Hypertext Research

Web of ideas: I write my research notes directly in HTML using hyperlinks. That architecture best reflects how I think – in a sprawling web of interconnected ideas. Our internal “theatre of consciousness” only ever illuminates a limited circle of ideas whose intelligibility relies upon a more complete, accessible, but not currently accessed, set of ideas. The single webpage acts like a conscious thread that can be narrated in one linear breath. The hyperlinks are the channels to the backstage network of assumptions and contextual narration that gives meaning to the present text.

 

Read the Hypertext: Given how the web of texts works, you need to follow the hyperlinks to make sense of it. You will find links to typological terms that are systematically defined in relation to the whole constellation of optical machines. There are also links to technical terms and concepts related to how these objects worked and were thought (sometimes mistakenly) to work. Our taxonomic method is comparative, and the links often help you to understand important comparisons.

 

Publication-as-I-Write: I write directly to a site accessible to the web, so my words are “published” as soon as I type them. Usually it is obvious when I am still working on a page, but I have recently taken to posting a caution when my words are first approximations and I am not yet ready to stand by them – you should not cite me from such a page.

 

Use of My Ideas: You are welcome to use my ideas, words or the original data that Ana and I have collected here in your own work, but you MUST CITE these pages as a source. Something like this would do: Rod Bantjes, “Hypertext_Research.html,” accessed, 29 December, 2026, https://people.stfx.ca/rbantjes/. Of course if you use my words or particular way of phrasing, you must enclose the words in quotation marks and cite them as mine.