Nostalgic Angels

Johndan Johnson-Eilola

Nostalgia reminds us that the past is never the way we imagined it was (or would be), that the world was constructed for people walking, riding in cars, or flying in planes rather than on their own wings. You don't just get wings and take off. You need to articulate those wings to new possibilities, taking into account the changes you might need to make in the world, considering that the image of being an angel might be usefulbut it's also possible that you're just a person with mechanical wings strapped to your back. It's just a metaphor, nothing more (or less).

"Nostalgic Angels is a uniquely valuable treatment of hypertext writing starting from a cultural and political critique of this new technology. It examines the challenges facing writers and writing teachers who wish to free hypertext from traditional assumptions of textuality and from its implication in hegemonic writing practices and pedagogy in order to exploit the possibilities for social and political change it offers. Nostalgic Angels is significant as a critique of this technology that is, for the most part, simply celebrated as liberatory in and of itself."
Marilyn M. Cooper
Michigan Technological University

"Johnson-Eilola is a remarkably diligent, acute, scrupulous, and broad-minded scholar. His critique of hypertext, which insistently situates this technology in political and economic contexts, makes an important contribution to our thinking. He demonstrates compellingly that post-Marxist cultural theorists... have important things to say about hypertext. Also, he has covered the strangely assorted field of hypertext research with admirable care, marshalling information from the design and engineering communities as well as from pedagogy and literary studies."
Stuart Moulthrop
University of Baltimore

Johndan Johnson-Eilola works in the Rhetoric and Composition Program in the Department of English at Purdue University.

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Johndan Johnson-Eilola
Nostalgia reminds us that the past is never the way we imagined it was (or would be), that the world was constructed for people walking, riding in cars, or flying in planes rather than on their own wings. You don't just get wings and take off. You need to articulate those wings to new possibilities, taking into account the changes you might need to make in the world, considering that the image of being an angel might be usefulbut it's also possible that you're just a person with mechanical wings strapped to your back. It's just a metaphor, nothing more (or less).
	"Nostalgic Angels is a uniquely valuable treatment of hypertext writing starting from a cultural and political critique of this new technology. It examines the challenges facing writers and writing teachers who wish to free hypertext from traditional assumptions of textuality and from its implication in hegemonic writing practices and pedagogy in order to exploit the possibilities for social and political change it offers. Nostalgic Angels is significant as a critique of this technology that is, for the most part, simply celebrated as liberatory in and of itself." Marilyn M. Cooper Michigan Technological University "Johnson-Eilola is a remarkably diligent, acute, scrupulous, and broad-minded scholar. His critique of hypertext, which insistently situates this technology in political and economic contexts, makes an important contribution to our thinking. He demonstrates compellingly that post-Marxist cultural theorists... have important things to say about hypertext. Also, he has covered the strangely assorted field of hypertext research with admirable care, marshalling information from the design and engineering communities as well as from pedagogy and literary studies." Stuart Moulthrop University of Baltimore
Johndan Johnson-Eilola works in the Rhetoric and Composition Program in the Department of English at Purdue University.