Heuretics: The Logic of Invention

by Gregory L. Ulmer

In Heuretics —he defines the word as the "branch of logic that treats the art of discovery or invention"—Ulmer sets forth new methods appropriate for conducting cultural studies research in an age of electronic hypermedia. Like his widely acclaimed Applied Grammatology and Teletheory , Ulmer's newest volume offers applications of theory of interest not only to scholars but also to those working at the intersection of text and technology. Part One presents a reading of the history of method in the context of grammatology, a reading based on more than two decades' experience in teaching the classics of method from Platos Phaedrus through Descartes's Discourse on Method to modernist vanguard manifestos. Part two applies the poetics of method to the invention of rhetoric for a new computer literacy.

Genres: Theory

267 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1994

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Besides Deleuze's A Thousand Plateaus and Focault's Birth of Biopolitics lectures this has been one of the most useful books books of theory I've read.

[matthew harding · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book after "teaching" Ulmer's mystory for a semester and while I found myself wishing that I had read it earlier--because it's basically Ulmer laying out the practical aspects of the mystory--I'm also glad that I read it after the class because it acted as a really good debriefing for me. If you have read about the mystory and are thinking about introducing it into one of your classes, reading this book will help you get a better handle on what it is that you think that you are doing. I will add that if you are younger than, say, 50, you will probably struggle with Ulmer's cultural references because they are dated.

[Andrew Pilsch · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I did. Partly, the issue for me is that Ulmer's work on deconstruction and the digital feels like the end of the trajectory of midcentury media studies begun by Marshall McLuhan rather than an opening up of a new field of study (despite Ulmer's assertions that Derrida allows us to open studies of media into the age of computerized hypermedia). This issue could result from Ulmer's writing in the 1990s, but his discussion of emergent hypermedia feels very old school in a way that was very distracting.

Additionally, Ulmer's unwillingness or inability to signpost his argument makes this text frustrating to read. There is little investment in summarizing the texts he's discussing (this made the discussion of manifestos at the beginning particularly hard; sorry, but I haven't read "The Surrealist Manifesto" since grad school). The book projects a strong sense that Ulmer expects you to already know what he's writing about (including what "hereutics" is) before starting the book. This problem is probably related to Ulmer's problematic commitment to experimentation as a method of writing, which also makes it hard for him to offer a clear statement for why he's doing what he's doing (I'm left unable to articulate why Ulmer wrote the book, for instance).

Finally, I do think his reading of Derrida is really interesting, but it's buried in language that is very frustratingly playful (not fun, but playful; as though Ulmer's playing fast and loose with clarity and logic). This frustration may be pushed forward by the age of the book (and I don't think, as I alluded to above, it has aged well) because Ulmer here is performing why someone might be interested in writing studies and Derrida, which is a battle that I'm not old enough to be invested in.

Overall, I found it a frustrating reading experience, though I think there's some good stuff to think about buried in the pages of Hereutics.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heuretics is my first foray into Ulmer's unique brand of academic prose/research. The conceptual impetus of his book was a little difficult to follow but this may have been due to my lack of foreknowledge about Ulmer's other works such as Teletheory. Heuretics functions as a kind of performative manifestation of Ulmer's ideas about invention (one of the traditional five canons of rhetoric referring to the gathering and locating of initial ideas with which to form an argument). Ulmer proposes a new way of thinking about invention through a reading of Plato's Timaeus and the idea of "chora" (roughly translated as "space") that is raised within the dialogue. Ulmer deems choragraphic thinking as an essential aspect of electronic writing due to the way that its logic is more associational and exploratory than linear and deductive. Even after two readings of this book I'm not sure I entirely grasp what Ulmer was up to in it. However, considering the radical notions of writing, research, and even thinking that he raises within it, anyone claiming a "firm grasp" of Heuretics is likely to be resistant to the kind of choragraphic reasoning that Ulmer proposes as a way to alter approaches to writing with the advent of new composing technologies.