Reading Machines: A Procedural Analysis of Poetics of Reading

Jianni Tien
Reading Machines Jianni Tien (PDF)

My thesis investigates how to undertake what I describe as a ‘procedural analysis’ of electronic literature to acknowledge electronic literature’s computational processes and its literary elements. Taking John Cayley and Daniel C. Howe’s Poetics of Reading as a case study, and Ian Bogost’s conception of ‘unit operations’ as a method, this procedural analysis identi es Poetics of Reading as relying on a literary variety of autopoiesis for poetic and political effect. Poetics of Reading is then seen to ask questions about reading, texts, and the materiality of reading itself. Procedural analysis of electronic literature leads to a clearer understanding of the aims and scope of electronic literature works and can account for the speci city of the electronic in electronic literature.