Final Project Proposal

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This project examines how the understanding of literature is changing in the digital age by analyzing memes as a possible new form of digital literature. My thesis is that memes function as a new form of digital literature because they replace linear narrative structures with collective, visual, and participatory meaning production.

The aim of the project is to explore the cultural and cognitive shift from print-based to digital media and to ask what still counts as “literature” in the digital context. I would also like to explore to what extent memes can be compared to books in terms of information transmission. While text is based on language, structure, and argumentation, memes work with images, emotions, and shared digital references.

As a creative project, I would like to create two pages that each deal with the same topic. The first page is more traditional, a standard book page. Instead of an informational text, the second page contains a collection of various memes that report on the same topic. By comparing two forms of presentation of the same topic, on the one hand as traditional text and on the other as a collection of memes, I want to show how the structure, form, and interactivity of digital media change the way meaning is created, communicated, and understood.

Furthermore, I want to show that the transition from print to digital media is not only a technical change, but also a cultural one. Young people today spend a large part of their time with digital content, especially memes, while books are becoming less important for many. Memes are therefore an integral part of our everyday culture and shape how young people think, communicate, and absorb information. Nevertheless, they have hardly been seriously studied in literary and media studies to date.

Battle of the Bands SDSU!!

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Hey guys! I wanted to announce that my band, Girls Got Nerve, will be competing in this year’s SDSU Battle of the Bands for the chance to perform at Greenfest as an opener at the California Coast Open Air Theatre, which is located here on campus. Seven bands will be competing on December 3rd from 6-8:30 at the student union in the Montezuma Hall (where orientations are held for students). It’s gonna be a cool way for you guys to see some SDSU bands and get introduced to new music! I hope to see some of you guys there!:)

Here I have attached a pic of us wearing handcrafted outfits made by our guitarist, Toula.

Zine Workshop -Extra Credit-

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I’m so happy that I attended the Zine workshop hosted by Vide. He did a great job bringing people together in a purposeful way to spread his knowledge on making zines and memes. I had a great time sitting with fellow students, crafting together in a collaborative environment. We would ask each other for opinions and share crafting materials. Although im not necessarily a crafty person, it was so cool to go through magazines and newspapers, collecting what I thought would serve me in my zine. I learned that zines are excellent ways to share information and spread messages. They are a form of storytelling and learning how to fold paper to make a book, connected to our class. I ended up making a goofy little book about my best friend/bandmate, and I gave it to her as a silly gift. Thank you, Vide, for putting on a cool event and bringing people together!

Bookishness

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Reading Dr. Pressman’s book, “Bookishness: Loving Books in a Digital Age,” felt like the perfect capstone to this class in the way that everything fell into place and how the book related to many of our discussions. At the beginning of the semester, we discussed how books were once a new technology that sparked wariness and various discussions about their impact. Now, centuries later, a new conversation has spread about our ventures into the digital space and how it would affect books. “On page 26, Pressman writes, “Five hundred years after Gutenberg’s invention, we have become used to books as accessible, ever-present commodities and personal comforts. We forget that the book was once the new media, raising concern about its potential power.” Within this quote, Pressman acknowledges the commodification of books, the evolution of book technology, and how power is deeply entwined with it. Since the beginning of the semester, we have discussed the commodification of books and how it has become a main aspect of books. Books became portable, marketable, and desirable, which is seen in the way that books have become an aesthetic. Anything could be rebranded with the image of a book and it would sell. Another point that Pressman addresses is how books have evolved over time inclduing views on them. During a time where everything is saturated with books and bookish content, it is easy to forget that books were once a new technology that fed many fears. Pressman includes a quote from Victor Hugo’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” where the Claude Frollo declares that the book will kill the church and its influence. Despite being centuries ago, the sentiment has remained the same in which we see this same fear as we venture into digital spaces. Finally Pressman ackknowledges the power that books hold. At first glance, it is easy to ignore the importance of books and how they can shape people. She writes, “experimental novels play with the materiality of the book to present narrative allegories that figure the digital as monstrous and the book as a powerful weapon against it.” Books hold an incredible power that challenge the digital realm and it is clear in Pressman’s book that she wants to express this notion.

“Unpacking my Library”

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Walter Benjamin’s “Unpacking My Library” offers a unique and personal look into the life of a book collector, prompting us to reconsider what it means to truly “own” a book and what it means to be a book “collector”. It is a wonderful final reading for this class. Benjamin begins by stating that “I am unpacking my library. Yes, I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order” (Benjamin, 59). A chaotic scene for new discovery within one’s own archive is set. 

What struck me is how Benjamin distinguishes between collecting and a collection. He emphasizes that a true collector’s passion “borders on the chaos of memories” and that the act of collecting is tied to stories and histories rather than just utility or monetary value. A collector does not simply collect books for their content or value, but for the deeper meaning each item holds. Benjamin explains, “The most profound enchantment for the collector is the locking of individual items within a magic circle in which they are fixed as the final thrill, the thrill of acquisition, passes over them” (Benjamin, 60). Each book becomes a vessel of memory and discovery, as a way for the collector to see through objects into their unique past. Our midterm project, writing the biography of a book, taught us this, exhibiting how the materiality of books are more than vessels for written content, but artifacts with their own rich histories and stories to tell. Benjamin also highlights the unpredictability of acquiring and collecting books, where even catalogued items may offer surprise or new information. Benjamin recounts discovering a rare illustrated book he had never thought of owning, describing it as a freedom given to a lonely book. For him, the “true freedom of all books is somewhere on his shelves” (Benjamin, 64).  This resonated with me, especially after our studies of archives, where we have found how exciting it can be to discover unexpected connections, histories, and the unique lives of objects. 

In “Unpacking my Library”, Benjamin reminds us that collecting and creating one’s own archive is not passive, but an emotional and physical endeavor. Our collections are reflections of our passions and memories which can be found in the content of our books and the pages themselves. This class, and Benjamin’s reading, inspires me to explore deeper into my own archive of books to uncover, or rediscover, something new.

All the Cool Kids are Zining 💅✨

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I had the pleasure of attending Vide’s workshop on making zines and memes. Honestly, this workshop helped me immensely with my idea for my final project, and future Prof. Vide (yes he did so well that I’ve deemed him a future professor) even gave helpful websites that can also be used in our final project making process (at least in my case, as I want to involve hyper-links). Anyways, after a very comprehensive history of zines and memes, we got down to the dirty work, trying to make our own zines.

I definitely need to learn how to fold paper straight better, but other than that it was pretty easy to make the physical zine form. I didn’t have enough time to finish my Zine (and no I won’t share it, because it is unfinished), but I did come to a cohesive theme for the Zine. I made it into a tiny Burn Book, as the newspaper I had access to included a photo of Pete Hegseth. (I gave him devil horns and a devil’s tail…immature, maybe—well deserved, definitely.)

Anyways I’m going to give y’all the link if you want to check out the resources Prof. Vide gave us just in case it is also helpful for y’all’s final projects. https://tinyurl.com/ZinesAndMemes2025

Also thank you Vide for having this workshop :).

Proof of life:

The Books Who Breathe

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This is my first time engaging in a Walter Benjamin reading and, to begin, his writing style is beautiful. It lacks pretentiousness while conveying a full-bodied story. What I got from *Illuminations* is a telling of how the value of a book can come in many different ways from the text, as evidenced by the act of collecting. Benjamin describes important information beyond the text, such as “dates, place names, formats, previous owners, bindings and the like: all these details must tell [the collector] something–not as dry, isolated facts, but as a harmonious whole” (63-64). All of these can provide some value for the collector, thus demonstrating that value does not come from any single place. Rather, it is ascribed by the collector themselves.

The creation of meaning by a dialogical relationship between book and author is beautifully stated by Benjamin: “I am not exaggerating when I say that to a true collector the acquisition of an old book is its rebirth” (61). The wording of “rebirth” is important here because it is not the creation of a completely new entity. “Rebirth” is a recreation or reiteration of something that previously existed–thus it is the recreation from the same book. In Benjamin’s writing, the book can not be reborn without the collector. Albeit in a more dramatic and morbid manner, this concept reminds me of an excerpt from an essay written by Jacqueline Rose for the London Review of Books: “After all, if I can’t exist without you, then you have, among other things, the power to kill me”. Both of these writers acknowledge life as perception. For Benjamin, the rebirth of the book is dependent on its’ perception by the collector. In other words, for a book–or a person–to be re-born or alive, then it must be perceived.

Week 13: Book Collecting Chaos

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Reading Walter Benjamin’s “Unpacking My Library” really made me think about what it means to truly own something versus just having it. Benjamin opens his essay by quite literally unpacking his book collection, and right away he admits he’s not going to give us some organized tour through his shelves. Instead, he invites us into “the disorder of crates that have been wrenched open, the air saturated with the dust of wood, the floor covered with torn paper” (59). There’s something really honest and kind of refreshing about this. It’s like he’s not pretending his collection is some perfectly curated thing.

What really interested me was Benjamin’s idea that collecting is fundamentally irrational. He writes about how “every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories” (60). This isn’t about building a useful library or even necessarily reading all the books. It’s about the memories attached to each one. Where you found it, who owned it before, the thrill of finally tracking down that one edition you’d been searching for. As someone who still has books from middle school that I’ll probably never reread in my life time, I get this. They’re not just objects, they’re like physical markers of different moments in my life.

The tension Benjamin describes between order and disorder in collecting really resonated with me. Collectors want to organize and catalog everything, but the actual experience of collecting is messy and emotional and sometimes totally random. You don’t always acquire books in a logical order. Sometimes you just stumble upon something that feels right in the moment.

What I found kind of profound was his point about renewal through collecting. He argues that acquiring an old book is like giving it a new life, pulling it out of obscurity and making it part of your world. In our age of digital everything and minimalism, there’s something almost rebellious about accumulating physical books and caring deeply about which edition you have or where it came from. Benjamin’s essay makes me wonder if we’ve lost something by treating books as just functional objects.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Childlike Wonder

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If this class and these last two readings have taught me anything, it is to approach the physical aspects of books, their history, and subsequent possible future with a childlike wonder. In the humdrum of certain classes, and constant pressure to be serious about the grades my perfectionist brain yearns to achieve, as well as the social expectations bearing down on my shoulders to be a serious adult, my research/assignments—while still interesting—become drained of color. The information and the search for information feels more like a means to an end rather than the end itself, and the process itself becomes a challenge to rush through and away from. There is no genuine wonder within my learning sometimes.

But with the experience I have now, and especially this quote from Unpacking My Library, “Among children, collecting is only one process of renewal; other processes are the painting of objects, the cutting out of figures, the application of decals-the whole range of childlike modes of acquisition, from touching things to giving them names…everything said from the angle of a real collector is whimsical,” I am reminded to see with the eyes of a child just discovering something (Benjamin 61-62). It is this childlike wonder that carved the path for the “Bookwork” mentioned on pages 8-9 in Dr. Pressman’s book intro. The sculptors utilized what Benjamin describes as “childlike modes of acquisition.” They touch and shape the book into something new, coming at it with a childlike wonder that makes it their own.

The midterm and these readings made me realize I am still able to have that childlike wonder without the seriousness clouding the work. I can discover things and be excited from those discoveries, and not do it just for a grade but because I genuinely am in awe from the information. It was the physical inspection—the holding, touching, and the turning of the pages—of Copernicus’s book, along with the discovery of questions, that reignited that childlike wonder spark in my brain. I wasn’t sorting through a vast amount of research with no direction, but instead a path that was being revealed to me for the first time that made me want to dig deeper.

It’s like going from being oxygen deprived to your lungs being drenched in O2. I felt excitement and wonder during school for the first time in a long time, and I’m glad these readings actually put it into perspective for me. Now going forward, I’ll make sure this child like wonder stays with me, no matter what I choose to do in the future.

Week 13: Unpacking My Library – Walter Benjamin

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In “Unpacking My Library,” Walter Benjamin writes about the experience of unpacking his books after they had been stored away for a long time. What struck me most is how personal his relationship with his books feels. He says that for a real collector, “it is he who lives in them.” I love this idea because it makes books feel alive, almost like a home that holds all of someone’s memories and experiences.

Benjamin doesn’t talk about books in a practical way, like something to read and then put away. Instead, he sees them as companions that carry stories beyond the ones written inside. Each book has a history of where it came from, how it was found, and what moments in life it connects to. I find that beautiful because it shows how reading and collecting are emotional acts. They are about memory and attachment, not just knowledge.

When I was reading this essay, I started thinking about my own small collection of books. Since I came to SDSU for my semester abroad, I only brought a few with me, but each one reminds me of something. One book reminds me of home and reading late at night in my room. Another reminds me of a trip with a friend. So when Benjamin describes unpacking as a process full of memories, I really understand that feeling. It’s not just about putting books on a shelf. It’s like meeting old friends again.

I also liked how Benjamin admits that collectors are a bit chaotic. He says that every passion has some chaos in it, and I think that’s true. His shelves aren’t perfectly organized, but maybe that’s what makes them real. Sometimes the disorder of our books reflects who we are better than neatness ever could.

In the end, Benjamin’s essay feels like a love letter to books and to the act of collecting them. He isn’t showing off his library; he’s showing what it means to live with books, to grow up with them, and to see a part of himself inside them. I think that’s what he means when he says the collector “disappears inside” his library. Maybe he’s saying that the books we love become a part of who we are — and that we find pieces of ourselves in their pages.