Intertextuality

Latour's understanding of technical literatures draws on what literary theorists call intertextuality, the notion that writings derive their meaning not by reference to external reality but from their relationships to other writings. This idea maps neatly onto the basic structural principle of hypertext, the potential relationship of any element in a document to N other elements. Landow and Bolter both describe hypertext as the technological apotheosis of intertextuality (Bolter 1991, Landow 1992).

But if there is such a strong link between intertextuality and hypertextual discourse, then why has hypertext writing not been embraced by the people who study it? The lack of such engagement seems most unaccountable. As researchers we depend on just the sort of intertextual citation practices Latour discusses; and what community is better prepared or equipped to make use of hypertext systems?

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