Whereas literary programming embeds bits of writing in code, in an attempt to further the communicative potential of that code, hypertext embeds bits of code in writing so as to make that writing more navigable. Simply put, hypertext is writing that contains links to other pieces of writing. There is really nothing more, in principle, to it than that. Hypertext is one of those curious technologies that was widely theorized about in advance of being created and used. The theory of hypertext, as devised and disseminated at this institution (Brown University) and others like it, positioned hypertext as the reification of post-structuralist theory.
Many grand claims have been made for it, and many lines drawn in the sand. The tendency to idealize it into some sort of potential textual utopia is what leads to the (tongue-in-cheek) name of this website. Post-structuralist literary theory has a series of tropes which align around the idea of the demotion of the author as fountain-head of meaning ("Death of the Author"), the radical plurality of texts (multi-vocal, eclectic), and the decentered nature of some avant-garde literature. Hypertext, it was thought, would be the literal embodiment of these ideas. It would usher in a new era of 'wreaders' (from writer/reader) who would take up these shiny hypertextual scalpels and remake texts in their own image.
Instead of passively submitting to a linear (and therefore, the argument ran, hegemonic and authoritarian) stream of text, the audience was supposed to jump in and choose the textual strands that they favored, reading in an order chosen by themselves, entering and exiting the text at any moment...
Jeremy Ashkenas
