Syllabus/ Spring 1997

Web-based Resources

This list will be updated as the term goes on. Please send me your suggestions.


Web Based Fiction

Hyperizons
An annotated list of hypertext and interactive narrative maintained by Michael Shumate, who has written a master's thesis on the subject..
 
The Color of Television
A Pynchon-esque experimental fiction by Stuart Moulthrop, a professor of communications and hypertext theorist.
 
AMCY.COM - The Network
The leading commercial producer of Web serials, including
The Spot (the earliest Web serial, started in June 1995)
The Pyramid
     
Homicide: The Second Shift
The Web extension of the NBC Television series: perhaps a model of the merger of TV and the Web that will happen when digital home TV becomes a reality
 
 
Other Web Soaps
Crime story
Compare this one with Homicide
 
Welcome To The East Village
Compare this one with The Spot
 
Notes on Sinking
 
Experimental fiction laid on in a grid; recommended by Nick

 


Technical Resources

This list is meant to get you started writing html pages and adding color to them. These sites also have pointers to other sites, so look around to find the one that presents the information in the form you are most comfortable with. Please let me know what you have difficulty with and what you find helpful.

 

A Beginner's Guide to HTML
 
HTML_quick.html
 
Publishing.html
 
Available WWW-related software on Athena
 
The Background Sampler
 
Backgrounds
 
RGB Hex Triplet Color Chart
 
Howto set read/write permissions on Athena

Articles on the Web

 

CMC Magazine: Tracing the Growth of a New Literature
Michael Shumate's picks from last year's new web fiction.
 

 

Zork: A Computerized Fantasy Simulation Game
Describes how one of the first computer story games was designed (here at MIT)..
 

 

 
As We May Think
The original description of hypertext.

Archives, Websites, FTP sites

Interactive Fiction Archive

Maintained by the German National Research Center for Information Technology

Oz Group

Carnegie Mellon's Interactive Fiction Research group, led by Joseph Bates

IC Group

Glorianna Davenport's research group on Interactive Cinema at MIT's Media Lab

Synthetic Characters

Bruce Blumberg's research Group at MIT's Media Lab, home of Silas the Dog


<more to come>