physicality/materiality
OK, here is a distinction I have to keep in mind, because at times it gets a little blurry and I begin assuming that there is no distinction: the difference between physicality and materiality. This is an important distinction in Hayles’s theory. She explains it at such:
Materiality
should not be confused with physicality. Whereas the physical aspects of any object are potentially infinite and
neutral in themselves, materiality is intimately bound up with the quest for
meaning. (As Jerome McGann has
eloquently pointed out, meaning is not something that literary texts produce but
rather that of which they go in search.[i])
To emphasize the distinction between
physicality and materiality, we have elsewhere defined materiality as those
physical aspects mobilized by a work’s signifying strategies to create
meaning.[ii]
The definition implies materiality is
not pre-given and cannot be specified in advance; rather, it is an emergent
property, subject to debates about whether a given physical characteristic is or
is not important to a work’s meaning.
should not be confused with physicality. Whereas the physical aspects of any object are potentially infinite and
neutral in themselves, materiality is intimately bound up with the quest for
meaning. (As Jerome McGann has
eloquently pointed out, meaning is not something that literary texts produce but
rather that of which they go in search.[i])
To emphasize the distinction between
physicality and materiality, we have elsewhere defined materiality as those
physical aspects mobilized by a work’s signifying strategies to create
meaning.[ii]
The definition implies materiality is
not pre-given and cannot be specified in advance; rather, it is an emergent
property, subject to debates about whether a given physical characteristic is or
is not important to a work’s meaning.
This makes one point clear to me: that I should not insert my discussion about the code in chapter one, but even earlier than that, in the introduction. This was an ongoing concern for awhile for me. Also maybe I need to move my discussion of the text to an earlier point in chapter one, even before my discussion of Tristram Shandy. But that might create some logistical issues, especially when I was going to use it as a prelude for Galatea 2.2.
