Kirdy, Moriah L.
(2020)
Paper Programs: Notebook-Based Information Systems and the Generative Potential of Constraint.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
This dissertation investigates genres of handwritten notebook-based information systems through meta-genre, a term borrowed from Janet Giltrow to describe the talk and texts surrounding genre-based practice. It asks: what do these routine and repetitive acts of writing promise for their users, and what do they do as rhetorical and affective agents of change? We live in an era with a massive “productivity market,” for wearable self-tracking tech, web and mobile productivity applications, and computer-based note-taking and yet many everyday writers maintain robust pen-and-paper practices. The case examples that structure this dissertation include the commonplace book (a genre of reading log popularized in the early modern era), the bullet journal (a productivity and mindfulness practice), and the experiences of seven individuals I interviewed about their practices which ranged from health symptom management, to workplace productivity, to time-based quantified self experiments. Drawing from experimental poetics, I introduce the concept of constraint to describe the self-assigned and generative “rules” practitioners design and appropriate to govern these systems, which promise for their users a training akin to cognitive, emotional, and rhetorical programming. I argue that constraint-based systems infuse text and writer with potentialities generated not from the writer’s agency alone, but in collaboration with the system’s own rhetorical force. “Paper Programs” thus offers that we do not need to look far for examples of writers who are attuned to the ways in which their subject positions are being deferred and distributed, and who adopt constraints as technologies of mediation to intervene in the various forces that co-construct their being.
Share
| Citation/Export: |
|
| Social Networking: |
|
Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| ETD Committee: |
|
| Date: |
16 January 2020 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
30 August 2019 |
| Approval Date: |
16 January 2020 |
| Submission Date: |
29 October 2019 |
| Access Restriction: |
2 year -- Restrict access to University of Pittsburgh for a period of 2 years. |
| Number of Pages: |
235 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > English |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
composition and rhetoric, genre, material culture, constraint, procedure, everyday writing |
| Date Deposited: |
16 Jan 2020 18:53 |
| Last Modified: |
16 Jan 2022 06:15 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/37738 |
Metrics
Monthly Views for the past 3 years
Plum Analytics
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
![[feed]](/images/feed-icon-32x32.png){kind=icon}