You can't go back home to your family, back home to your
childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man's dreams of
glory and of fame, back home to exile, to escape to Europe and some foreign
land, back home to lyricism, to singing just for singing's sake, back home to
aestheticism, to one's youthful idea of 'the artist' and the all-sufficiency of
'art' and 'beauty' and 'love,' back home to the ivory tower, back home to
places in the country, to the cottage in Bermude, away from all the strife and
conflict of the world, back home to the father you have lost and have been
looking for, back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden
for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed
everlasting but which are changing all the time—back home to the escapes of
Time and Memory. ~ Thomas Wolfe
~0~
"Home" is a term rich in connotative (secondary) meaning. For some, it's a mindset--for others, a physical locale. Within the context of the mystory, home represents a potential starting point for the circular journey (this concept is explored in great depth from a literary studies perspective in Christopher Booker's The Seven Basic Plots, where it takes the form of the "Voyage and Return" trope).
Ulmer notes that the circular model represents a common framework for thinking about life's journeys, and he draws a distinction between the traditional literary approach and electracy in asserting that "electrate people do not experience their 'being' as 'selfhood'" (74).
So how do we configure "home" in the digital medium? The homepage is analogous to the department store window of the middle twentieth century. It orients visitors to the Web site's goods and services. It guides them, usually via a menu of indexed pages, to the information they may be looking for. It places an emphasis on certain products or privileged information, and it becomes the initial touchstone for credibility and ease of use.
My computer tracks frequently visited pages, and a quick analysis of the eight most current sites reveals a glimpse into my personality: there are two academic sites (FSCJ and MyUCF), two sports-related sites (the PGA Tour and Yahoo Sports), three writing-related sites (Amazon, SF Signal, and my personal blog) and a financial site (MSN Money).
Ulmer notes that the circular model represents a common framework for thinking about life's journeys, and he draws a distinction between the traditional literary approach and electracy in asserting that "electrate people do not experience their 'being' as 'selfhood'" (74).
So how do we configure "home" in the digital medium? The homepage is analogous to the department store window of the middle twentieth century. It orients visitors to the Web site's goods and services. It guides them, usually via a menu of indexed pages, to the information they may be looking for. It places an emphasis on certain products or privileged information, and it becomes the initial touchstone for credibility and ease of use.
