upcoming adaptation?

Though Brave New World has been around for over 70 years there has never been a successful full-length feature film of the novel. Though he has not been especially forthcoming about the film, Ridley Scott is set to direct a film adaptation, possibly starring Leonardo DiCaprio, this year according to the Sci Fi movie page

The most recent (only?) adaptations previous to this project are two TV versions, one in 1980 directed by Burt Brinckerhoff and the other in 1998 directed by Leslie Libman that stars Leonard Nimoy as Mustapha Mond.

Nimoy makes an ideal World Controller, but the Libman version ends with typical Hollywood schmaltz showing Bernard and Lenina with an infant in exile. Brinckerhoff's version seems a bit cheezy by today's standards and it certainly takes a few liberties by developing parts of the narrative but it ends as the novel ends with John's feet swinging back and forth.

It would make an interesting exercise to read the novel, listen to part 1 and part 2 of the 1956 CBS radio broadcast (Huxley narrates!) and watch the two TV versions above followed by a discussion of the various choices made in each adaptation and how they affect our understanding of the narrative.

Just because we can?

Ah, the ever-relevant Huxley...

A few lines of dialog at the end of chapter 3 in Huxley's Brave New World outline the development of soma, the drug for every occasion, to evade every unpleasant mood:

"Two thousand pharmacologists and bio-chemists were subsidized in A.F. 178.

"He does look glum," said the Assistant Predestinator, pointing at Bernard Marx.

"Six years later it was being produced commercially.

The perfect drug."

"Let's bait him."

"Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly hallucinant."

"Glum, Marx, glum."

The clap on the shoulder made him start, look up. It was that brute Henry Foster.

"What you need is a gramme of soma. All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol;

none of their defects."(53-54)

In a recent NPR story Is Emotional Pain Necessary?" Alix Spiegel explores our ability to chemically avoid difficult and unpleasant experiences like grief. Huxley's fictional soma is not mentioned but our growing pharmacopeia is increasingly blooming with mood altering drugs and Big Pharma is a multi-billion dollar industry.
Clearly, some of these pharmaceuticals are helpful and bring much needed relief to many people, but it may be time to reconsider whether some of the emotions or experiences we try to avoid might actually be important, if painful, to encounter directly.

For example, no matter who you are it is certain that you will experience grief at some point in your life - unless you're a sociopath.
Spiegel's story reveals that in the most recent draft of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the book used by psychiatrists to diagnose mental illness, a debate is roiling about whether grief should be considered a treatable mental illness if it lasts longer than two weeks.

The natural grief we experience at the death of a loved one includes loss of appetite, loss of sleep, lack of concentration but "in the new manual, if symptoms like these persist for more than two weeks, the bereaved person will be considered to have a mental disorder: major depression. And treatment, either therapy or medication, is recommended."

So that's it: you get a 2-week limit for grief and then it's back to work. Longer than that and you're considered sick and in need of treatment.
This is one of the reasons that soma is so useful in Huxley's fictional World State - it keeps the wheels of production spinning. No pesky human emotions to slow things down or cause disturbance.

In the last three chapters of Brave New World, John Savage challenges Mustapha Mond to justify the ways of the World State. In the process of their conversation, John argues for facing rather than avoiding difficulties, challenges and pain. These unpleasant experiences strengthen our will, make us more self-aware, and remind us of our ability to survive.

"The Savage nodded, frowning. "You got rid of them. Yes, that's just like you. Getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it. Whether 'tis better in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them . . . But you don't do either. Neither suffer nor oppose. You just abolish the slings and arrows. "It's too easy.""

It was the easy life of the Eloi in H. G. Wells' The Time Machine that left them physically and intellectually weak:
"What, unless biological science is a mass of errors, is the cause of human intelligence and vigour? Hardship and freedom: conditions under which the active, strong, and subtle survive and the weaker go to the wall; conditions that put a premium upon the loyal alliance of capable men, upon self-restraint, patience, and decision."

Not Bokanovsky's Process, but....

MORE FASTER EASIER MORE FASTER EASIER MORE FASTER

Recently NPR News featured a story that demonstrates the continuing relevance of Huxley's insights in his novel Brave New World: "Scientists Reach Milestone On Way To Artificial Life". When Craig Venter says that "we could create new species to do what we want them to do, not what they evolved to do" his hybrid entity of synthesized DNA and biological cell suggests a step towards Huxley's fictional world of manufactured commoditized human beings:
"...a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress."

MORE FASTER EASIER MORE FASTER EASIER MORE FASTER

And perhaps Venter's invention will prove to be progress, to move us forward in solving some of the grave threats to our species, but creating a corporation to manufacture artificial servants for-profit may not be the most promising first step.

Is this how we define progress?

Designing Miranda

In approaching the redesign of Miranda, I decided to stick with the approximate original color scheme.  The site as a whole is rather somber and dark in order to reflect the sense of dystopia that emanates from the text itself.  Such is part of the appeal of having a hypertext such as this.  In a book, the only option is black text on a white page, and even the font cannot really be changed much.  Online, however, the design of the site can be just as important as the links that supplement the text.  The design helps to embed the reader in the world of the novel.

In addition to the color scheme, we chose two separate fonts to use on the site, one serif, and one sans-serif.  Since studies have shown that sans-serif fonts are far easier to read on a screen, we chose that for the text of the novel to assist readers.  However, the particular font we chose is Helvetica, as it is one of the most widely used fonts in the world, enhancing the sense of a unified world envisioned in Brave New World.  The serif font we chose for the menu and banner is Courier New, designed to resemble the output of a typewriter.  As such, it also encourages a sense of uniformity, as well as ideas of mechanical control. 

What do you think of the design?

Miranda is now live!

Check it out!  And let us know what you think!

Sneak Peek at the Upcoming Changes!

Here's what the current homepage looks like:

And here's the revised version:

Thoughts? Comments? Concerns? Questions?

Hopefully the updated version will go live soon!

Miranda Revisited: Hypertext Applied

Lee Carleton
English / Writing Center
University of Richmond
“Miranda Revisited: Hypertext Applied” – VSU Conference on Composition, May 2005

Introduction
This presentation is an update on the presentation I did on this hypertext at last year’s conference. Since then, I have had the opportunity to deploy Miranda in four different sections of ENGL 103 (Introduction to Expository Writing) over two semesters here at the University of Richmond. While certainly not exhaustive, nor excessively formalized, the student feedback and input I gained over the past year has been both exciting and instructive for me as well as my students, and I think you may find it interesting.

Definitions
A few words from my earlier essay on hypertext might help to re-contextualize the word and concept of “hypertext”:
“While some may be familiar with the basic origins of hypertext, a very brief review might be helpful. “Hypertext” begins with the Greek “hyper” meaning above, beyond or over so that a hypertext is a text that surpasses the boundaries of traditional text. The concept of hypertext can be traced to Vannevar Bush in his July 1945 article in The Atlantic. Bush’s article “As We May Think” details his vision of the “memex” (as in “memory annex”) that was a “mechanically-linked information retrieval machine to help scholars and decision makers with…an explosion of information.” (Landow 7) One of Bush’s disciples, Theodore Nelson, was the first to coin this term in 1965 to refer to a database format where information that is related to a display can be accessed through that display in any sequence the reader chooses. As George Landow notes in Hypertext 2.0:
Bush wished to replace the essentially linear fixed methods
that had produced the triumphs of capitalism and industrialism
with what are essentially poetic machines…that work according
to analogy and association, machines that capture and create
the anarchic brilliance of the human imagination. (10)

Not only does a hypertext allow greater freedom and empowerment to the reader, it encourages a completely different kind of thinking than traditional linear, rational approaches to text. The value of this is that more often than we realize, our best ideas and solutions come to us intuitively rather than as a result of conscious reasoning - our “anarchic brilliance” may hold the solution to many of our most perennial human problems.”(“Ambivalence” 2-3)
Perhaps the most important aspect of this project is its ability to encourage, and often demand, creativity and new kinds of thinking and connecting ideas – skills we desperately need and are rapidly losing. Landow’s assessment of Vannevar Bush echoes the Emersonian reminder that a galaxy of genius awaits us as we leave worn paths of thinking and knowing and forge new ones.

While “hypertext” can technically refer to any website with a “hypertext transport protocol” address, the familiar “http” at the beginning of the address, most of these do not contain significant opportunities for users to add to the content. A few websites out there do allow and encourage input in the form of personal blogging, gaming and other activities, but fewer still are those that encourage critical interaction and the opportunity to contribute to an academic discussion. The next revision of Miranda will include “Writing Space” where my composer’s journal and user submissions will be posted, thus insuring the hypertext is a dynamic, multi-vocal, omni-relevant resource.

Theory
There are several theoretical motivations at play in my use of hypertext, but the original inspirations came from postmodern theory (Foucault, Derrida, Baudrillard) and the idea of tracing the source of ideas, foregrounding structure and power, empowering the reader, and authorizing her to participate more fully in the making meaning by building in a variety of reading and informational possibilities rather than a standard, linear text with structured table of contents. The web is often referred to as “cyberspace” and is derived from the Greek “cyber” or helmsman – the one in charge with the power to steer the boat, thus emphasizing the importance of self-direction in navigation a key aspect of postmodernism. Knowledge or appreciation of literary theory however is not necessary, nor is it paramount in the creation of Miranda.

A more relevant theory perhaps might be that of Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan who gave us the mantra “the medium is the message” among hundreds of other words and phrases about technology and communication. McLuhan noticed that, despite its profound power, the very nature of language as a medium (discrete symbols, arranged in specific, linear ways, labeling, classification and division) has a limiting influence upon the human mind. This structure limits what we perceive, and perhaps what we are able to perceive just as it narrowly defines what is “true” or what we find believable. Finally, this structure is also the foundation of book technology. Though hypertext still contains writing (linear, logical, alphabetic, symbolic communication) it also includes other media and a whole array of choices for reading beyond what a single book could offer.

Of course, traditional book technology also has hypertextual aspects as many will point out: a reader can skim, skip around, browse the index or consult any annotations or sources listed. Hypertext allows all this and more. In addition to a web of cross-linking texts, hypertext can include audio and video clips as well as innumerable links to other supporting materials instantly.

My personal theory regarding the use of Miranda is that it can encourage a very useful, similar type of thinking in its users encouraging them to stray from established paths and to explore or make their own paths of knowledge and then to share them. I believe that the complexity of navigating (or creating!) a new kind of text focused on this brilliant and widely applicable novel helps to create Vygotsky’s pedagogical “ZPD” or zone of proximal development. This is a place of maximum learning where the difficulty of the assignment is between the easy independent, unaided exercise and tasks so difficult as to necessitate assistance.

The newness of hypertext as a teaching medium combined with my insistence on student invention (they come up with their own theses for writing) makes for a stimulating and challenging experience that pushes students to grow intellectually without overwhelming or over-direction.
Method
The central text for Miranda is Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World that is divided into eighteen “pages”, one for each chapter, at the end of which are links to other chapters and questions to stimulate writing. Each page contains multiple links to other pages in Miranda, or to outside links (text, audio & video) that connect in some way to the chapter or passage in which they are embedded. To the left of each page in the hypertext is a menu bar that divides the links in the hypertext according to general categories like history, philosophy, science, and of course Shakespeare. Readers of Miranda have a wide variety of choices for reading and can glean as much or as little additional information about the novel as she likes.

Though Miranda could arguably be deployed across the curriculum in a variety of disciplines (Brave New World is surprising in its scope), thus far I have only used it in my freshman writing course “Introduction to Expository Writing” and I have collected the writings and feedback from the students of four different sections of this course over the past year.

Originally, I had intended to assign the reading of the hypertext for the final project of the semester where each student would write her own research essay from her unique explorations of Miranda. While I kept this project as our final effort, I turned it into a group project where each group would submit a single final essay, and each group member would submit her own portfolio of contributions to that final essay. I might note here that though group work is almost universally despised, the focus on and use of Miranda seemed to change this so that the pedagogical value of both the group exercise and the hypertext were delightfully enhanced.

The biggest challenge for students here was the invention of a sufficiently narrow, sophisticated and significant researchable thesis from their various readings. The final group essay is required to be at least 10 pages long, not including the works cited and works consulted pages. Though Miranda teems with web sources, I require a certain minimum number of paper-text sources to demonstrate student ability to navigate this elder technology. Paper-text sources also highlight the fact that the internet is not peer reviewed or checked for reliability like most academic books, requiring close reading and critical engagement with these amazing technologies. In fact, the disclaimer on the index page notes that even the links contained in Miranda are not pre-approved or necessarily “authoritative” thus requiring vigilant reading – a fading but crucial skill.

Results
Though the quality of the final group essays varied a bit, it was clear from the accompanying student portfolios that a group writing project using hypertext was a valuable academic experience and intellectual stimulant. Most students were enthusiastic about using this new technology even if they complained about specific aesthetic insufficiencies they noticed while reading online instead of by book. Even this mild distaste for e-reading is intellectually valuable in that it requires the reader to reflect on her specific dissatisfaction and its cause, in this case involving a survey of pleasant sensory experiences ordinarily associated with reading a book.

For some students, the absence of a paper text to annotate and mark up was the primary problem. Other students read using the temporary highlighting available in a mouse click, while still others opened word processing software for typing notes while reading. Some students found the links to be useful and interesting and stimulating to their thinking but others found the links distracting as they read, suggesting that perhaps links should be listed at the bottom of each “page” to prevent distraction. One of my observations after eight years of teaching is the decreasing ability of the student to focus attention, a rather obvious side effect of modern media ubiquity. While it might be suggested that a hypertext offering a wilderness of links could only further stunt student ability to focus attention, several students noted that the “page” format of each chapter actually helped them to stay focused and to scroll through the reading more quickly and efficiently than if they were conscious of and flipping individual pages of a chapter.

Though the advantages derived from group work cannot be totally ascribed to Miranda, the value of this approach is clear. Written student responses to their group experience revealed that, though occasionally frustrating, interacting with group members during the project was a great enhancement to learning. Students stimulated one another’s thinking about the novel and its significance and they grew in responsibility as they negotiated their various schedules to plan group meetings, writing workshops etc.

In addition to its easy cross-curricular application possibilities, using Brave New World as the central text for Miranda helps to focus student attention specifically on the activity of learning since psychological conditioning is a major aspect of the novel. In the first chapter of the novel, we are shown a scene where a clutch of scribbling Alpha students uncritically record all that the director says without question, because “the question didn't arise; in this year of stability, A. F. 632, it didn't occur to you to ask it.” This sort of passive acceptance-learning or what might be called the “banking” system of instruction is not only pervasive today in America, it is insufficient to the needs of a functioning democracy. Students learn from this passage that education requires much more than the mere taking of notes – it demands thoughtful engagement and critical attention.

Revisions
Miranda could easily be a lifelong project with no “final” completion, but along the way I am certain to revise the hypertext with additional student submissions as well as their feedback on the efficacy of this format. In line with an excellent student suggestion, I will be listing the links for each chapter at the bottom of the chapter/page to prevent distraction while reading.

I also plan to revise the navigation bar so that it remains fixed as the chapter scrolls by. The glossary is helpful, but there is plenty of other vocabulary from the novel that could be included.
Instead of a direct link to the glossary, I’m considering making vocabulary words “live” so that they only appear as a link when the cursor touches them. This could help prevent distraction while reading while enhancing the ease with which a reader could discover a particular definition.

Eventually, I plan to link many other relevant texts to Miranda, particularly Orwell’s 1984 (already online in a searchable version!) and Zamyatin’s We, the original inspiration for both Brave New World and 1984. Though I’ve noted that Huxley’s novel is cross-curricular and offers many multi-disciplinary advantages, mathematics is a key area that is underdeveloped, but in We mathematics is a central concern and metaphor for the novel. Other future links, additions or revisions might also include a page of links and commentary on current events and popular culture as they connect with the novel and its ideas. And finally, the ultimate revision would be one that included student-created media specifically designed for Miranda that simultaneously enhances their creativity, their digital literacy and their critical language skills.

Closing Comments
I highly recommend the construction and deployment of complex hypertexts as a valuable exercise in critical thinking and creativity for both the teacher and the student. While I have gained some experience with certain software programs (Front Page, Dreamweaver particularly) I am not a “technoweenie” to whom this comes easily, so I would like to encourage each of you to begin to play with this idea and the technology available to you to see how to more effectively meet student needs and stimulate student interest. A simple one-page poem can be created as a substantial hypertext with a minimum of effort compared to the intellectual growth that is stimulated in both the student and the teacher during its creation and use. While it certainly is a “brave new world” out there in terms of technology changing faster every day, teachers of English can more fully and effectively participate in and shape this world if we dive in and begin to navigate it as cybernauts instead of cyber-nots.