Internet Invention - Postmodern Influences

Postmodern Influences

In Internet Invention, Ulmer draws heavily on a number of theorists who are considered postmodern or poststructuralist. Specifically, Jacques Derrida’s work is referenced throughout the book, and Derrida plays a central role in Ulmer’s own Mystory, as it takes shape throughout the book. In some senses, Internet Invention is at least in part an attempt to apply several Derridean ideas to the field of communication and technology. To this extent, the book is a successor to one of Ulmer’s earlier works, Applied Grammatology, his 1985 book that attempts to frame a practical pedagogy based largely on Derrida’s Of Grammatology.

Another central figure is Roland Barthes, particularly in context of Barthes discussion of the photographic image. Barthes’s concepts of the studium and the punctum figure heavily in Ulmer’s description of the mechanism by which images are read.

Other significant postmodern figures whom Ulmer references include Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, Algirdas Greimas, Terry Eagleton, Gilles Deleuze, and Giorgio Agamben.

Internet Invention goes beyond simply using references to specific authors who fall under the umbrella of postmodernism. Both the concepts and the presentation of the book owe much to postmodern thought. Ulmer’s thought and presentation throughout the work relies on highly idiosyncratic juxtaposition of concepts as well as the use of extended excerpts from other texts worked into each chapter, resulting in a type of verbal collage.

Reviewers have seen Ulmer’s use of postmodern theory and style in Internet Invention as both a strong point of the work as well as a potential liability, particularly for use among undergraduate students unfamiliar with the figures and concepts he draws on. In reviewing Internet Invention for Enculturation, Jenny Edbauer writes:

“Users will necessarily find Internet Invention’s language dis/re/orienting, for electracy itself is a reorientation of literacy . . . Though I hope Internet Invention is indeed the first of a new generation of writing texts, as Michael Salvo’s blurb says on the back cover, I fear that its squeals, stammers, and uncoordinated leaps will scare away many instructors.”

Chidsey Dickson, in a review for Kairos, suggests that a cross-referenced glossary would be a valuable addition given the wide array of names, terms, and concepts used in the book.

At the same time, the book has also been praised as an excellent example of making key concepts of postmodernity relevant and practical. Julie Kearney, in her review of the book for Computers and Composition Online, states that:

“Ulmer tackles the complexities of the cutting edge theory and practice of electronic discourse from a detailed, innovative, and intelligent perspective.”