Although the term "hypertext" was coined at Vassar by Ted Nelson, Simon Rakov '92 is as responsible as anyone for its growth here. As a freshman in Bob Demaria's and Rachel Kitzinger's course regarding the technology of the word he was first introduced to the concept. Soon thereafter devised an independent major in hypertext which included academic work with George Landow and Robert Coover at Brown during his junior year. On his return he offered a mini-course to Vassar students in hypertext studies then wrote his thesis in Storyspace working with Professor Demaria in 1992. Following his graduation Simon served as Pew Foundation Hypertext Intern during my first year here and thereafter worked with the TEI at Oxford. He has continued as a hypermedia and web developer in recent years.

Numbers of students have followed in his footsteps, working both in Storyspace and/or on the web:

Shari Margolin's '00 investigation of kinetic poetry, Words in Flight, is linked here.

Liz Crain's '00 hyperfiction/memoir/meditation, Blue Rooms, is linked here. 

Clodagh Rafferty's '00 study of female voices in contemporary Irish poetry, Breaking the Blue, is linked here. 

Written under the supervision of my English Department colleague Peter Antelyes, Vanessa Chang's '03 Kabuki: The Myth of Face, a study of David Mack's Kabuki: Metamorphosis, a graphic novel series which began in October 1997 is also available here. 

Also of interest is an archive of class hypermedia projects at http://mediacloisters.vassar.edu/cityoftext/

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