can perform on and with it". George Landow, in his review of "Writing Space" summarized the piece by saying Writing Space "is quite simply the finest book about hypertext available". George P. Landow is the founder and current webmaster of The Victorian, Postcolonial, and Cyberspace and Hypertext sites. ...

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