George Paul Landow (25 August 1940 — 31 May 2023) was Professor of English and Art History Emeritus at Brown University. He was a leading authority on Victorian literature, art, and culture, as well as a pioneer in criticism and theory of Electronic literature, hypertext and hypermedia. He also pioneered the use of hypertext and the web in higher education.

Work

George Landow published extensively on John Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, specifically the life and works of William Holman Hunt.

Landow was also a leading theorist of hypertext,[1] of the effects of digital technology on language, and of electronic media on literature. While his early work on hypertext sought to establish design rules for efficient hypertext communication,[2] he is especially noted for his book Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Literary Theory and Technology, first published in 1992, which is considered a "landmark"[3] in the academic study of electronic writing systems,[4] and states the view that the interpretive agenda of post-structuralist literary theory anticipated the essential characteristics of hypertext.[3]

In Hypertext Landow draws on theorists such as Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, Gilles Deleuze, Paul de Man, and Michel Foucault, among others,[1] and argues, especially, that hypertext embodies the textual openness championed by post-structuralist theory and that hypertext enables people to develop knowledge in a non-linear, non-sequential, associative way that linear texts do not.[5] Though he was a consistent proponent of visual overviews and navigational maps, he long argued that hypertext navigation is not a problem—that hypertexts are not more difficult to understand than linear texts.[6]

Landow also pioneered the use of the web in higher education with projects such as The Victorian Web, The Contemporary, Postcolonial, & Postimperial Literature in English web[1], and The Cyberspace, Hypertext, & Critical Theory web[2].[7] J. Yellowlees Douglas recognizes Landow's early hypertext works like the Dickens Web and Landow and John Lanestedt's The "In Memoriam" in The End of Books or Books without End?[8]

Select works

Honors

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Goody, Alex (2011). Technology, Literature and Culture. Cambridge: Polity. p. 123. ISBN 9780745639536.
  2. ^ Aarseth, Espen J. (1997). Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 90. ISBN 0801855780.
  3. ^ a b Hayles, N. Katherine (2007-01-02). "Electronic Literature: What is it?". The Electronic Literature Organization. Retrieved 2013-01-03.
  4. ^ "George P. Landow". Eastgate. 2003. Retrieved January 3, 2013.
  5. ^ White, Andy (2007). "Understanding hypertext cognition: Developing mental models to aid users' comprehension". First Monday. 12 (1). Retrieved 2012-12-30.
  6. ^ Mandl, Heinz (1990). Designing Hypertext/Hypermedia for Learning. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.
  7. ^ Bolter, J. David (2000). Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print (2nd ed.). Mahwah, N.J: Erlbaum. pp. 116–117. ISBN 0805829199.
  8. ^ Douglas, J. Yellowlees (2000). The end of books or books without end ? reading interactive narratives. Ann Arbor (Mich.: University of Michigan press. p. ). ISBN 978-0-472-11114-5.
  9. ^ Landow, George. "George P. Landow: Fellowships and Honors". The Victorian Web. Retrieved 14 September 2016.

External links

Authority control databases
Categories