Some readers of this blog might remember that I posted my notes to Greg Ulmer's book Internet Invention while I taught my Fall "Computers and Writing" class. We used Ulmer's book in that class to work through a genre of writing called mystory. Mystory is an attempt to understand the various images and discourses that shape us as thinkers, readers, writers...as beings.

I never did post anything about how that class went, so I thought I'd post a description of the Mystory projects that students in that class developed. Overall, I was very pleased considering I'd never taught the book before. I'm submitting this project for the CWRL's annual MEME Award. Here's a brief description of the project with some links to student mystories:

This is one of a series of posts about Greg Ulmer's Internet Invention. These posts will serve as lecture notes for a class I'm teaching, but my hope is that they could also be a resource for others using Ulmer's text. I have tagged all of these posts internet invention for those who want to see them all in one place.

This is one of a series of posts about Greg Ulmer's Internet Invention. These posts will serve as lecture notes for a class I'm teaching, but my hope is that they could also be a resource for others using Ulmer's text. I have tagged all of these posts internet invention for those who want to see them all in one place.

In Internet Invention, Greg Ulmer notes the a significant difference between how art and advertising solve problems. Art opens up questions and asks the viewer/reader to think through possibilities. Advertising solves the problem for you:

"The effect of advertising is exemplary of the effect of myth in the spectacle in general: to introduce the actual problems of life, but then to invoke the psychic defense mechanism of fetishism and conduction, by displacing the threatening, anxiety-producing possibilities of the problem toward a sense of well-being, reassurance, safety" (258).

Ulmer asks us to study an advertisement and explore the “alternate paths available that avoid or confront the real social or psychological difficulties touched on by the ad” (261).

The following advertisement would seem to address the “problem” of pollution and energy conservation by offering a hybrid vehicle. However, the real problem it addresses is the smugness of hybrid owners:

This is one in a series of posts about Greg Ulmer's Internet Invention. These posts will serve as lecture notes for a class I'm teaching, but my hope is that they could also be a resource for others using Ulmer's text. I have tagged all of these posts internet invention for those who want to see them all in one place.

This is one in a series of posts about Greg Ulmer's Internet Invention. These posts will serve as lecture notes for a class I'm teaching, but my hope is that they could also be a resource for others using Ulmer's text. I have tagged all of these posts internet invention for those who want to see them all in one place.

This is one in a series of posts about Greg Ulmer's Internet Invention. These posts will serve as lecture notes for a class I'm teaching, but my hope is that they could also be a resource for others using Ulmer's text. I have tagged all of these posts internet invention for those who want to see them all in one place.

This is one in a series of posts about Greg Ulmer's Internet Invention. These posts will serve as lecture notes for a class I'm teaching, but my hope is that they could also be a resource for others using Ulmer's text. I have tagged all of these posts internet invention for those who want to see them all in one place.

This is one in a series of posts about Greg Ulmer's Internet Invention. These posts will serve as lecture notes for a class I'm teaching, but my hope is that they could also be a resource for others using Ulmer's text. I have tagged all of these posts internet invention for those who want to see them all in one place.

This is one in a series of posts about Greg Ulmer's Internet Invention. These posts will serve as lecture notes for a class I'm teaching, but my hope is that they could also be a resource for others using Ulmer's text. I have tagged all of these posts internet invention for those who want to see them all in one place.